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FAMP POPESCU Luminiţa Gabriela
CCASP PUBLIC POLICY AGENDA AND RESPONSIVENESS GOVERNANCE

appropriate order of paired options considered by the voting group operating under majority rules

(Schofield, 1976).

Limited resources naturally determine a space limitation as well as the governmental agenda. In the
context of scarce resources, many other forces, other than the public opinion, appear and try to get their

own space on the agenda, because it necessary defines the priorities within the agenda. It’s not enough
for a proposal to be included in the agenda but also to occupy a high position on the agenda.

From our point of view, we cannot discus in terms of responsiveness government without taking into
account the congruence between public and government agendas.

More than that, responsiveness can lack even if such a correspondence does exist, due to the blocking
of public policy actions, either by the political system (its level of complexity can generate various
blockings) or by the leaders whose opinions are different from the public’s.

We must raise questions of political interdependence among the nations and make some remarks on
how these interdependences affect the substance and procedures of national policy making, including
the agenda setting. For example, in the Romanian case, European integration has brought up on the

governmental agenda many substantial issues other than those already contained by the public agenda. PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” 30 th – 31 st October 2015 Bucharest
How must the government react? Which are the government’s alternatives? In our opinion, a

responsiveness government must act so to produce a favorable society climate, followed by a later stage
when the European requests become real issues on the public agenda. In fact, the demand for more
transparency in public decision making, the search for new forms of accountability, and the growing

reliance on persuasion rather than traditional forms of governmental coercion can be shown to be related,
at least in part, to economic growth and political interdependence (World Bank, 1997). In other words, in
the absence of that convergence between agendas we can not speak about responsiveness and much

less about democratic policies that are able to satisfy the demands of the citizens.

4. THE PARLIAMENTARY AGENDA

The activity referring to the parliamentary debates is one of the main components of the public politics
process.

According to an idealized legislative committee system model developed by Weingast and Marshall

(1988) (quote by Majone, 2008, pp. 230-231), each congressional committee has jurisdiction over a
specific subset of policy issues.

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