Advancing agenda denial theory and research: an analysis of the Dutch financial sector

Abstract

This dissertation examines agenda denial: the processes through which issues are prevented from gaining sustained attention in public, political, and policy arenas. While agenda-setting research has generated extensive insights into how issues reach the agenda, agenda denial remains comparatively underdeveloped conceptually and empirically. Building on the agenda-denial taxonomy developed by Cobb and Ross (1997), this study addresses that gap by developing a systematic and reproducible approach to observing and analysing agenda denial through an in-depth study of the Dutch debate on Non-Bank Financial Intermediation (NBFI).Using a sequential mixed-methods design, the dissertation combines longitudinal document analysis of the Dutch NBFI debate since 2000 with interviews with key stakeholders. This approach enables issue development to be traced across time and arenas and allows patterns in documents to be related to stakeholder experiences and interpretations.The findings show that NBFI-related issues receive attention but that this rarely translates into sustained policy engagement, decisions, or new policies. The debate is characterised by recurring peaks in visibility followed by declining substantive engagement. Explicit denial is relatively infrequent. Instead, agenda denial operates mainly through indirect practices, including delay, narrowing of scope, technical framing, procedural handling, symbolic placation, and the relocation of issues to less visible arenas. These outcomes often cannot be attributed to a single actor or coordinated strategy, but instead emerge through routinised practices across actors, arenas, and over time.The study shows how agenda denial operates through the management of attention in ways that limit sustained escalation and policy follow-up, particularly in low-visibility and technocratic settings. The findings further refine Cobb and Ross’s (1997) taxonomy by showing that agenda-denial strategies do not necessarily follow a sequential pattern or fixed cost order, and that their perceived costs depend on levels of visibility and confrontation.The dissertation contributes to agenda-setting research by providing a structured empirical framework for analysing agenda denial systematically and reproducibly, while offering new insight into how societally relevant issues may be acknowledged without leading to substantive policy development.