Policy agendas of the poor, the public and élites: A test of Bachrach and Baratz

Abstract

This paper proposes an a fortiori case study method of testing Bachrach and Baratz's (1962, 1963, 1970) well-known hypotheses about the second face of power. This face of power is allegedly characterised by exclusionary agenda-setting; élites exclude the interests and demands of the poor from the policy agenda. A working assumption of the paper is that exclusionary agenda-setting may be quite infrequent. If we can specify the conditions under which it is relatively likely to occur, and then investigate cases which meet most or all of these conditions, we may be able to discover the minimum set (or sets) of conditions which have to be met. We could then make a fortiori inferences about other ..