Understanding Agenda Dynamics in Non-democracies

Abstract

In this chapter, we introduce the theoretical background and the main concepts that are helpful for understanding policy agendaPolicy agenda change in non-democraciesNon-democracy and for comparing the agenda dynamicsAgenda dynamics of different regimes. We rely on the punctuated equilibrium theoryPunctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) of policymakingPolicymaking as well as the politics of attention in our investigation of five distinct regimes of over 150 years of Hungarian policy historyPolicy history. We define the notion of policy agendasPolicy agenda and explain why they are useful for understanding policymakingPolicymaking patterns in historical context. We also explain the difficulties of investigating policymakingPolicymaking in non-democraticNon-democracy contexts. The regime typology used in the book is also presented in this chapter, along with our rationale for case selection. The functional comparability of regimes is explored beyond the free-not-free dichotomy by relying on the concept of partly free and hybrid regimesHybrid regime. We argue that within this more general framework, Hungarian political history provides a generalizable case for testing hypotheses related to policy dynamicsPolicy dynamics in non-WesternWestern and non-democratic regimesNon-democratic regime.