摘要：We drew on two agenda-setting theories usually applied at the state or national level to assess their utility at the global level: Kingdon’s multiple streams theory and Baumgartner and Jones’s punctuated equilibrium theory. We illustrate our analysis with findings from a qualitative study of the International Labor Organization’s Decent Work Agenda. We found that both theories help explain the agenda-setting mechanisms that operate in the global context, including how windows of opportunity open and what role institutions play as policy entrepreneurs. Future application of these theories could help characterize power struggles between global actors, whose voices are heard or silenced, and their impact on global policy agenda setting. Victor Hugo’s assertion that no one can resist “an idea whose time has come” still resonates today, but what factors contribute to making an idea timely? 1 (p1) Many public health issues, including tackling climate change and improving healthy working conditions, hold the potential to garner political and public attention, to mobilize organizational interests, and to surface on policy agendas. Yet these and other health issues continuously compete for legitimacy and resources in the policy process. Agenda setting has inspired much research generally but somewhat less in the public health field. 2 Research has examined how such issues emerge to be considered as policies, how agendas are set and produced through the political interactions of social actors, and how attention is maintained and resources are allocated to these problems. 2 If agenda setting is about shifting us toward what to think by indicating what to think about, 3 what are the real-world factors, who are the relevant actors, and which factors and actors really matter? To these questions we add: what may be different about agenda-setting processes in the global context? Theories help scholars explain this contextual complexity to elucidate how and why issues get and stay on policy agendas, and theories help scholars identify the processes that drive these dynamics. 4 We assessed the utility of Kingdon’s multiple streams theory and Baumgartner and Jones’s punctuated equilibrium theory for the study of global agenda setting, 1,5 with illustrative findings from a qualitative study about the International Labor Organization’s (ILO’s) Decent Work Agenda (DWA). We analyzed selected attributes of these theories in terms of their applicability to the global policy agenda-setting context.
