The Importance of Narrative Stories in Public Policy Analysis

Narrative stories, also known as policy or political narratives, are those stories that are told to explain how things happen, both good and bad. Oftentimes these stories are created to offer a simplified version of a complex issue, and the solutions implied in these stories are often similarly simplified. By reducing difficult issues into easily digestible anecdotes, political actors are able to effectively convey their concerns to a wider audience, in a format better suited to the media sound bite and brief quotation. As a form of political symbolism, these narratives are designed to connect with both the heart and the head of the public, and are often successful at shaping the discussion of policy debate. Perhaps most notable, potent political narratives can lay the foundation for entire ideologies, shaping not only single issues but also entire worldviews in the process.

For these reasons and a countless many others, political narratives play an undeniably important role in public policy. Narrative stories are perhaps the most prevalent form of advocacy in our political process today, and there is good reason for this prevalence: these narratives are a highly effective way to engender support for one's policies and political point of view. Used effectively, they will frame issues in a way that places one's argument in a positive context, while placing the arguments of an opponent in a negative one. In addition, political narratives are often effective at tying the policy debate to a larger cultural concern; is it perhaps this kind of political narrative that we see most often, as successfully tapping into a cultural touchstone can bring with it significant political gain. Ronald Reagan, for example, combined the issue of personal responsibility with the need for welfare reform in voters' minds. His reference to "welfare queens" milking the system and avoiding personal self-reliance tapped into the cultural ideal of individual responsibility, a general disdain for government taxation, and perhaps (in some case) an element of racial resentment as well. Despite the fact that these "welfare queens" he referenced did not exist, the narrative was an effective one, and it is still remembered to this day, no doubt shaping the views of modern voters.

Whether they take form as the welfare queen or Joe the Plumber, we hear these narratives reinforced in our daily lives. Through communicating a narrative and utilizing it as a symbol of what needs to be changed, those involved with setting the political agenda have an effective tool on their side.

Concept Linkage

No example better typifies the political narrative in action than has reaction to the recent mortgage market meltdown. The cause of this crisis is under hot debate, and the two major arguments in response could hardly be further apart from one another, yet they fit two common narratives in modern American politics.

The first narrative is of government as the problem and of the free market as self-correcting. To those operating under this long-standing narrative, a common argument has emerged: the Community Reinvestment Act, signed into law by the federal government under Jimmy Carter and strengthened under the Presidency of Bill Clinton, is responsible for subprime lending to unqualified borrowers and is, thus, the root of the problem (Krauthammer 2008). In this argument, compatible with the modern conservative narrative, government intervention into the market must be the issue; therefore, government initiatives in the marketplace should be reined back.

The second narrative is of the free market as the problem and the government as far too passive. In this narrative, the signing of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 created an unregulated market wherein companies traded credit derivatives in a way that encouraged unscrupulous lending, bundling and insuring of subprime mortgages (Corn 2008). Under this argument, compatible with modern the liberal narrative (though not exclusively so), basic regulation of credit default swaps and the credit derivatives market would have prevented a situation wherein financial markets held great financial incentive to continue signing, buying and insuring risky mortgages, to the point of over-extending themselves and placing the financial system at risk.

Again, the narrative story is pivotal to this particular policy debate; those predisposed to believe a certain narrative are also predisposed to believe whichever argument more closely suits that narrative. One side cites excessive government intervention, the other points to lack of government regulation. As John Kingdon's agenda setting model rightly emphasizes, the effect of these narrative stories and their prevalence among the public plays a large role in the policy and political stream, building the necessary political capital for decision makers to address the issue in whichever manner is ultimately deemed acceptable.

Concept Application

As we've already seen, policy advocates can utilize political narratives to frame the issue in ways acceptable to their beliefs, and to try to sway others to narrative scripts closer to their own. This is certainly not limited to the example of the mortgage crisis: narratives and their proponents attempt to shape the debate on nearly every matter of national policy, whether it be illegal immigration or the $700 billion Wall Street/Main Street bailout bill passed recently by Congress. For instance, Presidential candidate John McCain employed a popular narrative (Washington, D.C. "standing in the way of common sense") to foment a favorable context for his offshore drilling push. After all, regardless of one's feelings on the merits of offshore drilling, how many Americans are predisposed to take the side against an "out of touch" Congress? Such a sentiment is the manifestation of a hugely popular narrative: Congress and government "don't do anything" and are as such responsible for many of the problems we face.

In some of the more interesting uses of political narrative, political scientists can examine the implicit narratives underlying much of our society (established through the media, popular culture, cultural prejudice, or other sociological means) in order to determine how these narratives shape attitudes towards public policy. These narratives are not the kind told by politicians, but instead are created through exposure to opinions, viewpoints, and other information over a significant length of time.

One such example is Gilliam, Jr. and Iyengar's 2000 study of local television news coverage, specifically regarding crime and race in the greater Los Angeles area. As crime is the most prominently featured subject on many television news programs, and violent crime is disproportionately covered in relation to overall crime statistics, a crime narrative "script" is created and becomes familiar to the viewer (Gilliam, Jr. and Iyengar 2000, 560). These scripts become implicit narrative stories: first, crime is of crime as typically violent (in accordance with the proportion of violent crimes covered) and, because the plurality of violent crime shown on local television coverage is committed by African-American males, the "perpetrators of crime are non-white males" (Gilliam, Jr. and Iyengar 2000, 560). Associations and presumptions are formed as a result of this exposure, and viewers of the program develop a narrative script to follow.

In conducting their research, Gilliam, Jr. and Iyengar showed 10-minute clips of local crime coverage to a large pool of volunteers. They found that exposure to local news coverage "racializes" the policy debate by intertwining issues of public concern (like crime) with issues of race (Gilliam, Jr. and Iyengar 2000, 572). For instance, over 60% of those who were not shown an image of a perpetrator in their local crime coverage falsely reported seeing one, and of those, 70% reported the perpetrator to be African-American (Gilliam, Jr. and Iyengar 2000, 564).

Just as in the case of the mortgage crisis, those who hold a certain narrative are pre-disposed to "fill in the blanks" in accordance with the rest of their script; in this case, the script is of the African-American perpetrator, as local television coverage disproportionately covered crime by African-Americans. And just as in the case of the mortgage crisis, these perceptions (and the narrative they result from) can be expected to strongly affect the agenda setting process as laid out by John Kingdon. It is clear to see how narrative stories, both of the active and passive variety, can be used to shape policy debate and discussion.

Concept Evaluation and Conclusions

The role of the political narrative is integral to the process of policy formation, agenda setting, and the development of public opinion. Through the examination of narrative stories, a wide range of political analysts can gain a deeper understanding of just how the policy process works. In regards to public opinion in particular, these narratives are an invaluable part of the policy process.

There are some major weaknesses present in the study of the narratives, however. In attempting a "scientific" approach at understanding the role of the narrative, it is all but impossible to account for the endless number of confounding variables you will encounter. As such, it's difficult to place too much weight on any particular finding, as is the case in much social science.

Nevertheless, narrative stories are clearly influential in the development of public opinion and agenda setting. While the question of "just how much" is one that will likely never be fully answered, it is important to study this aspect of the political process, as it can contribute to everything from the passage or failure of a particular bill to the spread of an entire political ideology among the populace.