Governing Narratives: Symbolic Politics and Policy Change

1. Words/Action

1 Words/Action Governing Narratives draws from discourse theory for its conceptual precedents. Torgerson (2003, 121–122) wrote adroitly about the implications of framing a thesis in terms of discourse: “by speaking of policy discourse, we begin to frame the policy world in a decisively new way, clearly locating both analysts and citizens in a communicative context that allows the potential for interchange, challenge and mutual learning. . . . To focus attention on policy discourse is to anticipate democratic possibilities—potential changes in the way citizens, as well as experts, might ‘talk policy.’” Torgerson’s optimistic prospects for a democratic policy discourse might also evoke a temperate caveat: democratic inputs into the policy process may not reflect the latest policy research. Weiss’s (1977) influential article on the enlightenment function of social research made the point that research is often for policy’s sake, in that research alters perceptions among policy makers. With a democratic policy discourse, the causal stories of researchers will not be the only narratives allowed into the sphere of influence. The criteria for policy change will not necessarily be grounded in sound research; advocacy groups may instead use values, emotions, reactions, hyperbole, and any number of additional strategies to induce policy change. What policy makers learn, therefore, might be grounded in creationism rather than evolutionary biology; in market fundamentalism rather than climate change research. Sabatier (1988, 132) astutely 2 / Chapter 1 focused our attention on beliefs: “They involve value priorities, perceptions of important causal relationships, perceptions of world states. . . . Assuming that people get involved in politics at least in part to translate their beliefs into public policy, this ability to map beliefs and policies on the same ‘canvas’ provides a vehicle for assessing the influence of various actors on public policy over time.” The narrative approach of this book also focuses on beliefs, but ascribes them not to the actors in an advocacy coalition, but incorporates beliefs and values as aspects of a narrative that is competing for dominance in a field occupied by multiple policy narratives. Policy change continues to be a power struggle, but, in the present thesis, the contest is to capture meaning and advance one narrative or another, thus warranting public action. Public action, once it occurs, is not, thereby, the end of political contestation. instead, every aspect of public policy and administration is imbued with political potential. Administering environmental policy is different from administering social security policy, which are both different from administering foreign policy or the local building code. The aims and values are different in each of these examples. in addition, even the how of administration is imbued with political potential. Apparently neutral and objective tactics and techniques of management are themselves contestable , and they can have profound effects on culture and society. The term policy implementation is, in some ways, preferable to the label public administration. Policy implementation directs attention to the mission, to the “what,” to the enacted public policy that embraced particular purposes, values, and aspirations. As a stage in the policy process, implementation retains a tight connection to the agency’s genesis narrative—the winning argument that was endorsed and legitimated, typically through a legislative process. Public administration has not been renamed policy implementation; instead, the term public management has gained ascendancy. The effect is to continue to downplay the political, though it’s politics all the way down no matter what term is used to effectuate public policy: implementation, management, or administration. At the implementation/management/administration phase, we are dealing not only with connotative meanings that inhere in policy discourse but necessarily interject into the mix many other kinds of associations as well. There are relations with others in the workplace and relations with political groups that continue to insist on having say-so over how the policy is put into practice. At implementation , there are now objects in the environment that public policy must reckon with—the very management techniques of public administration may be among them. There are perhaps tools of the trade, chemicals in the water, dismal statistics on social conditions, weather disasters, endangered animals, coalburning furnaces, aggrieved homeowners, the “not in my backyard” syndrome, and regulation-resistant corporate interests that are among the conceivable situational associations that must be taken into account if the policy mission is to be Words/Action / 3 accomplished. There are already tactics and techniques of management ready to expand into a new domain. Newly...