Associated Doctoral Researchers

The (de-)coupled issue dynamics of the public agenda and of structural change in the organization of governments

Discussed as one of the many factors that drive structural change in federal or central government organizations, my dissertation project revolves around the link between policy agenda and structural change, i.e. formal organizational change. The overarching research questions are: (How) is the issue cycle of the public agenda systematically related to the dynamics of federal structural change? Under what conditions does an increase in issue salience lead to different types of structural change within the government organization relating to this issue?

While the literature of the agenda setting process looks into how issues get onto different agendas and examines which issues are prioritized by government agenda-wise, I would like to analyze which priorities the very structural setup of government expresses – in relation to the public agenda. In my thesis, I combine two major insights from previous explanatory research on structural change in order to go into the details of this relationship. With agenda issues, it seems that their salience is decisive of whether the respective governmental organization dealing with those issues is considered for reorganization or not. Second, structural choice theorists argue and find that executive actors (prime minister, minister, party in government as collective actor) are the central players who decide on specific administrative designs and the very survival of agencies. Thus, I conceptualize issue salience as external pressure and ‘window of opportunity’ for political action that is moderated by party preferences and institutional positions. This moderation effect might substantially differ in federal and central states. Consequently, my thesis aims at a cross-country comparison and includes data from France and Germany. The time period covered is 2000 – 2013.

As the results of previous studies are mixed when it comes to the direction of the interaction between agenda and structure and its relation to political factors, it seems worthwhile to examine the relationship based on a more comprehensive, larger dataset than before and a method that allows for equifinality, i.e. several explanatory paths to the same outcome. The dataset for this study does not only include agencies, but also ministries, as structural changes also occur across organizations within a portfolio (or even across portfolios). Methodologically, the study employs fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and analyses formal organization plans and state almanacs.