Government messaging about COVID-19 vaccination in Canada and Australia: a Narrative Policy Framework study

Background: Storytelling and narratives are critical components to public policy and have been central to public policy communicators throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Aim: This study applied the Narrative Policy Framework to compare and contrast the policy narratives of the Canadian and Australian Prime Ministers regarding COVID-19 vaccination. Methods: Official media releases, transcripts and speeches published on the websites of Prime Minister Morrison and Prime Minister Trudeau between 31 August 2020 and 10 September 2021 relating to COVID-19 vaccines were thematically analysed according to the Narrative Policy Framework. Results: The policy narratives of Scott Morrison and Justin Trudeau tended towards describing both governments as heroes for securing and rolling out vaccines. Trudeau tended to focus on the villain of COVID-19 while Morrison regularly described other countries as victims of COVID-19 to position Australia as superior in its decision-making. These findings also demonstrate how narratives shifted over time due to changing COVID-19 case numbers, emergence of rare complications associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine and as new information arose. Conclusion: These findings offer lessons for COVID-19 times as well as future pandemics and disease outbreaks by providing insight into how policy narratives influenced policy processes in both Australia and Canada.

Health Inequity and Institutional Ethnography: Mapping the Problem of Policy Change

Health equity (HE) is a central concern across multiple disciplines and sectors, including nursing. However, the proliferation of the term has not resulted in corresponding policymaking that leads to a clear reduction of health inequities. The goal of this paper is to use institutional ethnographic methods to map the social organization of HE policy discourses in Canada, a process that serves to reproduce existing relations of power that stymie substantive change in policy aimed at reducing health inequity. In nursing, institutional ethnography (IE) is described as a method of inquiry for taking sides in order to expose socially organized practices of power. Starting from the standpoints of HE policy advocates we explain the methods of IE, focusing on a stepwise description of theoretical and practical applications in the area of policymaking. Results are discussed in the context of three thematic areas: 1) bounding HE talk within biomedical imperialism, 2) situating racialization and marginalization as a subaltern space in HE discourses, and 3) activating HE texts as ruling relations. We conclude with key points about our insights into the methodological and theoretical potential of critical policy research using IE to analyze the social organization of power in HE policy narratives. This paper contributes to critical nursing discourse in the area of HE, demonstrating how IE can be applied to disrupt socially organized neoliberal and colonialist narratives that recycle and redeploy oppressive policymaking practices within and beyond nursing.

Trans-Tasman Border Stories: Actor-Network Theory and Policy Narrative in Action

<p>This thesis explores the relationship between narrative and action in the policy practice of border management in trans-Tasman regional economic integration. Using the European Union, the most developed form of regional integration, as a point of reference, it examines five stories of policy practice relating to the joint Prime Ministerial announcement on 2 March 2009 that committed Australia and New Zealand to ‘reduce remaining barriers at the borders to ensure that people and goods can move more easily between the two countries’ (Key & Rudd, 2009a). Actor-network theory (ANT) is the theoretical frame, drawing particularly on the works of Bruno Latour, John Law and Vicky Singleton, Michel Callon, and Barbara Czarniawksa, enhanced with aspects of the narrative theory of Hannah Arendt and Paul Ricoeur. This frame aligns with and builds on the policy narrative work of Rod Rhodes and Maarten Hajer and is applied to both regional integration and policy practice. New knowledge comes from identifying border management as a domain of policy practice, and extending Callon’s concept of marketization to border management, which is shown to be part of the global trading narrative that underpins regional integration. In trans-Tasman regional economic integration, narratives are revealed as a mix of economic, political and cultural matters of concern that are enacted with different types of separation and integration effects. The trans-Tasman relationship features as a macro-actor from which a mix of narrative effects emerges. The combination of economic, political and cultural narratives revealed in trans-Tasman regional economic integration can be seen in the EU, but with different emphases and effects arising from the interaction between them. This finding suggests a potential anatomy of border management policy in regional integration. Through tracing the actions of officials, this thesis reveals Trans-Tasman policy narratives to be performative, made up of the many little translations that occur in day-to-day policy practice, into which are woven the above broader connections. It also reveals that narrative is not only a way to tell the stories of what is being done, but that the narratives of matters of concern drive the action, and the action itself tells its own story. Narratives thus cannot be separated from action. These policy narratives are multiple and affect action in different ways, both positively and negatively, depending on the matters of concern, the relational power (who’s speaking on behalf of whom or what) and how they interact with one another. A point of departure for this thesis is the use of ANT to explore policy narrative, and the potential for applying the concept of performativity to other approaches of policy narrative. The narrative aspect of ANT is underemphasised yet it is a powerful analytical tool that has the potential to add to the effectiveness of the practice of policy. Incorporating aspects of narrative theory together with ANT is shown to enhance the insights.</p>

Trans-Tasman Border Stories: Actor-Network Theory and Policy Narrative in Action

<p>This thesis explores the relationship between narrative and action in the policy practice of border management in trans-Tasman regional economic integration. Using the European Union, the most developed form of regional integration, as a point of reference, it examines five stories of policy practice relating to the joint Prime Ministerial announcement on 2 March 2009 that committed Australia and New Zealand to ‘reduce remaining barriers at the borders to ensure that people and goods can move more easily between the two countries’ (Key & Rudd, 2009a). Actor-network theory (ANT) is the theoretical frame, drawing particularly on the works of Bruno Latour, John Law and Vicky Singleton, Michel Callon, and Barbara Czarniawksa, enhanced with aspects of the narrative theory of Hannah Arendt and Paul Ricoeur. This frame aligns with and builds on the policy narrative work of Rod Rhodes and Maarten Hajer and is applied to both regional integration and policy practice. New knowledge comes from identifying border management as a domain of policy practice, and extending Callon’s concept of marketization to border management, which is shown to be part of the global trading narrative that underpins regional integration. In trans-Tasman regional economic integration, narratives are revealed as a mix of economic, political and cultural matters of concern that are enacted with different types of separation and integration effects. The trans-Tasman relationship features as a macro-actor from which a mix of narrative effects emerges. The combination of economic, political and cultural narratives revealed in trans-Tasman regional economic integration can be seen in the EU, but with different emphases and effects arising from the interaction between them. This finding suggests a potential anatomy of border management policy in regional integration. Through tracing the actions of officials, this thesis reveals Trans-Tasman policy narratives to be performative, made up of the many little translations that occur in day-to-day policy practice, into which are woven the above broader connections. It also reveals that narrative is not only a way to tell the stories of what is being done, but that the narratives of matters of concern drive the action, and the action itself tells its own story. Narratives thus cannot be separated from action. These policy narratives are multiple and affect action in different ways, both positively and negatively, depending on the matters of concern, the relational power (who’s speaking on behalf of whom or what) and how they interact with one another. A point of departure for this thesis is the use of ANT to explore policy narrative, and the potential for applying the concept of performativity to other approaches of policy narrative. The narrative aspect of ANT is underemphasised yet it is a powerful analytical tool that has the potential to add to the effectiveness of the practice of policy. Incorporating aspects of narrative theory together with ANT is shown to enhance the insights.</p>

Sanctuary Cities, Focusing Events, and the Solidarity Shift: A Standard Measurement of the Prevalence of Victims for the Narrative Policy Framework

Numerous state and local jurisdictions across the United States have adopted policies limiting their cooperation with federal deportation efforts carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Sometimes referred to as “sanctuary cities,” these jurisdictions interpret federalism in a way that resists active participation in federal immigration enforcement. Employing the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), we analyze 164 public consumption documents to examine policy narratives disseminated by interest groups engaged in the policy debate surrounding sanctuary cities between 2010 and 2017. Using data derived from a content analysis of these documents, we develop a new measure, the solidarity shift, to capture the prevalence of victims in policy narratives; we find there are significant differences in the narrative strategies employed by advocates and opponents of sanctuary jurisdictions, with opponents’ narratives demonstrating more active responses to external events and a higher proportion of victims, relative to other characters. We also find that the killing of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco can be seen as a focusing event because of the narrative actions of anti-sanctuary city advocates and their reliance on the solidarity shift, which resulted in significant changes to anti-sanctuary city narrative strategies.

Beyond policy narratives: exploring the role of pedagogical beliefs in classroom practices of secondary school Civics and Ethical Education teachers

In Ethiopia, secondary school Civics and Ethical Education has been offered to students with prime objective of producing competent and rational citizens. While policy narratives advocate constructivist pedagogy for achieving this goal of the curriculum, the reality on the ground hints that the subject is far behind achieving its stated goal. In line with this, teachers’ role in implementing the curriculum cannot be understated. Teachers are policy actors who implement the official curriculum. Their classroom practice; however, is largely dependent on their pedagogical beliefs. To this end, this study aimed at examining the role of secondary school Civics and Ethical Education teachers’ pedagogical beliefs in their perceived classroom practices vis-à-vis selected demographic variables. The study was conducted using correlational design participating 324 Civics and Ethical Education teachers from 43 government and private secondary schools in Addis Ababa city. Two-way multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression were used to analyze the data. The regression analysis revealed that teachers' pedagogical beliefs explained 45.8% of the variance in classroom practice. Teachers were also found to have strong constructivist belief, even though they do not completely reject traditional belief per se. Their constructivist practice is; however, below the expected level, suggesting the interplay of contextual factor(s) which should be further studied. The findings implied the need to redefine continuous professional programs with emphasis on reflective teaching practice and improve climate of secondary schools.

Livestock and Climate Justice: Challenging Mainstream Policy Narratives

In discussions around food systems and the climate, livestock is often painted as the villain. While some livestock production in some places contributes significantly to climate change, this is not universally the case. This article focuses on pastoral production systems – extensive, often mobile systems using marginal rangelands across around half of the world’s surface, involving many millions of people. By examining the assumptions behind standard calculations of greenhouse gas emissions, a systematic bias against pastoralism is revealed. Many policy and campaign stances fail to discriminate between different material conditions of production, lumping all livestock systems together. Injustices arise through the framing of debates and policy knowledge; through procedures that exclude certain people and perspectives; and through the distributional consequences of policies. In all cases, extensive livestock keepers lose out. In reflecting on the implications for European pastoralism, an alternative approach is explored where pastoralists’ knowledge, practices and organisations take centre‑stage.

Narratives in power and policy design: the case of border management and external migration controls in Italy

This article explores the relationship between policy narratives and the design of the Italian border management and external migration control regime in the last two decades. First, drawing from the theory of social construction and policy design and through a qualitative application of the Narrative Policy Framework, the article traces the evolution of narratives developed by key actors in government. Second, it investigates the design of the Italian externalization policy. Empirical material is drawn from government documents and decision-makers’ parliamentary interventions, press conferences, speeches, newspaper interviews and op-eds. The evidence shows that the dominant narratives have remained constant over time. Humanitarian rhetoric has been mobilized to justify and legitimize the implementation of security measures through bilateral agreements signed with African countries. The implications of such a design are relevant in that it poses serious concerns in terms of respect for migrants’ human rights. Overall, the article offers new insights into the empirical investigation of policy narratives and sheds light on the role of narratives in the social construction of migration policy design.