Issue Hierarchization in Agenda-Setting: The Case of the European Council Agenda

Agenda-setting scholars tend to search for a problem that receives the most policy attention, a so-called primary issue. Since the concept of the primary issue is vague, this article aims to define and implement it in a framework of issue hierarchization leaning on the issue's place, space and framing on the agenda. The position and the hierarchy of issues are considered crucial elements of agenda-setting but omitted in the literature. The article thus examines the hierarchy of issues in EU agenda-setting, specifically on the case of the European Council agenda in the period December 2014-December 2020 using a holistic grading method. The findings show that the agenda can consist of more primary and several secondary issues at once. Interestingly, if more primary issues require policy attention, policy-makers tend to mobilize additional resources to tackle them instead of dropping secondary issues off the agenda.