Socialist Parties’ agenda-setting in European community development aid policy in the early 1970s: Objectives, strategies and limits of implementation

Abstract

This article addresses the role of transnational socialist party cooperation in setting the agenda of the European Community (EC) in the policy field of development aid in the early 1970s. Although agenda-setting has a high relevance for understanding why certain issues are successfully inserted in the EC (later the European Union) policy-making cycle while others not, this important stage of political decision-making often tends to escape our attention. The article argues that socialist transnational party cooperation through networks on the European level developed various strategies for placing development aid issues on the EC agenda. However, the article also shows that with a view to implementation there were several reasons that made it difficult for transnational socialist party cooperation to push forward development aid issues in the cycle of EC policy-making beyond agenda-setting.