Political Attention - Montesquieu Institute

Since June 2008 the Montesquieu Institute (MI) is taking part in a comparative research on the creation of public and political agendas. The research will be led by Dr. Arco Timmermans, University of Leiden, and by Dr. Gerard Breeman, Wageningen University and Research Center. The main goal of this research is to shed light upon when and why political attention is given to certain policies or political themes.

The research is part of a larger international cooperation between research teams in the United States and Europe in which a common theoretical perspective and research strategy is developed. The MI will focus on the influence of the EU agenda on the 'politics of attention' in the Netherlands.

Furthermore, political agendas will be compared to public opinion and to how much attention a problem receives from the media.

The research results will be made available online in order to enhance public insight into the functioning of democratic institutions.

In June 2009 the MI hosted an international workshop for the different national research teams.

Between 18 and 20 March 2010, Arco Timmermans and Gerard Breeman participated in the IPSA international conference: 'Is there a European Model of Governance? A Comparative Perspective'. For more information on this conference, click here

In June 2010 Petya Alexandrova, Lucie Zicha, Sebastiaan Princen, Anne Rasmussen, Gerard Breeman and Arco Timmermans participated at the 'Annual Conference Comparative Agenda's Project' in Seattle. Read more about the conference here.

For more information about the conferences and/or the research, please send an e-mail to: info@montesquieu-instituut.nl