Policy Narratives across Two Languages: A Comparative Study using the Narrative Policy Framework

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) focuses on the role of narratives, drawing from a rich scholarship in narrative, language, and culture. Despite the understanding that narratives are constructions of language and that narrative construction differs across languages, NPF studies have not focused on policy narratives in languages other than English. Language characteristics of narratives are important to assess the stability of policy narratives when there are multiple dominant languages in a political system. This study investigates the use of narrative elements in policy narratives in agricultural biotechnology policy in India across Hindi and English media coverage to examine the NPF assumption that narratives have generalizable narrative elements irrespective of variation in linguistic context and, specifically, tests the transportability of narrative elements. Findings validate the transportability of narrative elements in Hindi narratives, indicate variation in the use of narrative elements over time, and have implications for applying NPF across languages.     

Global Britain and the Narrative of Empire

Since 2016, the UK government has outlined plans for ‘Global Britain’ as a framework for post‐Brexit foreign policy. Some criticise the idea as a vision of ‘Empire 2.0’, but it is rarely made clear exactly what form it takes or what its wider political implications are. This article argues that Global Britain constitutes not just an idea or a slogan, but a foreign policy narrative and, more specifically, the narrative of empire. Indeed, to appear reasonable its grand ambitions require pre‐existing knowledges of past imperial ‘successes’ and accepting images of empire among the British public. Yet Global Britain lacks efficacy: as a domestic rather than an international narrative, by being inherently regressive in its worldview, and for contradicting the preferences of international partners on which the UK heavily relies. These narrative flaws, it is argued, make Global Britain an actively problematic, rather than merely ineffective, component of UK foreign policy.     

Covid‐19 and Football: Crisis Creates Opportunity

This article looks at the financial performance and position of English professional football before Covid‐19 and the impact that the pandemic has had on the industry. It analyses revenue streams in different divisions, the dependency that clubs have on them and how they have changed as a result of the pandemic. The article also reviews key costs for football clubs, the extent to which they can be reduced, different business models that operate, and possible funding sources for the sport from third parties and within the industry.     

MPs and web technologies: an untapped opportunity?

MPs have not previously been assigned a major role in electoral campaigning, being considered only one element of a political party's ‘marketing’ tools for winning votes. Evidence now suggests that the relationship between MPs and their constituents is changing. The concept of ‘constituency service’ implies that individual MPs can have a much greater influence on local voters and so possibly buck national trends. At the same time the concept of the ‘permanent campaign’ is transforming political campaigning whereby the political elite needs ever‐greater control of the tools used to provide messages to voters. The internet is a potential battleground between MPs who want greater control of their own local campaigning and the party elite who want to ensure a consistent, coherent and controlled message. The Internet is a new addition to the campaigning armoury, yet the focus so far has been on e‐government, e‐democracy and election campaigns. By concentrating on how and why MPs use their websites this paper considers whether MPs have fully understood and utilised this new medium. Key questions include whether their websites are ‘sticky’, interactive and a means of creating a targeted message. The findings of this detailed study of MPs' websites show that apart from a few pioneers, MPs have not progressed beyond using the Internet as ‘shovelware’ — the vast majority view their website as an electronic brochure and not a new form of two‐way communication. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Veteran Care in the United Kingdom and the Sustainability of the ‘Military Covenant’

This article assesses how veteran care can be placed at the centre of our understanding of the modern Military Covenant and located as a key issue in contemporary civil–military relations and public policy. Healthcare and welfare provision have become primary manifestations of how the British state fulfils its duty of care towards military personnel. The article aims to present an overview of current provision for veterans of Britain's modern wars and draw conclusions regarding the state's ability to provide short and long‐term healthcare and welfare requirements to veterans as part of the Covenant under the rubric of ‘Big Society’‐inspired policy shifts engendered by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government.     

Not just ‘friends and neighbours’: Canvassing,geographic proximity and voter choice

The impact of local campaigning on voter choice has been studied within the theme of mobilisation. Grassroots effort can attract votes efficiently, but campaign contact is (potentially) endogenous, so results showing positive effects could be flawed. Experimental solutions to this problem are possible, but could also have low external validity. Drawing on the electoral geography literature, this article suggests that endogeneity concerns can be addressed through so‐called ‘friends and neighbours voting’. One source of endogeneity is that that candidates may tend to canvass those living close to their own homes, and those canvassed would be expected in any case to be prone to support local candidates. The problem of endogeneity is reframed and treated as an omitted variable bias. Using unique Irish data on the geographic location of the homes of candidates, as well as data on the location of the voters, the analysis confirms that canvassing has a positive impact on candidate choice independent of the effect of geographic distance. More importantly, these two variables interact. The results point to the relevance of the geographic dimension of electoral politics in driving the endogeneity bias in local campaigning studies.     

Rapid knowledge: ‘Bridging research and policy’ at the Overseas Development Institute

Numerous organizations advocate the need to ‘bridge research and policy’. Philanthropic foundations, national social science funding regimes and international organizations have sought to improve knowledge utilization. Similarly, research consumers such as NGOs and government departments complain of research irrelevance for policy purposes. The concern of this article is with ‘evidence informed policy’ within the field of international development in which the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a London‐based think tank, forms the case study. Most think tanks are driven by the need to influence immediate political agendas but ODI has also developed organizational strategies of policy entrepreneurship that extend to longer term influence through creating human capital, building networks and engaging policy communities. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Space Between: Demonization of Opponents and Policy Divergence

Prior research on policy conflicts indicates a tendency among policy actors to misperceive the influence of actors engaged in policy debates based on the degree of distance between their relative policy positions. This research develops a measure for assessing the degree and direction of the misperception effect. This measure is then utilized as a dependent variable to assess the relationship between theoretically relevant factors and the degree to which actors will exaggerate the influence of their opponents and allies. The research uses original survey data of policy actors engaged in the debate over hydraulic fracturing in New York. The results indicate misperceptions of relative influence are prevalent and most associated with the experience of a policy loss and holding relatively extreme policy beliefs. The findings provide new insight into factors that influence the demonization of political opponents. These insights are timely in the context of polarized debates over environmental and energy policy in the United States.     

The West Midlands and Powell's Birmingham Speech

This article examines how the changing political debate in West Midlands’ constituencies influenced Powell's thinking, and how the area reacted to his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It looks at local perceptions of Commonwealth immigration in the West Midlands. It contrasts largely tolerant Wolverhampton with attitudes in nearby Smethwick; here a small number of race propagandists shaped local feeling through the columns of the Smethwick Telephone. The article considers their campaign, and the notorious victory of the hardliner Peter Griffiths in the 1964 general election. Powell and allies learnt there was electoral mileage in the ‘race card’, then campaigning on the issue. The article details the strength of subsequent local support after his Midlands Hotel speech, a loyalty only fortified in response to the execration of a horrified metropolitan elite and lasting until his defection from the Conservative party in 1974.     

Credible Empowerment and Deliberative Participation: A Comparative Study of Two Nuclear Energy Policy Deliberation Cases in Korea

What factors make deliberative participation of public policy effective? Why, in some cases, are participants in deliberation more motivated than others, and reach their final judgment in a timely manner, based on systematic processes of opinion gathering and consensus building? By comparing and investigating two recent cases of public participation in energy policy deliberation in Korea, we argue that deliberative participation is more effective when the prospect that the outcome of their activities might be accepted by decision makers is high. The two cases, the public deliberation committee (PDC) on the nuclear waste issue which operated from 2013 to 2015, and the PDC on the nuclear power plant construction issue which operated in 2017, show that they went through similar courses of action, and used similar methods for deliberation. However, while the 2017 PDC has produced clear‐cut policy recommendations, and the government have accepted these, the 2013 PDC failed to reach conclusions on the given critical issues. We argue that the difference in the results is caused by credible empowerment along with two other factors––the sensitivity of issues and the learning effect. Participants of deliberation tend to judge the possibility of the government’s acceptance of their opinions based on either the government’s direct announcement or its inclusiveness in the past policy history. If governments are willing to consult the public to increase legitimacy and transparency, they should send explicit signals to the public on its inclusiveness in the short term, and also should increase credibility in the long term.     

Public Service and Commercial Broadcasting: Impacts on Politics and Society

This article provides an accessible overview of the growing research literature on the impact of public service and commercial broadcasting and highlights its main implications for policy discussions about the future of public service broadcasting in Western societies. It shows that the populations of countries with public service broad‐ and narrowcasting are better informed about government and politics, are more trusting of other people, have more positive civic attitudes, have greater confidence in democratic institutions and are more likely to engage in democratic politics. Moreover, levels of social trust are higher in countries which have a significant public service element in their media systems, even among individuals who do not habitually watch public TV channels. The article ends with a brief discussion of the implications of this research for the future of public broadcasting in the Western world.     

State structure and political representation: Comparing the views of statewide and sub‐state legislators across 14 countries

How the recent creation, re‐invention or reinforcement of regional levels of political decision making across Europe compounds political representation is one of the key issues of contemporary democratic government. Despite growing scholarly interest, the critical question as to whether the regional institutional setting has brought about distinct representational roles among sub‐state legislators has yet to be addressed. To advance research in this field, this study bridges the literature on multilevel politics and legislative studies that to date have developed in isolation. Using innovative survey data from 14 statewide and 56 regional legislatures across Europe, it provides the first comprehensive test of how the state structure affects a legislator's views on representation. The results highlight that, relative to legislators in unitary states and national legislators in multilevel states, legislators at the regional level are more constituency‐oriented. Moreover, this heightened responsiveness to constituents at the regional level is not offset by weaker collective representation operating through political parties. Beyond these findings’ immediate relevance to scholars of federalism/regionalisation and parliaments, they also speak to the wider normative debate about the quality of political representation and public policy.     

A Tale of Two Inquiries: Sans Everything and Ely

The government acknowledged scandalously poor care of long‐stay patients in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in 1969. This followed the Ely Hospital inquiry, which emerged in the aftermath of revelations of abuse at seven hospitals described in Barbara Robb's book Sans Everything: A Case to Answer (1967). Allegations in Sans Everything and at Ely were similar. However, the inquiry committees which investigated, ‘disproved’ those in Sans Everything and upheld those at Ely. The Ely inquiry became pivotal to NHS policy reform for long‐stay mental illness and mental handicap hospitals, and for giving patients and their families a greater voice if they had concerns about inadequacies. This paper explains the relationship between Sans Everything and ‘Ely’ and analyses the impact of Robb's work—her high‐profile press campaign, networking, and determination to achieve improvement—which triggered revelations at Ely and elsewhere, and helped shape the course and constructive outcome of the Ely inquiry.     

Agenda‐Setting at the Energy‐Water Nexus: Constructing and Maintaining a Policy Monopoly in U.S. Hydraulic Fracturing Regulation

Despite calls to increase federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing (HF), the U.S. Congress has maintained a regulatory system in which environmental regulatory authority is devolved to the states. We argue that this system is characterized by a long‐standing “policy monopoly”: a form of stability in policy agenda‐setting in which a specific manner of framing and regulating a policy issue becomes hegemonic. Integrating theories on agenda‐setting and environmental discourse analysis, we develop a nuanced conceptualization of policy monopoly that emphasizes the significance of regulatory history, public perceptions, industry–government relations, and environmental “storylines.” We evaluate how a policy monopoly in U.S. HF regulation has been constructed and maintained through a historical analysis of oil and gas regulation and a discourse analysis of eleven select congressional energy committee hearings. This research extends scholarship on agenda‐setting by better illuminating the importance of political economic and geographic factors shaping regulatory agendas and outcomes.