ABSTRACT
At one time, the prevailing thinking in political science was that policymaking elites devote slavish attention to issues they intend to do nothing about – they are symbols for the masses, signifying nothing. Modern empirical studies refute that position; increases in attention to an issue by government signal the likelihood of serious policy change. Yet the serious study of the rise and fall of issues, and the consequences for policy change, are only now being explored in a comparative perspective. In this article we outline the fundamentals of an emerging new comparative analysis of agenda change, and in this volume we have assembled state-of-the-art studies that are beginning to fulfill the promise of a systematic field of inquiry centering on comparative policy dynamics.
