ABSTRACT
This is a preliminary status report on the early stages of a research project. The project is scheduled to last two years; I have been working on it about five months. Its purpose is to develop and test hypotheses to explain the process by which problems become political issues at the national level in the United States. Put another way, I want to be able to describe, in terms as rigorous as possible, how policy problems get on the agenda of the federal government. To provide the raw material to develop and test my hypotheses I plan to conduct a series of case studies of environmental issues. I shall rely on the existing literature for studies of other types of issues, bearing in mind that the agenda-setting process for the governance of common property resources may well be different from the process which typifies other policy areas.
