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Narratives are increasingly subject to empirical study in a wide variety of disciplines. However, in public policy, narratives are thought of almost exclusively as a poststructural concept outside the realm of empirical study. In this paper, after reviewing the major literature on narratives, we argue that policy narratives can be studied using systematic empirical approaches and introduce a "Narrative Policy Framework" (NPF) for elaboration and empirical testing. The NPF defines narrative structure and narrative content. We then discuss narrative at the micro level of analysis and examine how narratives impact individual attitudes and hence aggregate public opinion. Similarly, we examine strategies for the studying of group and elite behavior using the NPF. We conclude with seven hypotheses for researchers interested in elaborating the framework.
KEY WORDS: narrative policy framework, NPF, policy narratives, narrative methodology, structuralism, poststructuralism, theories of the policy process
Introduction
During the summer of 2009, YouTube, blogs, cable news shows, and newspaper columns were abuzz with health-care reform "debate," and much of the discussion focused on "death panels," socialism, Hitler, and fascism. Many observers and commentators questioned how these ideas rationally relate to the debate over reform. Yet such ideas are powerful in shaping public opinion and ultimately in shaping governmental action. Many of these slogans were elements of larger policy narratives (or stories) that were intentionally used by opponents of health-care reform attempting to derail President Obama's reform intentions. Supporters of health-care reform countered as the Obama Administration deployed the power of narrative in building support for health-care reform by soliciting personal stories from citizens (http://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare).
A narrative is a story with a temporal sequence of events (McComas & Shanahan, 1999) unfolding in a plot (Abell, 2004; Somers, 1992) that is populated by dramatic moments, symbols, and archetypal characters (McBeth, Shanahan, & Jones, 2005) that culminates in a moral to the story (Verweij et al., 2006). Narrative, understood here as both a particular category of communication and a method of cognitive organization (see Herman, 2002, 2003a, 2009), functions as a seemingly universal device for individuals to sharpen certain elements of reality whUe leveling others (Gilovich, 1991). Indeed, there is increasingly persuasive empirical evidence to support such a claim as narrative is found to be a primary means by which individuals organize,...