Introduction—Stories of the old world: The Narrative Policy Framework in the European context
Since their evolution, people around the world communicate stories—or narratives; be it ancient customs carried from one generation to the next concerning most diverse subjects such as Christmas, carnival, or agricultural traditions like cattle drive to and from the alpine pastures; be it today's international debates on climate change where for instance Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro tells the story of "practically untouched" Amazon rain forests1 compared to the climate activist Greta Thunberg who angrily speaks about collapsing ecosystems and "the beginning of a mass extinction"2; or be it Jeff Bezos, former Amazon CEO, who banned PowerPoint presentations and instead relied on self-written memos that present the issue to be discussed and decided upon in the form of a story.3 In short, narratives are and have always been on everyone's lips. From a neurologic perspective, this is not at all surprising, because narratives are a common form of information processing and communication for humans' limited cognitive capacities (Berinsky & Kinder, 2006). Stories impose order on a complex and chaotic environment by bundling attention and emotion to certain facets while fading others. In policy analysis, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) embraces the analysis of narratives and their impact on the policy process. Like many policy process theories, this framework originates from the United States, where a plethora of studies applying the NPF have been conducted (see e.g., Gottlieb et al., 2018; Gupta et al., 2018; Jones, 2014; McBeth et al., 2012; Merry, 2019; Shanahan et al., 2013). This special issue demonstrates that there is also an active NPF research community outside the United States that is using and advancing the framework in significant and multifaceted ways. In the following, the special issue presents a diverse bouquet of NPF applications from Europe. It, thereby, also pays tribute to the NPF's versatility in application, from agenda setting to policy implementation, and in a wide variety of institutional and geographic settings. The goal of this special issue fits well with European Policy Analysis (EPA), which aims to present the European perspective on policy analysis and to test mainstream approaches in the European context. Previous EPA contributions or themed issues thus focused for instance on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (Nohrstedt & Olofsson, 2016), the Multiple Streams Framework (Deruelle, 2016; Leeuw et al., 2016; Sager & Thomann, 2017; Zohlnhöfer et al., 2015), or the Programmatic Action Framework (Bandelow & Hornung, 2021). The NPF is now the next to follow in this tradition. The NPF developed in the 1990s from work by Elizabeth Shanahan, Marc McBeth, and Michael Jones. It was first named and published in 2010 (Jones & McBeth, 2010). The framework assumes the central role of narratives in human communication and cognition, which consequently also exert a significant influence on policy actors and policy processes. In addition to this basic assumption, the NPF is based on four others (Shanahan et al., 2017, 178–79; Shanahan et al., 2018, 334): First, political reality is socially constructed. Second, social constructions of political realities, while variable, are not random but depend on factors such as values, norms, and beliefs (bounded relativity). Third, policy narratives are characterized by specific, generalizable structures (structuralist view). Fourth, policy narratives operate at three interacting levels of analysis, micro (individual), meso (group), and macro (institutions and culture). According to the NPF, a policy narrative consists of several components, which can be quantified and compared in a standardized manner: On the one hand, a narrative has a specific structure (or narrative form; Shanahan et al., 2017, 175–76). This includes the setting, which describes the context and the problem, the moral, which shows the solution, the plot, which organizes the action and finally different characters. The most used characters in NPF studies are the villain who causes a problem, the victim who suffers from it and the hero who solves the problem. On the other hand, a narrative has specific content, which varies depending on the context and the policy issue. To capture this, the NPF uses the concept of policy beliefs and three so-called narrative strategies. First, narratives can be used to enlarge or reduce the scope of conflict. Second, policy actors can use their narratives to portray opponents as evil and themselves as heroes (devil–angel shift). Third, narratives can be strategically constructed to establish causal links between a policy problem and its cause, thereby assigning responsibility or blame (causal mechanisms; Shanahan et al., 2017, 177–78). Despite the fact that the NPF has become an acknowledged policy process theory that features numerous theoretical and empirical applications, its potential remains far from being exploited (see e.g., Shanahan et al., 2017, 198–202). The European NPF community can contribute to this in a meaningful way by broadening the narrative research perspective. For instance, in addition to different historically grown cultures, institutions, societal beliefs, and values, European countries differ from the United States in having other political systems and forms of government such as multi-party systems, direct democracy but also authoritarian regimes. Furthermore, transnational institutionalized forms of co-operation such as the European Union (EU), which not only need to function across nations but also across linguistic and cultural borders, play a prominent role in Europe. To date, these perspectives have been barely incorporated into existing NPF research. The special issue at hand aimed to change this by providing a first platform to European NPF scholars, deriving avenues for future research from their contributions, and ultimately by bringing the two research communities closer together. The seven contributions in this special issue tap into the NPF's potential by expanding it not only geographically and thematically but also conceptually. Table 1 provides an overview of the contributions. In the following, we discuss their findings in more detail and derive avenues for future NPF research. Four articles in this special issue focus on the further development of NPF components. Kuhlmann and Blum are concerned with the conceptualization of an important element of narratives that so far has received little attention compared to characters or strategies: plots. They refine the concept by saying that plots each have a universal and a policy-specific element; while the former element bases on Stone's (2012) widely used plot types, the latter builds upon Lowi's well-known distinction between regulative, distributive, and redistributive policies. This new conceptualization gives rise to a typology, which, in turn, may be used for hypotheses within the NPF. Their empirical analysis examines the occurrence of different plot types in tweets from the German government during the first COVID-19 wave. Schlaufer et al. argue that despite the underlying importance of the policy problem within the NPF, a consistent approach of how to study this element is lacking. The authors indicate how this gap could be closed conceptually and suggest that the policy problem should be treated as a separate NPF component. In their contribution, they explore how problem definition in terms of complexity is strategically used in narratives to expand or contain a policy conflict in the context of Moscow's waste management. Thereby, they simultaneously demonstrate the NPF's transferability to a non-democratic context. Vogeler et al. examine policies that are not in the center of public attention—unlike most NPF studies, which focus on highly politicized debates—and show the dominant role of the beneficiary character in such a context. They investigate two policy debates on new agri-food technologies in the European Parliament and convincingly argue that "(u)sing beneficiaries as part of a narrative strategy (…) is plausible in the context of policies that are negotiated among experts and largely without a public" (p. 340). Tosun and Schaub are concerned with the use of evidence as a potential new NPF strategy. In investigating the narrative construction of European Citizen Initiatives (ECI)—which have to be able to mobilize across countries, languages, and cultures—the authors show that evidence is strategically used by ECI initiators to expand the scope of conflict, that is, to underline the policy problem, to push their own solution, or to undermine the opposing solution. They also rely upon the devil-shift strategy to convince their audiences. Three articles combine the NPF with additional theories and frameworks. Dunlop et al., start this endeavor with an innovative combination of the NPF and the Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT); two frameworks that at first sight seem very different, but which—as the authors convincingly argue—have a common core and advance the NPF by "uncovering not only the stories policy actors tell but also what these stories mean in terms of institutional statements" (p. 365). The authors provide a demonstration of their combined approach by analyzing the four cases of EU, Malta, Finland, and Ireland regarding their guidelines for consultation processes during policy formulation. The IGT enriches the NPF by complementing findings on actors' communication with information on their actions. Conversely, the NPF broadens results from the IGT by highlighting the moral and normative aspects of institutional grammar elements and by teasing out different narration styles found in official documents. Gjerstad and Fløttum present a combination of the NPF with a linguistic approach. Based on a Norwegian survey, the study analyzes what story citizens tell about whether they are willing to change their way of life to contribute to solutions against climate change. The survey answers are analyzed according to several linguistic concepts and mechanisms—capturing the narrative text sequence, the use of negation or polyphony, that is, multivoicedness—combined with the use of NPF characters. The results show that Norwegians simultaneously depict themselves as part of a collective that mostly plays a villain role, but also as heroic individuals. Furthermore, thanks to the analysis of polyphony, this linguistic NPF analysis not only allows to unravel the dominant narratives in a policy debate, but also "traces of the conflict characterizing the issue at a societal (thus macro-) level" (p. 402). In addition with their survey data, they are the only authors in this special issue conducting a microlevel NPF analysis, while all others investigate narratives at the mesolevel. Kuenzler suggests linking the NPF with research on the reputation of public organizations, an increasingly popular field of theory development in public administration research. By capturing the narratives circulating in the public about an organization, the NPF proves to be a fruitful approach to draw conclusions about an organization's reputation, as well as about developments over time. Empirically, the author analyzes the case of the Swiss Child and Adult Protection Agencies, a young agency type that experienced the "reputational worst-case scenario" p.408 and is nowadays known as "Switzerland's most-hated authority" (p. 408). The analysis reveals power shifts between the agencies and their target groups, and it allows for an in-depth look at specific criticisms that have been expressed about the agencies over time. For example, the narrative analysis shows how the target groups of the child and adult protection policy underwent changes from problem-causing villains to victims and even heroes, thereby demonstrating that the implementing agencies' legitimacy was increasingly questioned over time. Besides advancing the NPF on a conceptual level, this special issue also demonstrates the framework's thematic and geographic versatility. While the thematic breadth has increased somewhat in recent years, since its inception the NPF's focus has mostly been on environmental policy (Jones, 2018). Contributions in this special issue focus instead on topics as varied as COVID-19, waste management, agri-food technologies, climate change lifestyles, consultation procedures, and child and adult protection policy. In terms of geography, the following countries are represented: Finland, Germany, Ireland, Malta, Norway, Russia, and Switzerland. In addition, research on the institutional level of the EU is included. Inspired by the findings of the contributions in this special issue, we would like to share some concluding thoughts on avenues for future NPF research. First, the NPF's components are at the heart of the framework. Their application and testing in as many policy contexts as possible, as well as their continuous further development, is key for the significance of the NPF as an established policy process theory. In this regard, we consider it promising to test further the plot typology developed by Kuhlmann and Blum, which "show(s) how, for regulatory, distributive, and redistributive types of policies, plots link policy-specific themes with universal themes in clearly distinguishable ways" (p. 295) and their newly formulated NPF hypothesis stating that "(g)roups and individuals employ plots to link policy-specific narrative elements and universal narrative elements" (p. 295). We also consider it promising to test the conceptualization of the policy problem along the notion of complexity as suggested by Schlaufer et al., the role of beneficiaries in more and less politicized debates as investigated by Vogeler et al., and the use of evidence as a potentially separate narrative strategy (Tosun and Schaub). Second, the NPF can be fruitfully linked to other theoretical approaches. In the past, this has for instance been done successfully with the Multiple Streams Framework (Ceccoli, 2019; McBeth & Lybecker, 2018). In this special issue, Gjerstad and Fløttum, Dunlop et al., and Kuenzler demonstrate the framework's versatility again by combining the NPF with approaches from linguistics, political science, and public administration. Such combinations—which of course have to be chosen with care and adapted if deemed necessary—on the one hand allow a deeper understanding of the research subject and on the other hand strengthen the NPF itself by refining or even complementing its components and hypotheses. Third, Vogeler et al. suggest that narrative use in more or less politicized debates may differ distinctly. Systematic comparative analysis of narratives in different types of policy processes—be they more technical, apolitical, or consensual versus highly contested and politicized—is, therefore, another promising approach for further advancing the NPF. Fourth, Schlaufer et al. begin to explore a potential avenue for further research on the use of narratives and the applicability of the NPF in non-democratic contexts. Their results show that similar mechanisms are at work compared to democratic settings—although the institutional features, limiting or enhancing participation and influence of various policy actor groups, obviously differ widely. To broaden the applicability of the NPF and learn more about policy actors' use of narratives in different political contexts, additional research from Russia and from other non-democratic countries is needed. Fifth, we would like to mention a few aspects with a more specific regard to European policy issues. Tosun and Schaub show how narratives in the EU have to operate across countries, languages and cultures to make a difference. This multidimensionality may be a European specificity. However, we think that future research on this issue would also be an added value for large regions such as for instance Middle and South America or Asia. In a similar vein, with the European Parliament, Vogeler et al. focus on a venue where these different dimensions come together, and narratives have to convince in direct confrontations. This confluence of countries, languages and cultures is exciting, and the direct contrast or interaction could also give new insights into the macrolevel characteristics of narratives, an issue that is so far under-researched. Other multinational institutions and organizations such as the United Nations, the NATO, or Mercosur might be further interesting venues to investigate such inter-cultural dynamics. Sixth, Schlaufer et al. and Kuenzler shed light on another fascinating area: The role of narratives in policy implementation. Research on this stage of the policy cycle (Cairney, 2012) is generally scarce within the NPF, with a few notable exceptions (see e.g., Boscarino, 2020; O'Donovan, 2018). During implementation, a policy takes proper shape. Ideas, expectations, and interests of many different actors, such as street-level bureaucrats or interests groups representing target populations, come together. The program is refined and implementation structures are formed (see e.g., Lipsky, 2010; Pülzl & Treib, 2007)—in short, the policy process continues during implementation. Therefore, we see no reason to assume that narratives should not play an equally influential role in shaping a policy in this stage. Still, a systematic and broadly applied approach in conducting implementation NPF analyses is far from being established and would clearly contribute to advancing the whole framework. Finally, Dunlop et al. are the only authors in this special issue to conduct a comparative case study that includes multiple nations. Following this direction, we could imagine some promising further studies, such as comparative NPF research combining cases from the United States or Europe with African or Central-Asian cases. Such studies would enable us to learn more about cultural, institutional, or societal effects on the creation and impact of policy narratives. Furthermore, they would contribute to the goal we mentioned earlier, that is, to bring NPF research across the oceans closer together. This is a goal we consider absolutely worth striving for—especially when we consider how narratives affect us all and are to be found in every human activity around the globe, independent of the geographic region where we live, the policy issue that is at stake, or the values and beliefs we hold. We are all storytelling human beings, or in NPF's terminology homini narrantes. 自人类进化起, 全球人民便传播故事—或叙事; 无论是一代传给下一代的古老习俗, 例如圣诞节、狂欢节或农业传统 (从高山牧场来回赶牛) 等不同主题; 或是当下关于气候变化的国际辩论, 例如巴西总统雅伊尔·博索纳罗讲述"几乎未受影响的"亚马逊热带雨林的故事, 与之相对的是气候活跃人士格蕾塔·桑伯格愤怒讲述崩溃的生态系统和"一次集体灭绝的开端"; 抑或是前亚马逊CEO杰夫·贝索斯, 他禁用PowerPoint演示文稿并依赖手写备忘录, 以故事的形式呈现待讨论和决定的问题。简而言之, 一直以来每个人都在表达叙事。从神经系统视角来看, 这一点也不奇怪, 因为叙事是人类有限的认知能力在信息处理及传播方面的通用形式 (Berinsky & Kinder, 2006)。通过将关注和情感倾注于一些方面 (同时冷落其他方面), 故事给复杂且混乱的环境带来了秩序。 在政策分析中, 叙事政策框架 (NPF) 聚焦于分析叙事及其对政策过程的影响。与许多政策过程理论一样, 该框架源自美国, 并且美国已大量进行了NPF研究 (Gottlieb et al., 2018; Gupta et al., 2018; Jones, 2014; McBeth et al., 2012; Merry, 2019; Shanahan et al., 2013) 。本期特刊证明, 除美国以外的地区也存在活跃的NPF研究社群, 它们以重要和多方面的方式对NPF加以应用和提升。接下来, 本期特刊将呈现来自欧洲的不同NPF研究。因此, 特刊也展示了从议程设置到政策执行, 以及在一系列制度背景和地理背景下NPF应用的多用途性。 本期特刊的目标与《欧洲政策分析》 (EPA) 相契合, 后者致力呈现欧洲的政策分析视角, 并在欧洲情境下检验主流方法。以往EPA收录的文章或主题期刊因此聚焦于例如倡导联盟框架 (Nohrstedt & Olofsson, 2016)、多源流框架 (Deruelle, 2016; Leeuw et al., 2016; Sager & Thomann, 2017; Zohlnhöfer et al., 2015)、或计划行动框架 (Bandelow & Hornung, 2021)等。NPF现加入这一行列。 Elizabeth Shanahan、Marc McBeth和Michael Jones在1990年代提出了NPF。NPF于2010年首次被命名和发表 (Jones & McBeth, 2010)。该框架假设, 叙事在人类传播和认知中占据中心作用, 因此也对政策行动者和政策过程产生显著影响。除该基本假设外, NPF还基于其他四个假设 (Shanahan et al., 2017, 178–79; Shanahan et al., 2018, 334): 第一, 政治现实是一种社会建构。第二, 政治现实的社会建构尽管多样, 但并不是随机的, 而是依赖诸如价值、规范和信念 (有限的相对性) 等因素。第三, 政策叙事有特定的、可一般化的结构 (结构主义视角) 。第四, 政策叙事发生在三个相互作用的分析层面, 即微观 (个体) 、中观 (群体) 和宏观 (制度和文化) 层面。 NPF认为, 一个政策叙事由不同部分组成, 这些部分能以标准化的形式被量化和比较: 一方面, 叙事有特定的结构或叙事形式 (Shanahan et al., 2017, 175–76)。这包括用于描述情境和问题的"背景" (setting), 用于提示解决方案的"寓意" (moral), 用于组织行动的"情节" (plot), 以及不同的"角色" (character) 。NPF研究中使用最多的角色分别是: 制造问题的"反面人物" (villain) 、受问题困扰的受害者 (victim) 以及解决问题的正面人物 (hero) 。 另一方面, 叙事有具体的内容, 该内容会因情境和政策议题的不同而存在差异。为阐述这一点, NPF使用政策信念这一概念和三个所谓的叙事策略。第一, 叙事能被用于扩大或减少冲突范围 (scope of conflict) 。第二, 政策行动者能使用叙事来丑化政治对手, 美化政治盟友 (devil-angel shift) 。第三, 叙事能通过策略性建构来建立政策问题及其起因之间的因果关系, 因此能分配义务或责任 (因果机制) (Shanahan et al., 2017, 177–78)。 尽管NPF已成为公认的政策过程理论, Shanahan et al., 2017, (EU), (2012) Tosun Gjerstad Gjerstad 第一, (Ceccoli, 2019; McBeth & Lybecker, Gjerstad 2020; O'Donovan, 2010; Pülzl & Treib, We would like to first and the for their which has in this diverse and innovative issue. thanks also to the numerous have been in the contributions. Finally, we would like to the EPA and for the to this special issue and for their continuous in its
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