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Image of Heather Mackay

Heather Mackay

Postdoc

Image of Heather Mackay

Getting invasive species on the political agenda : agenda setting and policy formulation in the case of ash dieback in the UK

Author

  • Heather Mackay
  • E. Carina H. Keskitalo
  • Maria Pettersson

Summary, in English

This study reviews how the issue of ash dieback has been placed on the political agenda in the UK, a country where the disease has affected one of the largest national extents, thus representing a particularly severe case. Comparisons are made between how the scientific community framed the ash dieback threat and the resulting response strategy and how both the media and the British government framed the problem. Representing one example of media framing, the study analyses one British newspaper’s coverage of the disease and the response strategies (the Daily Telegraph). The analysis highlights a gap between the biologically rooted perspective and the perspective of policymakers, where policy must manoeuvre between disparate viewpoints and needs. Crucially, none of Pautasso et al.’s (Biol Conserv 158:37–49, 2013) five plant-science-based solutions were explicitly adopted by the British Government in their response strategy to ash dieback disease. The same is true of the biological control recommendations offered by Kirisits et al. (J Agric Ext Rural Dev 4(9):230–235, 2012). Instead, the government adopted a broader, more comprehensive approach than that recommended by plant scientists. The present analysis thus provides an example of a holistic perspective on the multiple competing factors that policymakers must navigate in their attempts to delineate action. It highlights instances in which proposed biological responses were rendered less applicable by a failure to understand the agenda-setting process and the policy-making arena. The present findings suggest that an improved understanding of the factors influencing agenda setting and policy action is essential to arriving at a more effective and integrated understanding of responses to biological threats.

Publishing year

2017-07-01

Language

English

Pages

1953-1970

Publication/Series

Biological Invasions

Volume

19

Issue

7

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Agricultural Science, Forestry and Fisheries
  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Agenda-setting
  • Ash dieback
  • Framing
  • Invasive species
  • Policy
  • UK

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1387-3547