Narratives and Framing in Policy Making

Narratives and framing have become central analytical tools in research on policy processes and shape the understanding of attention shifts, coalition dynamics, and policy change. Building on this dynamic, recent work has attempted to combine the analysis of narratives with institutional approaches (Schlaufer et al. 2022; Domorenok and Graziano 2023). In doing so, it has been recognized that narratives not only explain policy conflict, but also structure the rules and norms that govern collective action. This issue of Review of Policy Research (RPR) brings together recent contributions that advance both the theoretical foundations and practical applications of narrative and framing research. Together, the articles in this issue demonstrate that narratives and frames are not only key drivers of attention, conflict, and change in traditional policy arenas such as environmental or security policy, but also shape science communication, reputation management, and evidence use in policymaking. They highlight how narrative and framing approaches increasingly intersect with established policy process theories, as well as with methodological innovations ranging from network analysis to sentiment analysis, providing a unifying analytical lens for understanding complex policy dynamics. One of the most active debates within this broader landscape concerns how the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) can be linked to the Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT) that has been developed as a supplement of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD). It is a framework for systematically analyzing the structure of institutional statements by breaking them down into components such as actors, rules, conditions, and consequences. The abbreviation ADICO names the five components to be distinguished in the statements: attribute, deontic, aim, condition, and else (Crawford and Ostrom 1995; Pieper et al. 2023). Foundational studies, including the work of Dunlop et al. (2021), have shown that mapping narrative elements to types of institutional rules opens up new ways of understanding the interplay between discourse and institutional design. The first contribution to this RPR issue by McGovern and Jones (2025) takes this debate a step further by developing a conceptual framework that links narratives and institutions through a cyclical model, arguing that narratives not only shape institutional rules but are themselves reinforced by them. Building on the NPF's emphasis on the cognitive and communicative functions of narratives, they argue that institutional arrangements cannot be fully understood without considering the narrative heuristics that guide actors' interpretations of rules and norms. The article not only refines the theoretical relationship between the NPF and the IGT but also offers a compelling agenda for future empirical research on how narratives and institutions co-evolve. The second article in this issue by Jeschke et al. (2025) applies the NPF to the aftermath of the Marshall Fire in Colorado (December 30, 2021–January 1, 2022), the most destructive wildfire in the state's history that served as a focusing event (Birkland 1998; Smith-Walter et al. 2021). This study builds on recent advances in the NPF literature on narrator trust and affect (Shanahan et al. 2019; Colville and Merry 2021) and complements previous disaster-focused applications of the framework (Lawlor and Crow 2018). The authors examine how public narratives changed before and after this disaster, focusing on how fire victims became influential policy narrators during debates over stringent green building codes. Using a unique combination of public comment data and interviews with local officials, they demonstrate how affective storytelling and self-identification as fire victims significantly increased narrator trust and policy influence. The findings show that disaster victims' narratives, marked by heightened emotional appeal and present-focused plots, were instrumental in the rollback of energy efficiency codes. By analyzing how affect and narrator trust interact to shape policy outcomes, this article makes a valuable contribution to micro-level NPF research and sheds light on the mechanisms through which post-disaster narratives can lead to unexpected policy shifts. The following contribution by Gabehart (2025a) examines the highly contentious policy debate over gray wolf reintroduction in Colorado, which culminated in the passage of Proposition 114 through a citizen-initiated ballot in November 2020. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF, Nohrstedt et al. 2023) with Emotion Belief Analysis (EBA, Fullerton et al. 2024; Gabehart et al. 2024; Gabehart 2025b) the study explores how rural–urban cleavages and competing coalitions evolved during this conflict. Gabehart shows that the discourse shifted from policy core beliefs (whether wolves should be reintroduced) to secondary beliefs (about how reintroduction and management should occur). Analyzing media and legislative testimonies from 2020 and 2021, the article highlights how emotions, particularly anger and fear in the anti-wolf coalition, gradually gave way to more conciliatory expressions after the ballot passed. This study contributes to ACF research by demonstrating how emotional dynamics and place-based identities shape coalition behavior and by integrating novel aspects such as the connection between belief tiers and affective narratives (Fullerton and Weible 2024; Hornung and Bandelow 2025). While Gabehart's study highlights how emotional narratives shape wildlife policy at the state level, the article by Lantis (2025) turns to the international arena, examining how the first Trump administration's creation of the U.S. Space Force in 2019 was driven by strategic policy narratives. In line with recent scholarship by Ruff et al. (2022), which analyzed congressional narratives surrounding the establishment of the Space Force, Lantis applies the NPF to identify how administration officials crafted narratives portraying the United States as a “hero” facing growing threats from “villains” Russia and China, thereby justifying the policy “solution” of establishing a new military branch. Recent research on public sentiment towards commercial and governmental space missions highlights how narrative framing shapes the perceived legitimacy of space actors and policies (Black 2025). Drawing on a systematic coding of 129 national policy declarations and space directives spanning 2001 to 2021, Lantis identifies shifts in narrative emphasis from international cooperation towards competition and unilateral action. The article demonstrates how the administration leveraged emotional and symbolic storytelling to overcome bureaucratic resistance and limited strategic vision, effectively reframing space as a contested war-fighting domain. This contribution expands the application of the NPF to international security and space policy, highlighting how narrative analysis can explain inflection points in defense policymaking. When crises arrive, policy actors often try to shift the blame for unpopular events away from them while claiming credit for decisions and consequences that are popular among citizens (Sommer 2020; Zahariadis et al. 2020). These processes have been analyzed with a view on blame games that unfold among policy actors (Hinterleitner et al. 2023; Mavrot and Sager 2024). Contributing to this strand of literature, Tutan (2025) analyzes blame games in Turkey in the context of weather-related disasters. The article does not just dive into the question of which actors utilize blame-game strategies but takes a closer look at the exact content of the statements of government and opposition in 41 weather-related disasters happening in Turkey between 1946 and 2023. Thereby, the study finds that governments avoid blame by denying responsibility and claim credit by promising aid and outlining strategies to prevent negative consequences, while the opposition proposes alternative strategies, which, however, remain vague. Furthermore, the article shows that disasters render visible the power struggles that exist in the Turkish context. Struggles between policy actors do not only exist during crises but also in everyday policymaking. The article by Fullerton et al. (2025) analyzes how policy actors portray their allies and opponents in gender policy debates. Against the backdrop of research on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF, Nohrstedt et al. 2023) and contributing to the methodological debate on operationalizing the expression of emotions and beliefs (Fullerton et al. 2024; Gabehart et al. 2024), the study examines whether coalitions can be identified based on the ascribed emotions and beliefs towards allies and opponents, and to what extent a devil shift or angel shift (Sabatier et al. 1987; Hornung et al. 2025) is visible in these expressions. Empirically, the authors analyzed the hearings related to the 2021 Arkansas bill, HB1570, a gender-affirming care ban in the US. They find that coalitions can be empirically identified by self-expressed emotions and beliefs as well as by the respective ascriptions of their allies and opponents and that coalitions are more negative than positive towards opponents, supporting the hypothesis on the existence of a Devil Shift between opponents in contentious policy debates. Remaining with the issue of gender policy, the article by Asticher and Sager (2024) investigates whether gender equality frames significantly influence the support for economic relief policies. The authors conducted a survey experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic to analyze whether the use of different gender equality and universal frames about two different economic relief policies had a significant effect on public policy support, thereby contributing to research on framing effects on policy acceptance conducted in other policy areas, like spatial planning (Pleger et al. 2018; Wicki et al. 2021). Interestingly, they find that gender framing has no significant impact, but that the support for public policies depends rather on the crisis context and concrete policy measures and its target group. A policy measure that foresees an allowance for parents with a loss of income receives less support than a policy measure focused on an increase of short-time work compensation. When mentioning the crisis context, the levels of support further converge. Surprising results are not just part of research processes but also of policy processes. The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) is a theoretical framework that focuses on the specific situational constellations that give way to policy change (Herweg et al. 2023; Zahariadis et al. 2023; DeLeo et al. 2024; Øvald 2024). The article by von Malmborg (2025) applies the MSF to analyze the adoption of the FuelEU Maritime regulation. It outlines how the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 presented a policy window that was used by the NGO Transport & Environment as a policy entrepreneur to compete against the European Commission as a policy entrepreneur advocating for a different policy proposal. Thereby, the article adds to research on policy entrepreneurs and their success in policy processes (Cairney 2018; Arnold et al. 2024; Petridou et al. 2025), but also to applications of the MSF to the EU level and in highly politicized contexts (Goyal 2021; Herweg 2016; van den Dool 2023). The last four papers of this issue contribute to understanding the role of narratives and framing in science communication. Kirschke and Kosow (2025) explore whether and how scientists make sense of the “wickedness” (Rittel and Webber 1973), and thus, (re-)structure the problems they study when communicating with citizens. Applying a most similar systems comparative design, the authors interviewed project coordinators from 20 participatory science communication projects across disciplines under the same German funding initiative. The semi-structured interviews included open and closed questions as well as short surveys on three dimensions of wickedness, that is, the level of conflict, complexity, and uncertainty (Head 2008; Kirschke et al. 2019). The results show that, despite rather high levels of wickedness and a range of reported issues across all three dimensions, this complexity is only partly translated into science communication practice. Rather, science communicators tend to “tame” the wickedness of problems by presenting them as dismantled, easier comprehensible issues while focusing on target group specific framing and small-scale activities to raise public engagement for the problem under study. These insights also contribute to the broader debate on the intermediary role of scientists as, for instance, analysts, mediators, or problem sensors (Hoppe and Turnbull 2024). The paper by Christensen and Lægreid (2025) examines policy debate from 2018 to 2023 surrounding the introduction of the highly contentious “salmon tax” in Norway, a ground rent tax on aquacultural firms. Drawing on reputation theory (Maor et al. 2013; Wæraas and Maor 2014; Maor 2020) and Carpenter and Krause's (2012) categorization of performative, moral, procedural, and technical reputation, the authors analyze the strategic communication and reputational management of the government and the opposing coalition of salmon farmers and allied stakeholders. The analysis of policy documents and media coverage confirms that reputation acts as a crucial resource amid conflicting narratives. For instance, aquaculture companies criticized the government's lack of transparency in the policy process and presented their proposal as threatening to economic stability, job security, and innovation. The government, to prevent damage to its reputation, used a moral-collective argument, framing the tax as fair for the sector and societally appropriate. This convinced one opposition party to change sides. This shows that narratives do not merely reflect stakeholder interests but also shape coalition alignments and legitimacy struggles. The authors conclude that reputation management is inherently political, as it is deeply embedded in the broader coalition dynamics. Klatt and Blum (2025) examine how the use of scientific evidence in policy narratives evolves during crises, using school shutdowns in New York City amid the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study. Drawing on the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF, Jones and McBeth 2010; Jones et al. 2023), the authors analyze 163 policy narratives from Twitter/X and press releases from various actors, comparing the rhetorical use of evidence during the first shutdown in March 2020 and the second in November 2020. In doing so, the authors put a special emphasis on the role of timing in changing narratives throughout “phases of the disaster cycle” (Crow et al. 2017, 633). Their central finding is that while the availability, certainty, and use of scientific evidence increased over time, its narrative function was primarily strategic, serving blame avoidance and justifications to support predefined policy solutions rather than reflecting a deepening evidence base. The study identifies a notable rise in the reliance on statistics such as positivity rates in the second shutdown, while expert opinion was considered less. Overall, the authors conclude that crisis-driven policymaking tends to foster instrumental rather than deliberative use of evidence, with implications for transparency and democratic accountability. Contributing to the literature on advocacy coalitions' knowledge exchange and policy learning (Nowlin 2024; Radaelli and Zaki 2024; von Malmborg 2024), Lee et al. (2025) examine how power imbalances shape the reciprocal sharing of scientific and technical information in adversarial policy networks. The authors build on social exchange theory (Blau 1964; Emerson 1976; Cook et al. 2013) and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF, Sabatier 1987; Nohrstedt et al. 2023) to study the relationship between relative political influence and reciprocal information exchange as well as the moderating effect of trust, shared policy beliefs, and informal collaboration. Using network visualization and quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) multiple regression analyses of survey and interview data, the study examines a network of 25 policy actors in the hydraulic fracturing policy subsystem in a mid-size city in New York. The results reveal that power asymmetries indeed suppress reciprocal information flows; however, this effect can be mitigated when actors across power divides trust each other, as has been shown by previous research (Leifeld and Schneider 2012; Sandström et al. 2021). The analysis reveals that shared policy beliefs do not significantly moderate this relationship, while informal collaboration sometimes exacerbates rather than alleviates imbalance.