ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
peak periods in the attention cycle, implying that governments do respond
to public concern (Peters and Hogwood 1985 ). More cynically, it could be
suggested that policymakers are simply making sure they are seen to be
‘doing something’, even if their action has minimal impact on the problem
(Parsons 1995 :119). Indeed, Downs presents an essentially pessimistic view
of the importance of agenda-setting as a process which generates a tempo-
rary public fascination with the topic of concern, but has little long-lasting
importance. This pessimism is particularly appropriate where policy commu-
nities exist because, even if an issue attracts widespread public attention,
apolicy community may be strong enough to resist pressure for substan-
tial change, confident that public attention will not sustain an issue long
enough to define a new agenda (Smith 1993 : 90).
Other theorists have argued more optimistically that these brief moments
of public interest are occasions when structural changes can be forced
through, which may permanently alter the rules of access and participa-
tion. Kingdon ( 1995 ) outlines a sophisticated model of agenda-setting based
on a dynamic picture of the policy process. Agenda change occurs when
problems, policy solutions and political receptivity combine in a ‘window of
opportunity’: a compelling problem is recognised, a technically viable solu-
tion exists and the political circumstances are right for change. Similarly,
Baumgartner and Jones’s ( 1993 )model of ‘punctuated equilibrium’ charac-
terises the policy process as having long periods of stability in which only
incremental changes occur, interspersed with short periods of instability
when major policy change occurs. Disruption to the equilibrium may allow
access by new groups seeking to challenge the dominant policy paradigm.
Sometimes that challenge is sufficiently powerful and persuasive to over-
throw the dominant policy consensus and to replace it with new perspec-
tives, institutions and policies. A key role during these moments of instabil-
ity is played by the media, which can direct public attention to new issues
or developments, or offer a new perspective on familiar issues. Suddenly
issues that are normally confined to policy sub-systems are thrown open to
wider scrutiny. New participants from other sub-systems may become inter-
ested in the debates so that previously low-profile policy arrangements are
permanently disrupted (see Box7. 6).
Baumgartner and Jones ( 1993 : 93–102) use developments in the American
pesticides industry as one illustration of their argument. Pesticides attracted
enormous public attention immediately after the Second World War because
of the claims that new synthetic organics such as DDT could achieve amaz-
ing results, including the eradication of malaria and increased food produc-
tion to the point of ending world hunger. The popular wave of enthusiasm
forpesticides saw the emergence of an iron triangle of the Department of
Agriculture, farm and chemical interests, and congressional agriculture and
appropriations committees, which controlled the regulation of these chem-
icals and set up an institutional structure that promoted the industry for
decades to come, long after public interest had waned. However, during the