A Critical Analysis of Deborah Stone's Causal Theory of Agenda-Setting

This essay presents a critical analysis of Deborah Stone's Causal Theory of agenda-setting, focusing on how political actors strategically construct arguments to influence policy. It explores Stone's framework, which reframes goals into political claims. The discussion delves into Stone's concepts of problem definition, causal stories, and the role of political actors in shaping agendas. It examines the components of agenda-setting, including political actors, complexities, and the use of language. The essay also addresses the moral and ethical dimensions of causal stories, the role of media, and the interplay of public and self-interests in policy formulation. It emphasizes that political conflicts over causal stories extend beyond empirical claims to encompass control and responsibility. The analysis highlights the significance of causal stories in social policy, providing a comprehensive understanding of how human-made issues are addressed through human-created solutions.

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DEBORAH STONE’S CAUSAL THEORY OF AGENDA-SETTING
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Introduction
Politics, as Deborah Stone opines, is an argument that is strategically crafted. She goes on to
note that she would like to design a framework that could house such phenomena, and also
enabling a situation wherein day-to-day or routine political activities need not be explained as
being extraordinary, deemed as irrational, or even dismissed and disparaged by claiming them as
being what she callas as ‘pure politics.’ There are a number of abstract goals within which
Stone’s understanding of the policy process is posited, and all such goals are subsequently
reframed in the form of political claims used for validating specific actions or courses. The
current study aims to present a critical analysis of Debora Stone’s causal theory of agenda
setting.
Discussion
In her 1989 article titled ‘Causal Stories and the Formation of Political Agendas, ’ which was
published in the Political Science Quarterly, Stone clearly articulates the ways in which several
of the political situations have come to be deemed as man-made while also being amenable to
human intervention (Stone, 1989). The key elements of this theory that Stone proposed are the
numerous concepts related to problem definition as well as policy solution. As Stone opines in
her article, “the conversion of difficulties into problems is said to be sine qua non of political
rebellion, legal disputes, interest-group mobilization, and of moving policy problems onto the
public agenda (281) (Stone, 1989).”
Stone’s work is highly helpful in the study of understanding the way causality is constructed as
well as also getting a deeper knowledge of the credit claiming process. It is pertinent to note that
the concerns expressed by Stone in her argument is about policy formation and not related to the

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politics of social protest. Yet, these concepts are quite relevant in the pursuit of understanding
the political struggles of the past.
As Stone opines, causality is avowed through the stories that are "strategically crafted,” while
also being festooned with signs and numbers, subsequently promoted by those players of the
political realm, trying to make their versions as the very foundation of the various policy choices
that are made. Causal stories are basically those political instruments that are used for forming
alliances as well as also for settling the dispersals of costs and benefits.
A causal story, as Stone puts it, identifies the various factors that are most pertinent to a specific
issue, like for instance, the various areas of policy formation that are open to human intervention,
or the various players who are politically significant in creating a policy. She further denotes that
causal stories tend to emphasize the effective and objective efforts of all citizens which actually
strives towards legitimizing the process of social protest while also reinforcing the political
significance of specific parties that external in nature – those not part of the government.
Contrarily, causal stories also go on to highlight the far-reaching historic forces or pursuits made
by only those individuals within the government that were highly committed in nature, while
simultaneously striving towards delegitimizing and dismissing all likely citizen activities
(Meyer, 2000).
There is a highly complex description of problem definition that Stone puts forth. As opined by
Stone in her article, problem definition is basically a process related to image making, wherein
such images are required to attribute the cause fundamentally, while also highlighting the aspects
of blame and responsibility. That said, it is made clear that aspects like conditions, complexities,
or problems essentially do not possess any intrinsic properties which tend to make them more or
less prospective in being viewed as problems or to that matter, even be elaborated.

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Instead, she says that political actors intentionally depict themselves in such calculated ways
aimed at garnering favourable support. Moreover, it is to be noted that political actors do not
simply approve all and every causal model offered by the scientific community or the popular
culture or any other source for that matter. Instead, they constitute stories which pronounce the
problems and hitches, relate them to specific actions of individuals or organizations, and
therefore go on to claim the right for invoking government power to avert such impending harm
(Galston, 2001).
Once the policy actors succeed in invoking government power for averting impending harm,
there are also number of options which Stone describes might represent such action by the
government. In her opinion, “Government action might include prohibition of an activity,
regulation, taxation, economic redistribution, criminal sanctions, education campaigns, direct
compensation of victims (through social insurance or special funds), and mandated
compensation of victims (through litigation) (Stone, 1989).” As per such description of the
government actions made by Stone, pertinent examples of programs which can be categorized as
education campaigns include all civic and citizenship programs of education.
There are both moral and ethical dimensions to the political conception of causal story, as opined
by Stone. However, these dimensions are essentially based on the assumption that causal stories
tend to shift situations intellectually from the domain of destiny to the domain of human agency,
under both levels. At the empirical level, a causal story of political conception typically signifies
to demonstrate the mechanism wherein one group of citizens inflict harm to a different group of
citizens. A highly suitable example that can be quoted here is the Ontario citizenship education
program. From an empirical standpoint, this program is considerable elusive than the problems

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identified in the public domain which might possibly result out of environmental dilapidation or
other safety issues.
The second dimension of Stone’s political conception of causal story is the moral or the
normative dimension. This dimension is more focused on blaming one group of people for
having resulted in suffering to a different set or group of people. Taking the same example of
citizenship education in Canada and Ontario, it has been reported that educational leaders and
curriculum developers are those “one set of people” who tend to create problems to other
stakeholders.
While theoretically all that is discussed might look true, things are certainly different in the real
world because causes are highly intricate in the real world with the presence of numerous
variables that interact with each other for the promotion of specific intended outcomes in the
long run. As Stone records, such intricacy however is not effectively evident in the political
relam. She certainly proposes that it is ironical to note the fact that political models are
constructed with complex causes which quite often operate in the form of unintentional or
natural. They tend to hypothesize a sense of innocence, and the same can be attributed to the lack
of identifiable actor who can exercise control over the entire system at large or the interaction
networks. Stone strongly contends that lack of an overarching control, would subsequently result
in a lack of purpose as well as also no specific responsibility on part of the political players.
Stone’s work apparently strive to offer a highly exhaustive understanding on the ways in which
human-made issues could possibly solved using solutions that are also created by humans. The
typology of causal stories that she presents is of great help in understanding this aspect in a better
way. There are four strategic portrayals that Stone uses to demonstrate the ways in which

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political players try to push their agendas concerning various issues, with the same being mostly
untraced and intentional in nature.
Stone also claims that there are three components associated with the deliberations concerning
agenda-setting. The first component essentially focuses on the uniqueness and features of
political actors like for instance political leaders as well as interest groups. These political actors
are believed to be increasingly possess probabilistic ideas of causation in addition to automatous
concepts where things are becoming more and more successful in view of all arguments that are
founded on the principles of probabilistic cause. The second component is one that focuses on
the nature of complexities or problems themselves, while the third component focuses on the
deliberate use of language as well as signs precisely as a means of placing a particular issue onto
the public agenda or considering it as an additional alternative.
While the causal argument forms the key to defining political problems, the latter is a method of
image construction that endures an active management by challenging political actors for
rallying the required support for a particular group or side. In the end, the political victory of the
causal theories is essentially based upon two social institutions which are political in nature, and
the same are namely law as well as science. While scientific research tends to play the role of an
arbiter to causal theories for a much exhaustive range of issues in comparison to law, it does not
however tend to guarantee that a causal theory will turn out becoming the key assumption of
public policy (Keller, 2009).
Political conflicts surrounding causal stories are not mere empirical claims about the orders of
events as there is more to the whole story. They are struggles concerning the likelihood of
control and the delegation of responsibility. Research conducted on public opinion points to the
fact that citizens, to a considerable extent, possess stable and inclusive outlooks concerning

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responsibility that is associated to social problems. However, for the public to accept or approve
causal stories, media becomes a key influencing factor as they tend to construct new stories
about the same issue and with a completely different perspective. The possibility of a causal
story becoming successful in face of increased visibility of the proponents, better access to
media, and prominent spots is very high, only in case if such stories accord with exhaustive and
profound cultural values; and also if they manage capturing and responding to a natural
disposition; Besides, the likelihood is more in case the implicit prescription of the causal stories
entail no radical restructuring of either power or wealth (McCarthy, 2004).
The model proposed by Stone claims that individuals go about pursuing their goals majorly with
the help of collective action. The motivation for such pursuit is not based merely upon self-
interests but instead is also reliant on the concerns held by the general public. This is essentially
because public interest is largely associated with the survival goal (p.33). However, when there
is an inconsistency between self-and-public interest, the process of policy formulation will
become much more intricate, as Stone puts it (p. 33). When the group is driven or inspired by
shared ideas, then such a group gets strengthened as there is also the presence of a high degree of
balance amidst public and private interests in the conflict.
Stone strongly contends that causal theories in politics are neither right nor wrong, or that they
are mutually exclusive in nature. Essentially, such ideas, she believes, deal with causation, with
the entire gamut of policy politics entailing strategically depicting various issues in such a way
that they fit into any one particular causal idea. The various dimensions of a policy issue looks as
if it is working in pursuit of finding the "true" cause, but in reality, such dimensions are always
besieged to influence one specific and chosen idea for guiding the policy. Therefore, political
conflicts over causal stories are basically much beyond the empirical claims concerning

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sequences of events. They are basically struggles surrounding the likelihood of control as well as
responsibility delegation.
Causal stories of inadvertent cause are quite a common element with respect to social policy; for
instance, issues like poverty, malnourishment, and ailments are all "caused" when people fail to
understand the detrimental outcomes of all actions that they do wilfully. To be precise, people
from the lower class of the society fail to realize the significance of obtaining proper education
or even the benefits of saving money; likewise, the elderly people fail to understand the
importance of consuming a balanced diet, even if they do not feel like consuming food;
similarly, the ailing people fail to understand or appreciate the fact that increased or excessive
food intake results in diseases like diabetes or cardiac related problems.
Inadvertence thus in the above situations is pure ignorance; the outcomes of the same being
predictable by experts but unacknowledged by the ones doing such actions wilfully. All the
above examples that have been presented are all liberal versions of victim-blaming; to be precise,
the claim is that if a person having the issue can only change his or her approach or doing things
then there is no chance of the problem to exist at all. On the other hand, the conventional form
of blaming the victim is what is known as intentional causation, wherein the victim wilfully
choses to endure with the problem. Therefore, the claims made by President Ronald Regan about
the displaced and destitute citizens is that such people chose to live on grates wilfully and by
their own choice (Galston, 2001).
There is yet another form of inadvertence which Stone defines and the same she states as
carelessness. Problems associated with occupational safety and health are ones that are
elucidated quite often in relation to causal stories of policy politics, although carelessness is
alternately linked to either management or labour. From the purview of management

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terminology or theory, workers actually have enough knowledge about the various hazards that
chemicals and machinery can inflict upon them; yet, they consciously fail to use protective gear
or safety equipment while performing their duties. This is because their jobs are easier, they are
comfortable doing their jobs, or such tasks are accomplished at a faster pace when they do not
take necessary precautions.
The above explanation, when viewed from the perspective of a labour, is different. According to
labourers, management, despite being conscious of the hazards; fails to monitor the equipment
painstakingly or offer safety gear to the workers. This, the management does, with hope that it
can keep ensure higher levels of productivity without there being an occurrence of unjustified
mishaps. A more radical version of the same from a labour standpoint states that management
deliberately is careless in relation to safety of labourers and this is predominantly because of the
profits they make by compromising on worker safety. It is largely opined by labourers that this is
a conscious trade-off that that makes the problem to become intentional.
Agenda, in a political setting, especially with regard to policies is often driven by the ideologies
of individuals, their knowledge levels, competencies, and more often than not, are also subject to
vote-bank politics. The agenda of politicians, at a personal level, is to primarily hold on to
power. This being the primary motive, most of their actions are almost always dictated by the
ways in which their electorate would respond to the decisions that they take on agendas and
policies. In this scenario, most often, politicians tend to bend to the whims of electoral politics
and less often to what is widely believed to be of general good to the community or nation.

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Bibliography
Galston, W. A., 2001. Political Knowledge, Political Engagement and Civic Education. Annual
Review of Political Science, Volume 4.
Keller, A. C., 2009. Science in environmental policy: the politics of objective advice. s.l.:MIT
Press.
McCarthy, E., 2004. International Regulation of Underwater Sound: Establishing Rules and
Standards to address Ocean Noise Pollution. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Meyer, D. S., 2000. Claiming Credit: The Social Construction of Movement Success, s.l.:
University of California.
Stone, D., 1989. Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas. Political Science
Quarterly, 104(2), pp. 281-300.

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