Policy Agendas of the Poor, the Public and Elites: A Test of Bachrach and Baratz

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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 agendasetting; elites 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 less stringent sets of conditions under which it would rarely if ever occur.

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