Comparative Agendas

Agenda Responsiveness in the European Council

In an article in West European Politics, Petya Alexandrova, Anne Rasmussen and Dimiter Toshkov explores the synchronic and diachronic associations between what citizens in the EU consider to be the most important problems and the political attention devoted to these issues in the European Council from 2003 to 2014. The economic crisis after 2008 appears to have made the ranking of public concerns and the European Council agenda more alike. However, a detailed examination of the shifts in prioritisation of single issues over time reveals little evidence for dynamic issue responsiveness. Recently the European Council has paid more attention to the issues that the public considered the most pressing problems but the convergence could possibly be driven by the intensity of the underlying policy problems.

Petya Alexandrova, Anne Rasmussen and Dimiter Toshkov (2016). Agenda Responsiveness in the European Council: Public Priorities, Policy Problems and Political Attention. West European Politics 39 (4): 605-627.

European Union

Agenda Responsiveness in the European Council