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Defining the Agenda
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12080 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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12 / 1987 |
3,424 Words |
| Author
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Bruce Buchanan
Bruce Buchanan is associate professor of government at the
University of Texas at Austin where he teaches courses on the
politics of the American presidency. He is the author of The
Presidential Experience, The Citizen's Presidency, and
numerous articles on the presidency. |
Drug abuse. Education. Social Security. Taxes. The homeless. School prayer. Unemployment. The federal deficit. Farm prices. Abortion. Catastrophic illness. Insurance. Inflation. Aid to the Contras. These were the issues that some 6,452 voters in 12 southern states recently said they were "very concerned" about.
Their reactions were gathered by the Roper Organization for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to probe the concerns of people likely to cast ballots on March 8, 1988 - the date of the South's Super Tuesday primary election. Other polls identify different concerns and priorities. But this one is sufficient to make the point: The sheer volume of problems responsible voters must take into consideration before casting ballots is already out of control. It threatens to overwhelm anyone's ability to make orderly sense of our problems. Eight months before the 1988 nominating conventions, there are so many different questions, each of compelling importance, that citizens are at risk of being confused, overwhelmed, and possibly driven away by complexity.
Nor are the candidates much help in sorting out national priorities at this early point in the race. The primary calendar, which puts the Iowa caucuses in February 1988 first, determines which issues get priority attention. The plight of the agriculture industry matters greatly to people other than Iowans, but in a world not driven by primary campaigns, things like arms control or the overall health of the economy would probably come first.
Given these problems, a quick look at the big picture, with emphasis on how the discrete parts of the puzzle fit together, might be useful. The policy agenda to be set by the 1988 president-elect is likely to cast our fate into the twenty-first century. Therefore, we have to demand that the primary pack, as well as the eventual finalists, supply careful, thoughtful answers to the following big questions, as well as tell us what they would do about the many smaller and more specific choices each such question involves.
What role in world affairs?
Since World War II, the United States has served as the stabilizing force in the prevailing system of world trade and the military defender of the Western alliance. America was the steady presence that kept markets open offered capital to those in need, and offered domestic markets for goods that could not be sold elsewhere (for an elaboration of this view, see Robert Gilpin, The
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