Defining their real problems, getting public and policy attention: Global struggles of deprived communities for sustainable development

Agenda is the list of issues or problems that policymakers agree to consider. Agenda setting is a struggle between stakeholders to define these issues. Communities suffering from pollution, homelessness, unemployment, and other unsustainabilities have the best science and most legitimate interest to define these problems for policymakers. However, our knowledge about bottom‐up agenda setting is limited. This study is an original, first‐time investigation to explore and conceptualize how deprived communities engage in the competition to set policy agendas. The findings from analyzing secondary evidence indicate that deprived communities engage in agenda‐setting competition in a three‐step process of (i) defining their problems; (ii) seeking public attention to their problems; and (iii) demanding policy attention to their problems. Strategies that deprived communities use in these steps are identified and illustrated. The study produces a conceptual toolkit to research and map bottom‐up agenda‐setting. The toolkit might be further tested and refined, including in environmental studies. Bottom‐up agenda setting is fundamental to sustainable development by ensuring that framing of social and environmental problems comes from their sufferers so that policymakers rather provide solutions.