LIST OF PANELS

This Panel’s main objective is to present and discuss agenda-setting and policy change in the Latin American context. Inserted in the debate on the role of attention in pre-decision processes, this panel asks the questions: Why do policies change? And if they really change, in what ways do they change? How can we analyze and explain this process? Who are the actors, the institutions, and the information we should look at when studying Latin American systems and policies? What are the theoretical and methodological tools to understand policy change and policy dynamics in LA context? How the policy change process occurs in Latin American systems and how can we explain it?

The international literature on policy agenda setting has rapidly advanced since the first theoretical models emerged in the mid-1980s and 1990s in the United States (Kingdon, 1984; Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Over the last thirty years, frameworks, theories, and models used to analyze policy attention, policy change, and policy dynamics have been reviewed and updated.

One of the most relevant aspects of the studies of dynamics and policy change considers the diffusion that occurred in the 2000’s with the application of its theoretical and methodological approaches to different societies and political systems beyond the United States (John, 2006). Consequently, another important achievement in the studies of agenda-setting and policy change must be highlighted: studies of public policies from a comparative perspective. The methodological transformations involving the mapping and analysis of governmental attention allowed not only the application of models and theories to explain processes in different countries, but also has forwarded the conduct of comparative studies across political systems.

Although agenda-setting, policy change, and policy dynamics studies have grown significantly in the international academic community, there are still some important points to be better explored when considering Latin American cases. The intention of this Panel is to open space on the international field so that researchers can discuss in greater depth this rich scope of knowledge applied to the Latin American context. In this way, we intend to build a plural space that overcomes geographic issues and that can contribute to the growing studies of agenda-setting, highlighting the processes of changes and policy dynamics in Latin America.

This Panel has as its main objective to present and discuss agenda-setting and policy change in the Latin American context. Inserted in the debate on the role of attention in pre-decision processes, this panel asks the questions: Why do policies change? And if they really change, in what ways do they change? How can we analyze and explain this process? Who are the actors, the institutions, and the information we should look at when studying Latin American systems and policies? What are the theoretical and methodological tools and theories to understand policy change and policy dynamics in LA context? How the policy change process occurs in Latin American systems and how can we explain it?

 The international literature on policy agenda setting has rapidly advanced since the first theoretical models emerged in the mid-1980s and 1990s in the United States (Kingdon, 1984; Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Over the last thirty years, frameworks, theories, and models used to analyze policy attention, policy change and policy dynamics have been reviewed and updated.  Although agenda-setting, policy change, and policy dynamics studies have grown significantly in the international academic community, there are still some important points to be better explored when considering Latin American policies and systems. The intention of this Panel is to open space on the international field so that researchers can discuss in greater depth this rich scope of knowledge applied to the Latin American context. In this way, we intend to build a plural space that overcomes geographic issues and that can contribute to the growing studies of agenda-setting, highlighting the processes of changes and policy dynamics in Latin America.

This panel invites all the community to contribute with innovative research papers related to agenda-setting and policy change processes in Latin America. We particularly encourage researches that consider themes described below

 - Beyond geographical boundaries on policy analysis. 

Theoretical and methodological studies; applied case studies that go beyond geographical boundaries to explain policy changes in Latin American countries; case studies that apply models of policy analysis. National and Comparative studies focusing on policy agendas, changes. National, sub-national and supranational studies. Studies that use complex variables, actors, and institutions to explain agenda setting and policy change in LA.

 - Critical reviews and advances on theories and methods in the study of policy dynamics and policy change in Latin America.

Critical reviews over Policy agendas theories and methods used to explain policy change and policy dynamics in the Latin American context. Use of different and alternative methodologies, development of new perspectives and approaches to analyze policy changes

 - State of the art on the study of policy agendas in Latin America.

Studies that aim to systematize knowledge about policy agenda produced in several areas of knowledge in Latin America; bibliometric studies; analyses on model applications; types of studies produced mapping of methodological uses; systematization of results found in the literature. Development of the field of knowledge