The Applicability of Agenda Setting Policy Implementation Theory on COVID-19 Lockdown Policy in Southern African Countries

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has been declared a pandemic by international and governmental organisations in developed and developing countries. In Southern African countries, policy makers, Veto players and public policy advisors engaged in a policy dialogue so as to curb the COVID-19 pandemic by turning the outbreak of COVID-19 into an actionable government priority. CO- VID-19 pandemic in African countries presents a severe threat to human welfare of people living in rural and urban areas. Policy making involves a series of stages which have to be taken before a policy can be adopted to address an issue. The first stage involves identification of a problem and ensuring that it gets the attention of policy makers and is often referred to as agenda setting. Parsons (1995) termed this level “meso-analysis” where issues and problems are identified and agendas are set. Scholars have often argued that, agenda setting is an important tool in policy making as a decision making catalyst. This is based on the assumption that any government policy and action initiative needs someone to first bring it to their attention. In response to the CO- VID-19 pandemic, agenda setting thus became a starting point for the identification of issues and possible policy instruments. The first stage involves identification of a problem and ensuring that it gets the attention of policy makers and is often referred to as agenda setting. Agenda setting with reference to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has been argued to be politically convoluted, it remains a process that involves a number of actors and institutions. The paper seeks to unravel the applicability of the Agenda setting theory as propounded by John Kindon on the implementation of the lockdown policy in Southern African countries.