Kristin L. Olofsson

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has proven to be a successful analytical tool for examining the role of narratives within the policy process; however, the analysis of plot is still understudied. This gap persists due to difficulty in developing valid and reliable measures of plot and a lack of plot operationalizations using longitudinal data. Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's thesis on the shape of stories, this study explores the extent to which policy narratives assume a generalizable shape and how that shape can contribute to our understanding of the policy process. Using 2014–2020 news media coverage of Ghana's energy crisis, we reconceptualize plot as a temporal story arc captured through the media's affective evaluations of policy events, reflecting how the policy problem is framed across time. To achieve this, we apply sentiment analysis to news media coverage of policy events and aggregate them into a sentiment score. This score is then plotted over time to visually depict the shape of Ghana's energy crisis story. Our results reveal that this shape closely mirrors Vonnegut's Man in Hole story, suggesting that policy narratives may adhere to generalizable story arcs. Theoretically, these results contribute to our understanding of time and sentiment within the NPF, opening avenues for future research. Methodologically, this paper provides an empirical blueprint for capturing and coding plot variables in a reliable and replicable manner.

The policy process literature has long theorized about the role of policy entrepreneurs, whom Paul Cairney calls the “hero… who knows that the pursuit of ambitious aims such as ‘evidence‐based policymaking’ requires framing a problem, having a solution ready, and exploiting the motive and opportunity of policymakers to select it” (2018, 199). The research agenda on policy entrepreneurs also holds great potential for another type of policy actor that we aim to introduce into the policy process lexicon: the polarization entrepreneur. These polarization entrepreneurs aim not to resolve the specific policy conflict at hand, but to advance broader strategic goals, such as solidifying their ideological base, expanding their influence across several policy subsystems, or gaining electoral advantage. We introduce the polarization entrepreneur as a policy actor who strategizes within policy spaces in ways we have not yet fully comprehended or theorized. We thus draw on the Multiple Streams Literature (MSF), the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) literature, as well as the political rise of Donald Trump to theorize about how these polarization entrepreneurs operate. We suggest a research agenda that presents a wealth of opportunity for policy scholars to better understand the policy system of our day.

The Narrative Policy Framework's (NPF) media hypothesis posits that the media are policy actors, actively contributing to policy debates. However, recent critics have argued that the hypothesis is potentially “vapid” due to its failure to contextualize when, how, and why the media contribute to policy processes. This study considers the merit of this critique through an empirical case study of Ghana's energy crisis. Using a content analysis of news coverage from two leading Ghanaian media organizations—one privately owned and one state‐owned—we examine when and how the media act as contributors. Employing a longitudinal design, we use established NPF variables to track the narrative form and content of news published between 2014 and 2017—the peak of the Ghanaian energy crisis. In further exploring why the media contribute, we consider the Ghanaian media context using Hallin and Mancini's Comparative Media Models. Our findings indicate that, contrary to much of the existing NPF literature, the Ghanaian media outlets primarily served as conduits. However, they assumed more active contributor roles during periods of intensified crisis and political transition—particularly the private news outlet. We also find that the form of media contribution varies: the private outlet emphasized causal stories and blame, while the state‐owned outlet prioritized policy solutions and heroization. These findings have implications not only for the NPF but also for the broader understanding of the media's role in the policy process.

In an era increasingly affected by natural and human-caused disasters, the role of social media in disaster communication has become ever more critical. Despite substantial research on social media use during crises, a significant gap remains in detecting crisis-related misinformation. Detecting deviations in information is fundamental for identifying and curbing the spread of misinformation. This study introduces a novel Information Switching Pattern Model to identify dynamic shifts in perspectives among users who mention each other in crisisrelated narratives on social media. These shifts serve as evidence of crisis misinformation affecting user-mention network interactions. The study utilizes advanced natural language processing, network science, and census data to analyze geotagged tweets related to compound disaster events in Oklahoma in 2022. The impact of misinformation is revealed by distinct engagement patterns among various user types, such as bots, private organizations, non-profits, government agencies, and news media throughout different disaster stages. These patterns show how different disasters influence public sentiment, highlight the heightened vulnerability of mobile home communities, and underscore the importance of education and transportation access in crisis response. Understanding these engagement patterns is crucial for detecting misinformation and leveraging social media as an effective tool for risk communication during disasters

This article analyses the preferred advocacy strategies of industry representatives and environmentalists in the conflict over oil and gas drilling in the state of Colorado. Environmental policy, social movement and nonprofit literatures describe the advocacy strategies of those seeking to influence policy. While early work assumed that actors with greater resources rely on inside tactics and those with fewer resources rely on outside tactics, more recent studies suggest that policy actors use an array of tactics. To build on recent research and improve our understanding of strategic decisions, this study examines the role that venues play in policy actors’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their advocacy tactics. Specifically, this research compares self-reported strategy effectiveness among members of the oil and gas industry with representatives of environmental groups, and asks whether effectiveness is moderated by perceptions of venue viability. Data derive from two waves of surveys of oil and gas policy actors in Colorado. Results hold implications for stakeholder engagement and suggest that venue perception is relevant to strategy effectiveness, but only within regulatory venues. In this way, the article makes a clear contribution to the interest group literature as well as the environmental policy subsystem literature.

Policy processes are ongoing phenomena without beginning or end. Accordingly, a major focus of research has been on questions of stability and change. This paper continues in this tradition by examining advocacy coalition stability, belief change, and learning. This paper draws on three waves of policy actor surveys that compare panel and non‐panel samples. The data were collected in 2013, 2015, and 2017 in the context of oil and gas development in Colorado, USA. The findings mostly confirm that coalitions and beliefs tend to be stable and that learning leans toward reinforcement rather than change in beliefs. However, although rare, some instances of belief change, change in coalition membership, and changing policy positions occur. This paper makes theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of stability, change, and reinforcement of advocacy coalitions and their beliefs and charges policy scholars to look more at the exceptions to the evidence rather than the confirmations.

In high‐conflict policy debates, individuals often make strategic decisions about the ways in which they engage in efforts to influence the direction of the debate. Some individuals act to expand the scope of the conflict, whereas others would prefer to contain the scope of the conflict and maintain status quo. This study empirically examines the relationship between activities of political engagement and goals of conflict expansion or containment in a particular setting in which there are clear “winners” and “losers.” This research first explores the tactics an individual undertakes as either conflict expansion or containment. The patterns uncovered are then tested against sectoral affiliation, to draw conclusions about key factors that explain some variation in policy engagement. Findings confirm that there are predictable patterns to engagement decisions, paving the way for future testing in different policy arrangements.

This paper identifies the coalitions involved in the topic of shale oil and gas development in India and identifies the circumstances surrounding a change in policy in 2013 by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to promote shale exploration. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework as the theoretical lens, the data are collected primarily from newspaper articles from 2010 to 2015 to identify coalitions, including actors’ positions, priorities, and interactions. The findings show the presence of a dominant advocacy coalition in favor of shale oil and gas development with priorities about energy security and a regulatory framework. The findings indicate some internal coalition disagreement, but stronger internal coalition agreement. Policy change was preceded by a spike in disagreement internal to the dominant coalition. This paper shows how a change in a dominant coalition can precede a change in policy, offers a replicable method of identifying and measuring coalitions via newspaper content analysis, provides a rare application of the Advocacy Coalition Framework outside of North America and Western Europe, and provides evidence of support for shale oil and gas development in India.