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Abstract Background The sudden emergence of COVID-19 in 2020 demonstrated that Europe was not prepared for a public health crisis like this pandemic. In the European Union, matters of health have remained primarily under the jurisdiction of individual Member States. However, certain events, such as the Kohll-Decker ruling on free mobility of health services and the COVID-19 pandemic, compelled the EU to address health matters in border regions. This study examines how EU policies address public health in border regions. To that end, we have drawn from border studies, a field that provides insight into the fluidity and complexity of borders in everyday life. Besides that we used constructivist policy studies as a lens for the analysis of EU policy documents. Methods A policy discourse analysis was conducted to explore how European policy addresses the development of a transnational, European public health in border regions. Key European policy documents published between 2002 and 2027 were analysed to understand how policies are constructed and problems are framed. The analysis was guided by research questions and the theoretical approach. Results The analysis reveals that, while having limited competences in the field of health care, the EU is slowly developing a rationale and a knowledge base to increase its competences in health care. It also shows that in the field of public health, the EU argues for addressing health determinants and promoting healthy lifestyles, though it does not address health promotion in border regions. The EU’s authority in public health in border regions revolves primarily around addressing physical, biological and chemical threats rather than social health problems. Conclusion Though the EU has carefully developed a transnational perspective on health care, the EU has not developed any authority with respect to transnational public health. Though public health and health promotion in border regions have been confronted with specific challenges, neither specific Member States nor the EU have a transnational collaborative perspective that does justice to the characteristics of border regions. When it comes to public health in border regions, there is no European mindset as yet.

Background: The sudden emergence of COVID-19 in 2020 demonstrated that Europe was not prepared for a public health crisis like this pandemic. In the European Union, matters of health have remained primarily under the jurisdiction of individual Member States. However, certain events, such as the Kohll-Decker ruling on free mobility of health services and the COVID-19 pandemic, compelled the EU to address health matters in border regions. This study examines how EU policies address public health in border regions. To that end, we have drawn from border studies, a field that provides insight into the fluidity and complexity of borders in everyday life. Besides that we used constructivist policy studies as a lens for the analysis of EU policy documents. Methods: A policy discourse analysis was conducted to explore how European policy addresses the development of a transnational, European public health in border regions. Key European policy documents published between 2002 and 2027 were analysed to understand how policies are constructed and problems are framed. The analysis was guided by research questions and the theoretical approach. Results: The analysis reveals that, while having limited competences in the field of health care, the EU is slowly developing a rationale and a knowledge base to increase its competences in health care. It also shows that in the field of public health, the EU argues for addressing health determinants and promoting healthy lifestyles, though it does not address health promotion in border regions. The EU's authority in public health in border regions revolves primarily around addressing physical, biological and chemical threats rather than social health problems. Conclusion: Though the EU has carefully developed a transnational perspective on health care, the EU has not developed any authority with respect to transnational public health. Though public health and health promotion in border regions have been confronted with specific challenges, neither specific Member States nor the EU have a transnational collaborative perspective that does justice to the characteristics of border regions. When it comes to public health in border regions, there is no European mindset as yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Since the beginning of the twenty-first century and after two turning point events – 09-11 terrorist attacks and the ‘Arab spring’ – both migration control and democracy promotion became central issues within EU foreign policy, in particular to what concern its relations with the southern Mediterranean neighbourhood. However, although many authors allude to the relation between these two policy dimensions, little is known about their linkage. On the one hand, the debate about EU external migration policies narratives has revolved mainly around the migration-security and migration-development nexus. On the other, whereas the developmental paradigm has dominated the root-causes approach little attention has been given to its political dimension. This article aims to overcome these limitations through exploring these other nexus: the one between these policies and the democratization of southern Mediterranean countries. To investigate this nexus I follow a Narrative Policy Analysis approach - the most suitable for investigating issues of high complexity, uncertainty and polarization, which seems to be precisely the case of EU external migration policies. Hence, drawing on longitudinal and interpretative content analysis of EU official documents covering the period between 1995 and 2018, this study seeks to expose the main narratives casted by the EU on the issue and to identify if there has been consistence or change in the stories and arguments over time and in particular, before and after the ‘Arab spring’. Ultimately, the goal was to confirm the presence of this nexus by exposing its complexity and trying to understand its configuration. This is considered as an important step towards further disentangling the logics and impacts of the externalization of EU migration policies towards its Southern Mediterranean neighbourhood.

Background: Stories are a natural and powerful way for humans to make sense of complex situations. Prior research suggests that when people are faced with complex problems, like underrepresentation in engineering, they construct and defer to stories, sometimes even in the face of contradicting evidence, as a basis for decision making and action. Purpose/Hypothesis: We examined the public discourse to identify stories about underrepresentation in engineering, and about engineering more broadly, that inform and underwrite efforts to address the dual problem of a general lack of interest in engineering careers and a lack of diversity in engineering graduates and professionals. Design/Method: Drawing on the theory of framing and concepts from narrative policy analysis (NPA), we qualitatively analyzed one year of online news articles (from August 2011 to August 2012) sourced from a news briefing service for engineering educators. Results: We describe five dominant stories about engineering that define the field in terms of math and science, building things, the need for societal appreciation, diversity-driven innovation, and hard-earned career rewards, respectively. These stories share a common premise—that a chronic shortage of engineers threatens the economic growth and international competitiveness of the United States. Each story includes explanations for perceived low levels of interest in the field and recommendations to address this problem. We note that increasing the participation of groups from diverse ethnic backgrounds was not a prominent theme in the discourse we analyzed compared to, for example, attracting more women or increasing the overall number of young people who are interested in engineering careers. Consistent with NPA, we also describe a nonstory that critiques the premise of the dominant stories. Conclusions: We discuss how the dominant stories reflect a particular set of values and practices, centered on competition, economic gain, and the design of technological artifacts that, in turn, shape efforts to attract, educate, and retain students. We further discuss how alternative narratives may open up new opportunities for systemic, cultural change in engineering education with important implications for diversifying the field.

The ontological and epistemological footing of narrative policy research remains uncertain. In this article, interpretive approaches to policy narrative research are advanced and scientism is eschewed. Other themes in the policy narrative literature that serve as points of divergence and/or convergence include: 1) The structural features of a policy narrative; 2) The semiotic nature of policy narratives; 3) Epistemological politics; 4) Emancipatory politics within the literature; and 5) The idea that narratives are a force in themselves, that is, that narratives have agency. In addition, this article argues for a curatorial approach to redescribing policy narratives, and for an evolutionary conception of policy change and political contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the meaning of European Union's (EU) public administration reform (PAR) assistance to the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries by identifying various narratives of good governance (GG) that interact between the actors who inhabit the EaP policy space. Interpretive policy analysis is employed for empirical research of the EaP in Georgia and Armenia with the aim of understanding the prospects and limitations of PAR assistance in the EU's external relations. The findings show the narrative nature of GG promotion and indicate several competing narratives of PAR in the EaP policy field. While the EU's narrative of legally constituted state essentializes and universalizes statism, legalism, and economism as constitutive elements of GG in the EaP, the contending stories and nonstories of reforming PA put forward by policy-relevant stakeholders also rely on alternative meanings of GG. The article captures and deconstructs those narratives and discusses policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century and after two turning point events – 09-11 terrorist attacks and the 'Arab spring' – both migration control and democracy promotion became central issues within EU foreign policy, in particular to what concern its relations with the southern Mediterranean neighbourhood. However, although many authors allude to the relation between these two policy dimensions, little is known about their linkage. On the one hand, the debate about EU external migration policies narratives has revolved mainly around the migration-security and migration-development nexus. On the other, whereas the developmental paradigm has dominated the root-causes approach little attention has been given to its political dimension. This article aims to overcome these limitations through exploring these other nexus: the one between these policies and the democratization of southern Mediterranean countries. To investigate this nexus I follow a Narrative Policy Analysis approach - the most suitable for investigating issues of high complexity, uncertainty and polarization, which seems to be precisely the case of EU external migration policies. Hence, drawing on longitudinal and interpretative content analysis of EU official documents covering the period between 1995 and 2018, this study seeks to expose the main narratives casted by the EU on the issue and to identify if there has been consistence or change in the stories and arguments over time and in particular, before and after the 'Arab spring'. Ultimately, the goal was to confirm the presence of this nexus by exposing its complexity and trying to understand its configuration. This is considered as an important step towards further disentangling the logics and impacts of the externalization of EU migration policies towards its Southern Mediterranean neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive debate on the influence of discourse on environmental politics, research has yet fully to reveal how discursive processes affect policy change on issues like climate change. Discourse‐related approaches are also often criticised for critiquing current policy situations but paying limited attention to utilising communication studies to enable policy change. This article explores how narrative policy analysis—a linguistic technique for analysing policy issues where uncertainty and complexity have bred polarisation—can be utilised to recast disputes over climate policy in ways that facilitate compromise and policy change. As a focus, we examine disputes surrounding the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, drawing on elite interviews and documentary analysis to analyse contrasting narratives about the scheme's effectiveness in reducing greenhouse‐gas emissions. The first portrays New Zealand as a trade‐exposed country that makes only minor contributions to global emissions to defend cautious and low‐cost policy. Its rival advocates stronger domestic action even if this entails higher costs. Mapping the contentions, assumptions, and characterisations in these narratives, combined with analysis of recent policy developments, reveal important insights on how narrative policy analysis can be used to enhance understandings of policy change, particularly, the difficulties of attacking opponents' "anchoring narratives"; how analysing minor narratives and differences in narrative alliances can assist in overcoming barriers to policy change; how narrative changes and "narrative diplomacy" prepare the ground for policy change; and the importance of examining issues neglected in polarised debates on climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition to motherhood is a time of tremendous change, during which maternal subjects experience important shifts in their relationships with family, friends, employers, and state. Parental leave policies have potential to mitigate some of these changes, contributing positively to health and economic outcomes. Indeed, such policies have been identified as essential for achieving gender equality, serving to address both recognition and redistributive claims. In this paper, we explore parental leave policy through the lens of first time mothers in Canada, where two distinct policy regimes coexist. Using narrative analysis, we examine the ways in which the transition to motherhood is embodied and enacted through policy experiences. The stories we uncover, stories of helplessness, of control and resistance, and of stymied progress, illuminate how leave policies differently position maternal subjects in complex social settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy actors and coalitions use narratives to frame higher education policy problems and solutions. In this article, I illustrate how I employed narrative policy analysis (NPA) in practice to demonstrate how state policy actors and coalitions created policy storylines that offered social orientation, reassurance, or guidance for a stubborn higher education policy problem in one state. I begin the article with a review of NPA, followed by a discussion of the methods and tools that guided my analysis and scholars interested in NPA can employ. Next, I provide a brief overview of the policy problem context followed by a detailed description and examples of analysis for policy artifacts and the construction of policy storylines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative research is in vogue in the social sciences. A current debate in philosophy of economics concerns the role of storytelling in economic modelling, and a growing research programme in policy studies investigates the influence of stories on policy outcomes. These two streams of research have yet to be connected in an investigation of how scientific models, in addition to delivering numerical results, also shape policy through the stories that are told with them. This article addresses that gap, arguing that stories produced with integrated assessment models of global climate change are particular types of policy narratives. An analytical framework for studying their composition and content is suggested. The narrative analysis of modelled stories illuminates some of the models' underpinning values and beliefs. These values and beliefs influence the normative, policy-relevant conclusions generated with the models. For illustration, the framework is applied to the analysis of two variations of the Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy model that are used to tell different stories about climate justice and climate policy. Key policy insights IAMs consist of mathematical structures and the stories told by manipulating these structures. There is an intricate but not fully deterministic relationship between IAM structures and stories. Examining both these elements contributes to our understanding of the models' role in climate governance. Appreciation of modelled stories may facilitate more effective use of IAMs in the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article furthers previous attempts at integrating narratology in policy analysis. Embracing an open-ended definition of narrative, it stresses the importance of maintaining distinct narrative levels and, more generally, of taking into account the pragmatic dimension of narration as an activity, including the often-implicit role and focalization of the policy analyst. Developing a conceptual analogy between storytelling and the exercise of power, it argues for a critical use of practical imagination in ‘cold’ situations of ‘narrative salience’, characterized by the absence of controversy or uncertainty, an uneven distribution of the power of scenarization. These propositions for a ‘revisited’ approach to policy narratives, equidistant from the positivist and post-positivist dichotomy, are tested on the case of ‘narrative salience’ where a particular storyline, national innovation systems, is so dominant that there appears to be no ‘counter-story’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralization has been the most remarkable reform process that has occurred in the institutional arrangements and framework in Italy, a country of contrasts and contradictions with neglected – but increasing – forest resources and a limited range of actors’ networks able to make the sector more modern and dynamic. On the basis of a qualitative-based document analysis and observations collected in three case-study Regions (Veneto, Molise and Sicily), our paper aims to provide interpretations of the failures in network forest governance in Italy connected with the decentralization policy process. Our findings show that Italy is experiencing several of the recurrent problems highlighted for decentralization in other countries, including difficulties in creating the conditions for more network-based governance initiatives with the involvement of local community and civil society. Problems have been exacerbated by the financial and political crisis and the consequent spending review. However, some encouraging signals also exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments have policies explicitly directed at the integration of migrants. This article addresses how policymakers and politicians privilege certain constructions of the social relationship between migrants and the majority society (expressed through narratives of ‘integration’), while making it seem as if they were presenting facts in their policies. These constructions provide the justifications for adopting a direction in policy-making over other alternatives. This article sets to analyse comparatively how policy actors in two urban contexts construct migrants' integration through policy narratives and how, within this, they evaluate migrants as ‘integrated’ and ‘non-integrated’. Through narrative analysis, the article sheds light on how migrants are positioned by political institutions within the normative order of the society in which they live. Furthermore, it shows that local policy-making is shaped by national citizenship regimes, models of steering, welfare regimes and stories about the nation and its people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article illuminates and discusses how three contemporary Norwegian White papers and the OECD document Improving School Leadership: Policy and Practice narrate the relationship between school leadership and student learning outcomes. First, the article describes the identified dominant policy narrative connecting pupils' learning outcomes to school leadership, before the narrative techniques used to make this connection are explored in more detail. The analysis shows how a dominant public narrative describes the relationship between school leadership and pupils' learning outcomes as a hierarchical one-way chain of influence, and not as a dialogical and dynamic relationship where the elements are interdependent and influence each other. The one-way, hierarchical chain of influence constructed by the narrative plot meets the need policy has to reduce complexity in order to express governmental goals and distribute responsibility. The linearity and causality embedded in the policy narrative produces an understanding of the relationship between school leadership and learning outcomes that also signals a narrow range of options available to school leaders and teachers. By proposing a limited range of teacher- and leader practices as significant for the fulfilment of the policy goals, the narrative plot also constructs a relatively narrow frame for the professional work of school leaders and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some commentators have responded to the diminishing possibility of limiting warming to a global average of 2°C by stressing the need for immediate and radical cuts in emissions. Other commentators have responded by asking whether we should abandon the 2°C target altogether. This paper intervenes in this emerging debate by asking who should be involved in deciding what is to be done. It is argued that deciding the future of the 2°C target should be conducted through democratic deliberation in order to build awareness of the climate risks that radical emission cuts are seeking to avoid. Allowing subordinate perspectives into the newly emergent 2°C policy space will allow for a co-production of knowledge about humanity’s options at this historic moment. This process is intended to build positive public engagement with the radical emissions reduction plan and widen the palette of socially acceptable policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of mercury in artisanal small-scale gold mining has generated intense debate because of its deleterious effects on human health. A narrative policy analysis of artisanal gold mining debates in Ghana’s parliament was carried out in this study. The results show that civil society and policy makers use various rhetorical idioms particularly rhetoric of loss, entitlement, endangerment, unreason, and calamity to support claims-making in the artisanal mining debates. This reveals the co-mingling of politics and science in environmental policymaking. Although the science of mercury has remained almost the same over time in the debates, the understanding of how knowledge is produced has certainly changed over time. The political and economic history of gold mining indicates that colonial and post-independence policies partly account for the persistence and limited integration of artisanal gold mining in the national economy and, by extension, the persistence of mercury pollution in mining communities. Consistently, opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) argued in favor of artisanal miners, unlike their counterparts on the other side of the political divide (ruling government) who virtually sought to blame the victims (artisanal gold miners). However, whenever political change of power occurred, these very same MPs changed their rhetoric from pro-artisanal mining to anti-artisanal mining. Furthermore, anti-artisanal gold mining remarks from government lulls in election years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies can be analyzed as stories about who and what is valued within society. Immigration policy (and immigration policy narratives) offer particularly clear renderings of such stories. This article critically adopts the approach of narrative policy analysis to explore the core assumptions that are shared by apparently opposed policy narratives of immigration policy in contemporary New Zealand. It theorizes these shared assumptions as a policy (pre) meta-narrative that is logically related to discourses of national identity, and that effects specific silences and exclusions. These public silences, it is argued, serve to damagingly limit and distort the field of policy debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate. To date, however, literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention. This article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of Finland's Committee on sustainable consumption and production. Narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases. By tracing and comparing the different stories, non-stories and counterstories in the debate, the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions. We found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth-bound economic system. From the perspective of narrative policy analysis, however, this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which, paradoxically, leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories. We suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is essential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability. Robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The European Union's eastward enlargement cannot be explained by functionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, which are the dominant rational choice theories about the developmental dynamics and governance of the European Union as a novel polity. These theories fail to explain how a process, supposedly characterized from its early stages by states bargaining to maximize their benefits, ends up with actual enlargement (in 2004 and 2007). Indeed, the high uncertainty and complexity that surrounded the EU negotiations made it difficult for the governments to define their preferences and narrow down the uncertainty. Precisely because of this, agenda-setting and problem framing played a substantial role in the pre-negotiation phase where the use of competing frames influenced the negotiation outcome. Therefore, in this paper, we explore social constructivist alternative theoretical approaches: does a theory based on identity formation, narrativity and problem structuring fare any better? More specifically: may we define a set of mechanisms which connects identity, through narratives and problem structuring, to a plausible eastward enlargement explanation? Applying social identity theory and problem structuring theory to the agenda-setting and negotiation process, we compare the policy frames and narratives present in the accession processes of 2004 and 2007. Emery Roe's method of narrative policy analysis is used for cross-case comparison, in which the 2007 cohort of accession states, Bulgaria and Romania, is treated as a least likely case. By linking the concept of narrative, as a vehicle to construct European identities, to that of enlargement, we show how the EU ended up trapped in the rhetorical cage of its own founding myth and the pan-European rhetoric of membership open to any European state respecting its founding principles. Only within the rhetorically constructed constraints do rational bargaining strategies gain plausibility -- reasoning serves only to justify a previous choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public involvement in environmental policy analysis and planning may be in some cases for the purpose of incorporating public values and preferences in decision making. Narrative policy analysis is put forward as a method, which is particularly useful to the practice of public involvement for maintaining a juxtaposition of views throughout the policy development and planning process. It is argued that this process may facilitate the consideration of public preferences in a decision-making process. This can be achieved through the joint development of a meta-narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade global health partnerships (GHPs) have been formed to provide a better policy response to Africa's health problems. This paper uses narrative policy analysis to explain the historical processes and challenges facing national and global health policy in facilitating access to medication in African countries. An overview of the historical context of events leading to the creation of GHPs is followed by a content and context analysis of two GHPs – Roll Back Malaria partnership and the Accelerating Access Initiative. The historical narratives implicitly reflect the context in which policy decisions are produced and implemented. The deployment of GHPs in Africa reflects a convergence of the competing and conflicting narratives, in relating to strategies previously promoted by various multilateral and bilateral development agencies, international civil society organizations, and the private commercial industry to facilitate access to medication. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The policy change literature is contradictory about the role the media plays in policy change: a conduit for policy participants, with media accounts transmitting multiple policy beliefs of those involved in policy debates or a contributor in the policy process, with media accounts supplying consistent policy beliefs with congruent narrative framing strategies to construct a policy story. The purpose of this study is to empirically test whether the role of the media is that of a conduit or contributor in the policy change process. This study tests whether there are differences in policy beliefs and narrative framing strategies between local and national print media coverage of two contentious policy issues in the Greater Yellowstone Area between 1986 and 2006, that of snowmobile access and wolf reintroduction. In the Greater Yellowstone Area policy arena, local media accounts are believed to be aligned with the Old West Advocacy Coalition, whereas the national media accounts are thought to be part of the New West Advocacy Coalition. With a methodology informed by narrative policy analysis, one hundred seventy five local and national print newspaper accounts were content analyzed to determine whether these media accounts were policy narratives, with embedded policy beliefs and narrative framing strategies. The results indicate that there are statistical differences between local and national media coverage for five of the seven hypotheses. Media accounts are generally policy stories, suggesting that the media’s role is more of a contributor than a conduit in the policy change process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative policy analysis and policy change theory rarely intersect in the literature. This research proposes an integration of these approaches through an empirical analysis of the narrative political strategies of two interest groups involved in policy debate and change over an eight-year period in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Three research questions are explored: (i) Is it possible to reconcile these seemingly disparate approaches? (ii) Do policy narrative strategies explain how interest groups expand or contain policy issues despite divergent core policy beliefs? (3) How does this new method of analysis add to the literature? One hundred and five documents from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Blue Ribbon Coalition were content analyzed for policy narrative strategies: identification of winners and losers, diffusion or concentration of costs and benefits, and use of condensation symbols, policy surrogates, and science. Five of seven hypotheses were confirmed while controlling for presidential administration and technical expertise. The results indicate that interest groups do use distinctive narrative strategies in the turbulent policy environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goals of this paper are to explore the utility of a narrative policy analysis, to locate the origins of the dependency narrative in poverty policy, examine social work's contribution to the narrative, and to discuss the potential for advancing a strong counter-narrative, organized within a trauma paradigm. This paper incorporates a historical review of the development of the dependency narrative and the construction of the deviant ‘welfare queen.’ The conclusion offers an example of a compelling counter-narrative integrating economic/structural violence (poverty) and the trauma paradigm and offers a framework for reconceptualizing social welfare policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article utilizes narrative policy analysis to examine social justice narratives embedded within No Child Left Behind with respect to economic inequities. It juxtaposes national educational policy dialogues against the stories of educators working within an elementary school that serves a high-poverty community. The qualitative research findings suggest that it is vitally important for policymakers to acknowledge and value the challenges faced by teachers and staff who serve children whose families lack proper healthcare, affordable and quality early childhood education, nutrition, literacy, safety, and livable wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of Greater Yellowstone interest groups uses a mixed methodology that addresses methodological criticisms of narrative policy analysis. Three research questions guide the research: (1) Is it possible to connect narratives found in public consumption documents to interest group policy beliefs? (2) Can narratives be made falsifiable? (3) Does a quantified method add to the usefulness and explanatory power of narrative policy analysis? Seventy-five public consumption documents from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Blue Ribbon Coalition were content analyzed for policy beliefs. The results indicate statistically significant differences between the two groups for all three policy beliefs: federalism, science, and the relationship between humans and nature. Despite these statistically significant results, some of the findings run counter to expectations. The implications of the study's methodological approach are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Analyzing narratives is important but has been neglected in agricultural policy analysis. • We combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with Narrative Policy Analysis. • We identified two advocacy coalitions, reflecting a dichotomy in perspectives. • One tells straightforward stories, while the other one formulates mostly critiques. • Successful meta-narratives, which could bridge the dichotomy, are yet to be developed. While there is consensus on the need to promote agricultural development in Africa to achieve food security and use agriculture as an engine of growth, there is a lively policy debate on appropriate policies to achieve this goal. In the past two decades, there has been a revival of policies that favor government support to agriculture in Africa, especially in the form of input subsidies. Such policies have remained highly controversial, reflecting a long-standing dichotomy in agricultural development policy between those who consider subsidies as essential to increase agricultural productivity and those who criticize such state-focused policy instruments and favor market-oriented approaches. In the literature, agricultural policy choices have mainly been analyzed using models that capture economic or political interests. Some studies have focused on policy beliefs to explain the dichotomy, but what has not received much attention is the use of language in agricultural policy discourses, in spite of increasing evidence that narratives matter for policy-making. To address this gap, we combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with Narrative Policy Analysis to examine agricultural policy discourses in Senegal. Applying a cluster analysis to coded transcripts of in-depth interviews with policy stakeholders, we identified two opposing advocacy coalitions and labelled them "agricultural support coalition" and an "agricultural support critique coalition". An analysis of the argumentative structure of the narratives of each coalition revealed interesting differences: while the agricultural support coalition told a range of straight-forward stories that explain how government support, such as input subsidies, addresses the problem of low agricultural productivity, the opposing coalition formulated their stories mostly in the form of critiques rather than telling equally straight-forward counter-stories. Based on the analysis, we examine possible meta -narratives, which take arguments of both coalitions into account and may have the potential to overcome the long-standing dichotomy in agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]