LIST OF PANELS

The importance of ‘narratives’ in the policy process is increasingly being stressed among policy actors and policy process scholars alike (see e.g. Radaelli, 1999; Stone, 2012; McBeth et al., 2014; Schlaufer, 2018; Blum & Kuhlmann, 2019). Narrative stories are important to understand – amongst others – how policy problems are defined, policies are formulated, and reforms are communicated (Blum & Kuhlmann, 2019). According to Stone (2012), narratives are – often highly-simplified – stories of how good or bad things happen, thereby employing different storylines (e.g. stories of decline, helplessness and control). To qualify as a ‘policy narrative’, the stories must at least contain a public policy referent and a ‘morale’ – often in the sense of a constructed policy solution (see McBeth et al., 2014).

Yet while narratives receive growing attention in public policy research, crucial open questions remain – including how policy narratives link to politics, issues of power, and different policy actors involved in the policy process. The objective of this panel is to explore this linkage of policy narratives and different types of policy actors. The choice of certain narratives may impact on policy change (or non-change) by framing problems and solutions. Therefore, we may expect government communication to show particular ‘narrative density’, but also that all policy actors – e.g. also scientific experts –will use narratives, reflecting their efforts to make sense of the world, especially when arguing for certain policy choices. At the same time, we may expect that the different actors adapt their narratives and strategies according to the functions played in the policy process, such as policy entrepreneurship, brokerage, leadership, or learning. The panel thus seeks to bring together papers addressing, amongst others, the following issues:

-          How are different narratives used by different policy actors – individual or collective ones, as well as actors playing different roles in the policy process (e.g. policy entrepreneurs, policy brokers, epistemic communities, instrument constituencies)?

-          How do those policy actors use narrative stories to link specific policies and problems? What narrative strategies can be identified (e.g. issue expansion/issue containment), and to what extent can we identify different narrative strategies among different types of actors? How do narratives of different policy actors relate to each other in the policy process?

-          In what ways are policy actors themselves becoming characters (e.g. hero, victim, or villain) in their own policy narratives, and in the narratives of other policy actors?

References

Blum, S. & Kuhlmann, J. (2019) Stories of how to give or take – towards a typology of social policy reform narratives, Policy and Society, 38(3): 339-355.

McBeth, M. K., Jones, M. D., & Shanahan, E. A. (2014) The Narrative Policy Framework. In P. A. Sabatier & C. M. Weible (Eds.) Theories of the policy process (3rd ed., pp. 225–266). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Radaelli, C. (1999) Harmful tax competition in the EU: Policy narratives and advocacy coalitions, Journal of Common Market Studies, 37(4): 661-682.

Schlaufer, C. (2018) The narrative uses of evidence, Policy Studies Journal, 46(1): 90-118.

Stone, D. (2012) Policy paradox: The art of political decision making (3rd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Since the objective of this panel is to explore the linkage of policy narratives and different types of policy actors, we welcome papers that show how policy narratives link to politics, issues of power, and policy actors with different functions and strategies in the policy process. The panel thus seeks to bring together papers addressing, amongst others, the following issues:

-          How are different narratives used by different policy actors – individual or collective ones, as well as actors playing different roles in the policy process (e.g. policy entrepreneurs, policy brokers, epistemic communities, instrument constituencies)?

-          How do those policy actors use narrative stories to link specific policies and problems? What narrative strategies can be identified (e.g. issue expansion/issue containment), and to what extent can we identify different narrative strategies among different types of actors? How do narratives of different policy actors relate to each other in the policy process?

-          In what ways are policy actors themselves becoming characters (e.g. hero, victim, or villain) in their own policy narratives, and in the narratives of other policy actors?

The panel invites papers that make theoretical, methodological, and/or empirical contributions to exploring the linkage between policy narratives and their uses by different policy actors. The aim is to bring together papers using different methodological perspectives as well as theoretical and conceptual angles to explore these issues; including the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), but also other policy theories. Particularly encouraged are papers which use empirical cases to develop conceptual-theoretical arguments.

Discussants for the panel:

Claudio Radaelli, UCL European Institute

Caroline Schlaufer, Higher School of Economics Moscow