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How are extensive internet control, surveillance and restricted online anonymity reconceptualized into virtues of effective state governance, rather than violations of civic rights? The Russian government has instrumentalized ostensibly sound legitimations - countering terrorist and extremist propaganda, combatting child pornography - to bring about a dramatic decline in internet freedom. While these policies have been widely studied, scholarship examining how the Russian government legitimates and cultivates popular support for restricting online freedoms remains scarce. This article therefore studies how restrictions of internet freedom are framed in political and media discourses. It focuses on the case of Telegram, a popular messaging application that was banned in Russia in April 2018 for its refusal to provide the FSB with access to encrypted messages in compliance with anti-terrorism legislation. It finds that media framing of the ban was more diverse than the official governmental line. While national security framing was important, the 'rule of law' frame occurred most frequently, and conspiracy framing was markedly infrequent.

This article investigates, through the theory of social construction and policy design, the feedforward effects of labeling on policy conflicts. It argues that such conflicts escalate when policymakers distinguish between more and less deserving and more and less powerful segments of the population. It draws on the empirical analysis of 32 narrative interviews with vital stakeholders in the conflict over the contested multibillion‐euro Oosterweelconnection highway in Antwerp (Belgium), as well as on the media analysis of 739 articles. According to such analyses, Flemish policymakers became increasingly hostile toward action groups as the latter moved beyond conventional policy‐making procedure, labeling them as a powerful but undeserving “vocal minority.” Meanwhile, they endorsed the Oosterweel policy, claiming that it represented an increasingly powerless but deserving “silent majority.” However, labeling action groups as powerful but undeserving and consequently dismissing them resulted in the escalation of a substantive policy conflict to a relational policy conflict, which became increasingly difficult to settle as parties fought each other rather than fighting over policies.

In response to the rising climatic impacts on worldwide urbanized deltas, the Netherlands has strategically and politically framed Dutch water management as a global water solution for improving water safety and flood protection in other countries such as Vietnam. Being renowned for its water management approach, the Netherlands is particularly active in sharing water knowledge, insights, and policies internationally. This paper connects a framing perspective to policy translation studies to understand the role of language and meaning-making in the cross-border travel of policies. Adopting a framing perspective, it presents four dimensions of water policy translation concerning how policy frames are being created and interpreted - during the cross-border travel. The paper follows the process of the Dutch water management approach being 'packaged' as global water solutions and 'translated' to inform the development of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta Plan of 2013. The results show that although similar concepts, metaphors and narratives could be witnessed in this translation process, the local use and interpretation of these concepts remain challenging. Inclusive engagement, shared and comprehensive understanding, and continuous exchange and learning processes could help to improve cross-border policy-making for sustainable delta management.

The present article introduces an original theoretical framework to investigate how public participation reframes governmental sustainability topics along four dimensions: exploration, prioritization, embedding, and integration. The literature highlights public participation as a strategic sustainability governance tool that can help governments extract local communities’ knowledge to better design policy. In light of this, the article proposes the participatory assessment grid (PAG) to assessing participatory contribution to framing sustainability. The present study adopts a topic detection method to gauging and comparing qualitatively and quantitatively the seven Veneto region participatory forums’ output. In so doing, the article tests the PAG and highlights the bottom-up contribution to the sustainability strategic plan formulation within the regional 2030 Agenda design. As the analysis reveals, participatory forums’ communicative content gives several potential contributions to government policy formulation that are drivers both to enhance public engagement and improve sustainability policy design.

The current pandemic challenged political leaders. As governments introduced containment policies, presidential approvals in several countries started to rise. This phenomenon brought back the discussion on the Rally-'round-the-Flag effect, which refers to the public's propensity to put aside political differences and support presidents during episodes of international crises. By focusing on four Latin American presidents, we analyze such effect and the conditions that mediate it, considering its significant variation in the region. We propose that the change in presidential popularity is short-lived and ultimately conditioned by the timing and stringency of the policy responses, the pandemic's framing, and the opposition's opportunities for policy criticism. La pandemia actual ha planteado importantes desafíos a los líderes políticos. A medida que los gobiernos introdujeron políticas de contención, la aprobación presidencial comenzó a subir en distintos países. Este fenómeno trajo de vuelta la discusión sobre el efecto "Rally-'round-the-Flag", es decir la tendencia de los ciudadanos a dejar a un lado las diferencias y apoyar a los gobiernos de forma unánime en los momentos de crisis. Al centrarnos en cuatro presidentes latinoamericanos, analizamos dicho efecto y las condiciones que lo median, considerando su variación significativa en la región. Luego, proponemos que, en última instancia, los cambios en popularidad son efímeros y están condicionados por la rigurosidad y prontitud de la respuesta, como se ha enmarcado o presentado la misma, y las oportunidades de la oposición para criticarla. A atual pandemia apresentou desafios significativos para os líderes políticos. À medida que os governos introduziram políticas de contenção, a aprovação presidencial começou a aumentar em diferentes países. Este fenômeno reacendeu a discussão sobre o efeito "Rally-'round-the-Flag". ou seja, a tendência dos cidadãos de colocar as diferenças de lado e apoiar os governos de forma unânime em tempos de crise. Ao nos concentrarmos em quatro presidentes latino-americanos, analisamos esse efeito e as condições que o mediam, considerando sua variação significativa na região. Propomos, em suma, que as mudanças na popularidade são efêmeras e condicionadas pelo rigor e rapidez da resposta, pelo seu enquadramento e pelas oportunidades para a oposição criticá-la.

Rhetoric is a way to explain policy problem framing by recognising the practical necessity to persuade audiences in contextual situations. Modern slavery and human trafficking is a complex and emotive problem, simplified through rhetorical demands to motivate an audience of supporters. This article analyses rhetoric by 212 UK anti-trafficking and anti-slavery non-government organisations (NGOs) to uncover rhetorical practices and their effects on policy framing, supplemented by archival research to compare past and present anti-slavery oratory. Our data show NGOs use rhetoric to motivate supporters and promote a humanitarian problem frame, in opposition to a state-driven security frame. Findings confirm other research in identifying an emphasis on female victims and on sexual over labour exploitation. Past and present rhetoric are equivalent in terms of liberal, Christian values (ethos) and appeals to pathos through sympathy for victims. Historical rhetoric is distinctive in arguing for the equal human status of slaves, whereas contemporary activists argue victims are denied agency. Contemporary rhetoric represses the question of migration, whereas past rhetoric is more deliberative. Rhetoric varies with the requirements of persuasion related to contextual distance, between unlike humans in the past, but in regard to geographical distance today.

This paper advocates for a new generation of social protection (SP) research that takes seriously the analysis of political and policy-making processes in the Global South. Based on qualitative research funded by the ESRC and Carnegie Corporation, it combines theoretical insights from social policy and critical policy analysis to highlight the importance of policy framing in shaping development and social welfare outcomes. Empirically, the broader research upon which the paper is based covers the broad range of social policy changes that have happened in the Middle East and North Africa region over the last decade. The critical policy approach adopted in this paper is important because of the endurance of SP as a global orientation in international development interventions at a time when its operationalisation in policy terms appears to be narrower than its professed goals. The paper categorises SP according to three orders of discourse: social risk management, social justice/social contracts, (“ex ante”) institutionalisation of social protection (specifically social assistance), in order to address areas of “discourse closure” (Veit-Wilson, 2000) in the conceptualisation of SP. On the basis of this categorisation, the paper proposes a framework for analysing SP that highlights the importance of three elements to aid SP policy operationalisation: (1) state-civil society relations in the provision of services; (2) the ethical and not only legal parameters of SP; (3) the enhancement of social cohesion as a final SP outcome. These three elements support a process-oriented analysis of SP encompassing policy actors, principles and goals that can better ascertain the long-term impact of SP on social policy agendas in the Global South.

Summary Some of the latest global paradigms in sustainable water governance revolve around ideas of promoting greater integration within policy implementation processes that impact on land and water. The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), seen by many as a ‘Sustainability Directive’, reflects this trend, and places particular emphasis on building linkages between water management and land use planning. This paper presents the results of a research project that examined this integrative vision in a real world setting – the emerging relationship between the WFD’s river basin management planning (RBMP) framework and the development planning (DP) system in Scotland. The project’s approach draws from interpretive policy analysis, and the results are based on analyses of key policy documents, as well as in-depth interviews, primarily with land use planning staff from local authorities, as well as other relevant public agencies such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). The results show how an overarching political objective of ‘increasing sustainable economic growth’ is significantly affecting stakeholders’ understandings of the RBMP-DP relationship, as well as their own roles and responsibilities within that relationship. This has created barriers to the deliberation and potential operationalisation of environmental limits to growth in the built environment, which may be skewing decision-making processes in a way that undermines the RBMP framework and its objectives of protecting and improving the water environment.