"Agenda Setting and the Rise and Fall of Policy Issues," Government and Politics
(No. 8, November), 1990, 395-415.
Nearly all studies of federal agenda-setting processes focus on how issues achieve prominence on policy
agendas. Seldom dealt with is how some of those issues then disappear, without any substantial action
being taken on them. In this paper the complete life course of a single policy issue–criminal victimization of
the elderly–is examined, and the forces that caused this issue to rise and fall on the Congressional policy
agenda are analyzed. Abstracted models of those processes–entitled the convergent-voice and the divergent-
voice models of issue ascendence and decline–may prove fruitful for understanding the complete life course
of many similar issues.
(No. 8, November), 1990, 395-415.
Nearly all studies of federal agenda-setting processes focus on how issues achieve prominence on policy
agendas. Seldom dealt with is how some of those issues then disappear, without any substantial action
being taken on them. In this paper the complete life course of a single policy issue–criminal victimization of
the elderly–is examined, and the forces that caused this issue to rise and fall on the Congressional policy
agenda are analyzed. Abstracted models of those processes–entitled the convergent-voice and the divergent-
voice models of issue ascendence and decline–may prove fruitful for understanding the complete life course
of many similar issues.
"Convergent and Divergent Voice Models of the Rise and Fall of Policy Issues," in
David Protess and Maxwell McCombs (eds.). Agenda Setting. New York: Erlbaum,
1991, 189-206.
Within one decade, the salience of the crime and the elderly issue rose and fell on the formal policy agenda
of Congress, and the same is true for some agency, media, and scholarly agendas. The decline was not due
to public resistance to the issue, for opinion data suggest that there was a favorable "climate" for the issue
throughout this period. Indeed, a national survey conducted in 1974 for the National Council on the Aging
found that 50% of all Americans thought that "fear of crime" constituted a "very serious problem" for the
elderly, whereas the same question in 1981 showed that 74% of the public thought fear of crime was a major
concern for the elderly. Nor was the decline due to the decrease in crimes against the elderly. Indeed,
Census Bureau indicators suggest that the real level of victimization did not change for the elderly at all in the
1970s. During the period described by Figures 1 and 2, rates of criminal victimization of the elderly remained
virtually unchanged. There is no evidence that concern in Washington over this issue waned because of
decreasing public concern, nor that it was driven by shifts in the actual level of the problem at hand. Rather,
the dramatic ups and downs in attention and activity depicted in Figures 1 and 2 appear to be due to
agenda-setting processes that are little understood.
David Protess and Maxwell McCombs (eds.). Agenda Setting. New York: Erlbaum,
1991, 189-206.
Within one decade, the salience of the crime and the elderly issue rose and fell on the formal policy agenda
of Congress, and the same is true for some agency, media, and scholarly agendas. The decline was not due
to public resistance to the issue, for opinion data suggest that there was a favorable "climate" for the issue
throughout this period. Indeed, a national survey conducted in 1974 for the National Council on the Aging
found that 50% of all Americans thought that "fear of crime" constituted a "very serious problem" for the
elderly, whereas the same question in 1981 showed that 74% of the public thought fear of crime was a major
concern for the elderly. Nor was the decline due to the decrease in crimes against the elderly. Indeed,
Census Bureau indicators suggest that the real level of victimization did not change for the elderly at all in the
1970s. During the period described by Figures 1 and 2, rates of criminal victimization of the elderly remained
virtually unchanged. There is no evidence that concern in Washington over this issue waned because of
decreasing public concern, nor that it was driven by shifts in the actual level of the problem at hand. Rather,
the dramatic ups and downs in attention and activity depicted in Figures 1 and 2 appear to be due to
agenda-setting processes that are little understood.
Crime and the Elderly Abstracts
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