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Narrative policy analysis and policy change theory rarely intersect in the literature. This research proposes an integration of these approaches through an empirical analysis of the narrative political strategies of two interest groups involved in policy debate and change over an eight-year period in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Three research questions are explored: (i) Is it possible to reconcile these seemingly disparate approaches? (ii) Do policy narrative strategies explain how interest groups expand or contain policy issues despite divergent core policy beliefs? (3) How does this new method of analysis add to the literature? One hundred and five documents from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Blue Ribbon Coalition were content analyzed for policy narrative strategies: identification of winners and losers, diffusion or concentration of costs and benefits, and use of condensation symbols, policy surrogates, and science. Five of seven hypotheses were confirmed while controlling for presidential administration and technical expertise. The results indicate that interest groups do use distinctive narrative strategies in the turbulent policy environment.
KEY WORDS: Advocacy Coalition Framework, Greater Yellowstone Area, interest groups, narrative policy analysis, policy change
Introduction
Researchers in the field of public policy theory seek to explain the divergent characteristics of policy change, namely equilibrium and radical change. Why does the public undergo alterations in how they understand policy problems and why do policy issues that remain static for many years suddenly become dynamic? Three theories have dominated the literature over the past decade: Kingdon's (1995) "policy streams/' Baumgartner and Jones' (1993) "punctuated equilibrium," and "Advocacy Coalition Framework" (ACF). These authors individually seek to build a theory of policy change that stands up to the rigor of empirical analyses. In this study, we posit a methodological innovation in the area of policy change by introducing an integration of narrative policy analysis (NPA) into the traditional policy change theory. This integration is accomplished through a systematic study of the strategic nature of policy narratives. The results help to further explain policy change and the role that various groups play in prompting policy change or maintenance of the status quo.
During the last two decades, the work of social constructionists in the field of NPA (e.g., Fischer & Forrester, 1993; Roe, 1994; Stone, 2002) has developed concurrently with that...