The Politics of Analyzing Social Problems

Abstract

Issues which become public are selected from among the social problems which parts of the population may perceive. Groups differ in their definitions of social problems in accordance with their self-interests and their ideology. For a social problem to become a public issue, a complex political process develops around the activities of major institutional actors: the media, officialdom, and private interest groups. Yet conflicts arise not only over what is to be a public issue, but also over how the problem is to be diagnosed and responded to. A somewhat different set of institutional and social actors are more intimately involved in the conflict between competing diagnoses of publicly recognized social problems. That is, official authorities, underdog partisans, privileged partisans, policy advisors and planners, and ideologues, all tend toward their own distinct set of attributions. The parties may handle the conflict by confronting each other, directly or indirectly. Alternatively, or in addition, they may attempt tacit bargaining over tangible matters such as economic resources and power, and reality negotiation over the symbolic matter of different problem definitions or diagnoses. Legislation provides a third way of handling the conflict. Whatever the strategies used, the conflict generates significant political outcomes for the policy process and the various parties concerned.