Introduction—Stories of the old world: The Narrative Policy Framework in the European context

作者：Bettina Stauffer, Johanna Kuenzler · 发表于：European Policy Analysis · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1002/epa2.1128 · 被引用次数：21 · 研究领域：Policy Transfer and Learning、Sustainability and Climate Change Governance、Public Policy and Administration Research

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., Gottlie...