Policy Narratives and Policy Processes

Mark K. McBeth, Idaho State University
Elizabeth A. Shanahan, Montana State University
Michael D. Jones, Harvard University

Abstract

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) has influenced a generation of policy scholars with its emphasis on causal drivers, testable hypotheses, and falsification. Until recently, the role of policy narratives has been largely neglected in ACF literature partially because much of that work has operated outside of traditional social science principles such as falsification. Yet, emerging literature under the rubric of Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) demonstrates how the role of policy narratives in policy processes is studied using the same rigorous social science standards initially set forth by Paul A. Sabatier. The import of NPF in this context is inclusion of narrative elements and strategies as central in defining classes of variables that serve as the basis for theory building and testing of policy processes. We provide seven hypotheses related to critical ACF concepts including advocacy coalitions and policy beliefs, policy learning, public opinion, and policy narrative strategies. Our goal is to stay within the scientific, theoretical, and methodological tradition of ACF and show how the NPF’s empirical, hypothesis, and causal driven work on policy narratives provides theories applicable to ACF research as well as an independent framework capable of explaining the policy process. In doing so, we believe both ACF and NPF scholarship can contribute to the advancement of our understanding of the policy process.