政策话语分析

In this policy discourse analysis study, I explored the discourse of academic-probation policies for undergraduate students in Dominican higher education institutions. Policies from twelve universities described strategies of power throughout. Academic-probation policies were characterized by their brevity and focus on disciplinary actions for students who did not meet the established academic standards. Key implications are related to issues of student marginalization in higher education institutions. Future policy revisions should address the punitive measures and the implications of being classified below “normal” and should refocus on institutional retention as a policy. Keywords: Academic Probation, Higher Education, Policy Dans cette étude portant sur l’analyse du discours en matière de politiques, je me penche sur le discours des politiques portant sur la probation académique des étudiants du premier cycle dans certains établissements d’études supérieures en République dominicaine. On retrouve, tout au long du texte des politiques des douze universités étudiées, des descriptions de stratégies de pouvoir. Les politiques portant sur la probation académique se caractérisaient par leur brièveté et leur accent sur les actions disciplinaires visant les étudiants qui n’atteignaient pas les normes académiques établies. Les implications principales touchent la marginalisation des étudiants inscrits dans des établissements d’études supérieures. À l’avenir, les révisions des politiques devraient aborder les mesures punitives et les implications d’être classés sous la norme pour se recentrer sur la rétention institutionnelle. Mots clés : probation académique; études supérieures; politique

ABSTRACT Discourse analysis (DA) has established itself as a widely accepted and legitimate approach to policy analysis. It is used to study issues such as the role of knowledge in policymaking, political cleavages and coalitions, and legitimacy. However, the proponents of DA have generally been reluctant to provide strategic policy advice. This reluctance limits the utility of DA for providing new and partly alternative policy ideas and advice on how to propagate new policies and to consolidate existing ones. This paper aims to extend the scope of DA to include advice that may change or modify how discourses are utilised in shaping policy. It elaborates on seven types of discursive agency allowing policy actors (including politicians, policy strategists, public managers, and citizen groups) to either consolidate existing policy or propagate new policy by manoeuvring within a given discursive framework, navigating between different and conflicting discourses, or transforming existing discourses.

ABSTRACT Although the ideology of pro-work conservatism prevails in East Asia, scholars have largely overlooked its discursive construction in media communication from a linguistic perspective. This paper examines the discursive construction of pro-work conservatism in 3,000 Weibo posts with the most “likes” in response to China’s implementation of the three-child policy. Using the sociosemantic approach as an analytic framework, the paper finds that three dominant themes underpin the discourse of pro-work conservatism: women’s sacrifice in the labour market, the high cost of raising children, and gender-essentialist norms. This discourse is articulated in the posts via a number of discursive strategies, including authorization, morality, and rationalisation. This paper sheds light on the influence of the one-child policy and the awakening of feminist consciousness in the new era and highlights the implications of language use in shaping gender-role ideologies to influence public perception.

Abstract Education policy in recent years has dramatically repositioned the role and status of teachers, trainee teachers and teacher education in the UK and beyond. This paper focuses specifically on education policy in England; however, it has broader significance for those interested in education and teacher education in international policy contexts. Two corpora were constructed for the project; one collated education policy documents in 2010–2021, and another collated education policy documents in 1970–2009. The analysis used the corpus linguistic tool Wordsmith 8. Keywords, concordance, and collocation, were used to examine themes within the discourse of the focus corpus, supported by a critical policy discourse analysis frame. The themes identified in this analysis were governance (control) and marketisation (choice). These themes have strong connections to analyses of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) and contribute to understanding how education policy discourses can frame teacher education. The positioning of trainee teachers as both product and subject of initial teacher education in education policy documents is explored in the analysis.

Scholars have increasingly called for the need to problematise and critically examine sport policy for integration/inclusion. This article aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by presenting a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis of the languaging of three decades of Norwegian sport policy for integration/inclusion, as well as non-sport policy that seeks to use sport as a policy tool. The analysis demonstrates how ideas and practices about the integration of ethnic minorities in sport are constructed in the shadows of the ‘real business’ of sport. Self-evident ‘Truths’ about inclusion/integration convey simplistic notions of assimilation into existing sport practices, reify notions of homogenous groups both with regard to the majority and the ethnic minority Norwegian population, distributing power unequally across the majority–minority divide, and contribute to construct sport as a racially coded, Eurocentric practice. The pervasive, long-standing idea that sport is inclusive works discursively to marginalise contradictory ideas, such as the complexities of integration that focus upon the need for a transformation of structures and practices, and ‘Truths’ like resourceful ethnic minorities or an adaptable sports organisation remain currently almost unthinkable. The analysis bears witness to scholars’ claims for the need to broaden research methodologies and policies for integration in/through sport, such that inequitable, Eurocentric, assimilated practices can be re-languaged to enable hybrid, transnational sports spaces frequented by resourceful participants.

In this article, I propose a return to Jacques Lacan, I develop a Lacanian discourse analysis (LDA) as one possible method in international relations and demonstrate its potential by sketching out the case of climate change policy within the European Union. Lacan’s theory of the four discourses as conceptual “mind maps” informs a method of discourse analysis enabling researchers to empirically investigate how a hegemonic discourse can be challenged and potentially subverted. A Lacanian perspective emphasizes the “subject of the enunciation” and conceptualizes subjects as socially produced but lacking: Discourse provides an historicized socio-linguistic structure sustaining the subject’s societal relations, but the speaking activity always produces a cut within subjectivity, which manifests as an excess-loss of meaning in the enunciation. Via the case study of the energy efficiency policy in the EU, I first illustrate how an LDA allows us to investigate climate knowledge and the authority of the discourse. Then, by looking at how energy efficiency is spoken in the enunciation, I expose the excess of meaning produced as an effect of language, which “fractures” the discourse. Finally, I show how to leverage on these produced fractures to assess the transformative and empowering potential of the observed discourse.

This article interrogates German foreign policy discourse during 2018–2021, focusing on how the prioritization of gender equality and diversity in German foreign policy was justified by invoking credibility. It shows that the discourse constructs equal and diverse representation at home as necessary for being recognized as a credible foreign policy actor, and credibility as a necessary precondition for foreign policy. Claims to credibility are distinct from rights-based and instrumental arguments about the organizational and state benefits of equal representation previously identified in scholarship on gender in diplomacy. Therefore, this article develops an original classification of discourses on equal representation in foreign affairs. Empirically, it shows that these claims extend constructions of the “good” German state identified in scholarship on German foreign policy. They also constitute a form of governmentality, inciting ministry staff to conduct themselves in line with what it means to be credible: realizing equal representation in the Federal Foreign Office. While this allows the ministry to “diversify,” it masks entrenched inequalities in German society.

China’s cultural policy has shifted from a government-driven direction to a model centered on marketization development model. The economic value of culture has come to be seen as the main engine of growth for national development; moreover, cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been strategically fostered. Here, in place of a unilateral top-down method imposed by the government, a marketization development model has been promoted to actively accommodate the policy discourse presented by cultural creators/consumers. China’s CCI policy discourse may indicate the policy direction necessary to develop itself into a cultural powerhouse. In this study, policy discourse is collected and analyzed for keywords of China’s CCIs from 2006 to 2020. Text mining and network analysis were performed, and the main results are as follows. First, it was found that China’s CCI policy discourse has been gaining traction; its centers appear to be found within large cities with rich cultural infrastructure, where major cultural projects are discovered and promoted, and Chinese culture is being globalized. Second, the items/contents of the Chinese CCIs are diversifying and developing into a human-friendly Chinese-style cultural and creative industry model that values experience. This should be noted to help guide the future direction of China’s cultural policy. Finally, it is necessary to adjust industrial concentrations and regional development imbalances because of the acceleration of industrial clusters in CCIs.

As artificial intelligence (AI) policy has begun to take shape in recent years, policy actors have worked to influence policymakers by strategically promoting issue frames that define the problems and solutions policymakers should attend to. Three such issue frames are especially prominent, surrounding AI’s economic, geopolitical, and ethical dimensions. Relatedly, while technology policy is traditionally expert-dominated, new governance paradigms are encouraging increased public participation along with heightened attention to social and ethical dimensions of technology. This study aims to provide insight into whether members of the public and the issue frames they employ shape—or fail to shape—policymaker agendas, particularly for highly contested and technical policy domains. To assess this question, the study draws on a dataset of approximately five million Twitter messages from members of the public related to AI, as well as corresponding AI messages from the 115th and 116th US Congresses. After using text analysis techniques to identify the prevalence of issue frames, the study applies autoregressive integrated moving average and vector autoregression modeling to determine whether issue frames used by the public appear to influence the subsequent messaging used by federal US policymakers. Results indicate that the public does lead policymaker attention to AI generally. However, the public does not have a special role in shaping attention to ethical implications of AI, as public influence occurs only when the public discusses AI’s economic dimensions. Overall, the results suggest that calls for public engagement in AI policy may be underrealized and potentially circumscribed by strategic considerations.

Most higher education institutions globally have used e-learning policies as a strategy for technology enhanced curriculum delivery. However, few universities in Zimbabwe have e- learning policies, and lack of such documents to guide technology integration leads to inefficiency and hinders provision of effective support. This study highlights the role of e-learning policy through analysis of e-learning documents and statements at a university in Zimbabwe. Using critical discourse analysis, the study unpacks the discourse of e-learning at the university, to reveal underlying assumptions and beliefs of the neoliberal, elitist paradigm, veiled under ‘widening access’ and flexible learning. Contexts, such as the Zimbabwean higher education, sector have very specific needs, which must be considered when formulating e-learning policies to ensure effectiveness of implementation.

No abstract available

This article offers Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) as an innovative qualitative methodology to apply to the intersection of social media and public policy research. The article has two sections. The first section briefly defines FDA and discourse and situates the methodology in the educational policy research literature. The second section applies FDA to a narrative about the Common Core State Standards as it occurred on Twitter, with an explanation of key terms throughout the process.

ABSTRACT Three decades after the argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning, interpretive approaches have become part of mainstream policy analysis. Increasingly, researchers work within these traditions. Researchers new to these approaches might struggle to make conceptual and methodological choices. We therefore compare three prominent interpretive approaches: discourse analysis, framing analysis and narrative analysis. Discourse analysis is the study of hegemonic, dominant and recessive discursive structures. It explores how power is embedded in language and (re)produces dominant social structures. Framing analysis involves studying processes of meaning construction. It explores what elements of reality are strategically or tacitly foregrounded or backgrounded in conversations and text, and how this includes and excludes voices, ideas and interests in policy and decision-making. Narrative analysis investigates the work of storytelling. It explores how people make sense of events through the selection and connection of story elements: events, settings and characters. These approaches share ontological and epistemological starting points, but offer different results. In this paper, we show what they each contribute to critical policy analysis and develop a heuristic for selecting or combining approaches. We give a renewed entry point for interpretive work and contribute to dialogs on commonalities and differences between approaches.

Conducting comparative country-based case studies of the US, the UK, and Australia over a twenty-four-year period and employing discursive and linguistic lenses, this paper scrutinizes the historical development of the founding principles of corporate governance. We aim to interpret and study the underlying meanings of public accountability within the policy discourses and hybridization patterns to explain the manifold ‘doomed to fail’ attempts in the integration of the essence of integrated thinking and reporting into the core of the business and corporate governance. Drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA), the study reveals how the continued privileging of the isolated economic-based accountability agenda, coupled with the marginalization (or absence) of other logics of accountability, is distortedly normalized over time. The findings uncover traces of resistance to recognition, ineffective attempts to compromise, and selective coupling strategies at the macro level of corporate governance policy-setting as responses to the competing accountability logics. This study contributes toward disentangling the complex relationship between multiple and competing (dominant) logics of accountability, and classical liberalism (and neoliberalism). The study contributes to contemporary social dialogues regarding structural reforms in search of a corporate governance manifesto that enables an effective operationalization of the intended goals of integrated thinking and reporting.

In the era of digital transformation, the Electronic-Based Government System (SPBE) in Indonesia has become a priority to enhance the efficiency and transparency of governance. This study aims to analyze the government's policy narrative on SPBE, compare it with emerging counter-narratives, and formulate strategies to strengthen the policy. Using a post-positivist approach and Narrative Policy Analysis (NPA), data were analyzed from reliable news articles published between 2019 and 2024. The articles were selected from the top three ranked media in Scimago Media Rankings Kompas, Republika, and Okezone ensuring credibility and relevance. The findings indicate that the government's policy narrative emphasizes SPBE as a strategic solution for data integration, cybersecurity enhancement, and improved public service efficiency. The main protagonists of this policy include the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB), the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kominfo). However, challenges arise from sectoral egos, technical infrastructure weaknesses such as disruptions in the National Data Center (PDN), and recurring data breaches. Counter-narratives highlight the risks of data centralization and suboptimal inter-agency coordination. The study concludes that strengthening the SPBE policy narrative requires inclusive dialogue, comprehensive evaluations of cybersecurity and infrastructure readiness, and intensive public outreach to build trust and ensure effective policy implementation.

The Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) took steps to block several popular foreign digital platforms, citing the enforcement of the Electronic System Operator (PSE) regulation. This regulation requires all electronic system providers, both domestic and foreign, to register and be monitored by Kominfo. This enforcement against several popular foreign digital platforms has raised pros and cons by the indonesia' internet community. How do the narratives of content creators who have many fans narrate the events of PSE enforcement by the Minister of Communication and Information. By using a qualitative research approach with the narrative analysis model developed by Todorov, this research will dissect the meaning of the content creator's narrative in telling the enforcement of PSE regulations by Kominfo on foreign platform giants. This research also examines the state of the art in answering how classical fictional narrative models are used to analyze contemporary narrative texts, both fiction and narratives written based on real events (on the grounds of text reality construction). The result is that the narrative structure produced by the content creator is different from the classical narrative structure. In addition, content creators try to antagonize the government in the story of PSE policy implementation, and place themselves as protagonists who repair the disruption situation into equilibrium. However, in the end, the real world reality is not yet equilibrium, this happens because  "the end" of real event narratives is determined by real events that actually occur.

Higher education in China is the high-end and leading part of the whole education system. The development height of higher education to some extent represents and determines the height of national development. China's higher education plays an irreplaceable and decisive strategic role in the realization of Chinese-style modernization. This study explores the idea of modernization of Chinese-style higher education from the perspective of a policy narrative analysis. The background of the modernization of Chinese higher education, the core idea of modernization of Chinese higher education, connotation, and characteristics of the modernization of Chinese higher education have been analyzed in this study.

Policy narrative research focuses on one story/plot that forms narratives in policy controversies without attention to the subplot, picturing a reduced policy narrative structure. Subplots are studied in literary narratives as secondary plots to main plots and in terms of their structures, differences with, and similarities to plots, with both pursuing individual objectives toward common goals. Subplots enhance policy narratives’ structures through enlargement and enrichment. Neglecting the subplot impedes knowledge about their contributions and potentially limits narrative analyses. This article introduces the subplot in policy narratives through a descriptive account, proposes an expanded structural definition, and structurally analyzes the policy narratives in the debate over a mining project in Bristol Bay, Alaska, United States. The opposing narrative's plot is cultural with political, legal, and environmental subplots, while the supporting narrative's plot is developmental with legal and political subplots. The study offers perspectives for advancing subplot research and narrative policy analysis.Brekken, Katheryn C., and Vanessa M. Fenley. 2021. “Part of the Narrative: Generic News Frames in the U.S. Recreational Marijuana Policy Subsystem.” Politics & Policy 49(1): 6–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12388.Chang, Katherine T., and Elizabeth A. Koebele. 2020. “What Drives Coalitions’ Narrative Strategy? Exploring Policy Narratives around School Choice.” Politics & Policy 48(4): 618–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12367.Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Mark K. McBeth, and Paul L. Hathaway. 2011. “Narrative Policy Framework: The Influence of Media Policy Narrative on Public Opinion.” Politics & Policy 39(3): 373–400. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2011.00295.x.

Narratives inform policymaking by building consensus, stabilizing our shared beliefs, and legitimizing our assumptions (Roe 1992, 1994). This research applies narrative policy analysis to identify and compare the dominant agriculture and food (agri-food) narratives of Canadian federal government and civil society policy over time. It aims to understand and compare what narratives are driving the agri-food policy priorities of each group, with particular attention to how policy narratives address social and environmental goals. This analysis documents and confirms a Neoliberal Techno-optimist Growth Narrative as the dominant narrative in federal Canadian Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AAFC) policy between 1986 and 2019. Over a similar period, civil society has adopted narratives that prioritize localization and democratization of the food system as well as food security. While the neoliberal priorities of market expansion and competitiveness are the focus within federal narratives, civil society concerns related to the social and environmental costs of economic efficiency, including reduced farmer livelihoods, environmental degradation, and loss of community decision-making capacity, have received marginal attention from federal policy. We discuss how the Neoliberal Techno-optimist Growth Narrative imposes structural barriers on the pursuit of environmental and social goals by establishing a hierarchy of goals whereby environmental/social goals can only be pursued to the extent that they contribute to economic growth and by promoting a techno-optimist approach. As such, the dominant Neoliberal Techno-optimist Growth Narrative stabilizes two contested assumptions: (1) economic growth through liberalized trade is the best approach to achieve societal wellbeing, and (2) that technological innovation will sufficiently address environmental pressures.

Text-based data sources like narratives and stories have become increasingly popular as critical insight generator in energy research and social science. However, their implications in policy application usually remain superficial and fail to fully exploit state-of-the-art resources which digital era holds for text analysis. This paper illustrates the potential of deep-narrative analysis in energy policy research using text analysis tools from the cutting-edge domain of computational social sciences, notably topic modelling. We argue that a nested application of topic modelling and grounded theory in narrative analysis promises advances in areas where manual-coding driven narrative analysis has traditionally struggled with directionality biases, scaling, systematisation and repeatability. The nested application of the topic model and the grounded theory goes beyond the frequentist approach of narrative analysis and introduces insight generation capabilities based on the probability distribution of words and topics in a text corpus. In this manner, our proposed methodology deconstructs the corpus and enables the analyst to answer research questions based on the foundational element of the text data structure. We verify theoretical compatibility through a meta-analysis of a state-of-the-art bibliographic database on energy policy, narratives and computational social science. Furthermore, we establish a proof-of-concept using a narrative-based case study on energy externalities in slum rehabilitation housing in Mumbai, India. We find that the nested application contributes to the literature gap on the need for multidisciplinary methodologies that can systematically include qualitative evidence into policymaking.

In recent years, a series of right-wing populists has ascended to power in both the Global North and the Global South. While these leaders frequently have provided challenges to liberal democracy, neoliberal modes of economic governance have often been part of their agendas. Analysis of the economic policy narrative of the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s electoral campaign in 2018 through the theoretical lens of authoritarian neoliberalism reveals that it has worked by the relegation of economic matters to technocratic management outside the sphere of democratic debate and the instrumentalized estrangement of groups and institutions opposed to his political views. Recentemente, uma série de populistas direitistas têm chegado ao poder tanto nos países do norte como naqueles do sul. Enquanto estes lideres frequentemente apresentam desafios às democrâcias liberais, modos neoliberais de governança econômica muitas vezes desempenham um papel nas suas agendas. Uma análise da narrativa da política econômica na campanha presidencial do Presidente Jair Bolsonaro no Brasil em 2018 mediante uma visão teorética de neoliberalismo autoritário indica que ela funcionou pela relegação de assuntos econômicos a gestores tecnocrâticos que ficam fora da esféra de debate democrâtico e pelo afastamento instrumentalizado de grupos e instituições que se opõem às idéias políticas de Bolsonaro.

The spread of the covid-19 outbreak entered Indonesia since 2020. COVID-19 has had an impact on society and government, so that the government, especially the city of Pekanbaru, has carried out various policy strategies to carry out countermeasures in the spread of Covid-19, but the number of spread of covid-19 still has not decreased significantly. This research aims to develop a policy narrative framework that functions in advocating for the media as well as providing influence in the decision/policy making process. This research used qualitative analysis using the Policy Narrative Framework (NPF) approach. This study found that narratives by government actors and the general public in online news media had an influence on the policy of handling Covid-19. The policy narrative framework approach (NPF) contributes to this research such as elements of the storyline of policy development and the role of actors who are directly involved in policy. The implementation of the COVID-19 vaccine program through social media support can be seen from the existence of four indicators, namely Communication, Resources, Disposition, and Bureaucratic Structure and looking at the message sender’s, recipient and quality of message via social media.

Abstract Amidst the Russian aggression against Ukraine, peace and stability within the geostrategic region of the Western Balkans have come under the spotlight. While some have called for the “denazification” of the Balkans, others have firmly supported Ukraine. Among the six non-European Union states in the Balkans, the Republic of Serbia is perceived as the most visible and longstanding supporter, akin to a brotherly state, of the Russian Federation. This article aims to investigate President Vučić’s narrative in his Addresses to the Nation concerning the war in Ukraine. The objective is to gain a better understanding of Serbia’s foreign policy positioning with regard to the conflict in Ukraine. Anchored in the Regional Security Complex theory, the article examines President Vučić’s Addresses to the Nation from February 2022 to February 2023, revealing Serbia’s consistent insistence on independent decision-making in foreign policy matters, including in the context of the war in Ukraine. These Addresses to the Nation further reinforce the notion of Serbia’s multi-vector foreign policy, while also utilizing the war in Ukraine to reignite public discussions on the importance of Kosovo to Serbia’s foreign policy.

This study analyzes the formation of the Red and White Cabinet under President Prabowo Subianto through the lens of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). It examines whether the cabinet expansion was driven by technocratic considerations or political representation. This research provides insights into Indonesia’s governance structure and policymaking dynamics by exploring the narratives shaping ministerial appointments. This study employs a qualitative approach, utilizing the NPF to analyze policy narratives that influenced the expansion of ministries. Data collection involves document analysis of relevant laws, regulations, academic literature, and credible media reports. This approach systematically examines how political narratives shape institutional decisions and governance strategies. The findings reveal that the expansion of the Red and White Cabinet was primarily influenced by political coalition-building rather than administrative efficiency. Key narratives, such as governance effectiveness, political stability, and national unity, were strategically constructed to justify the increased number of ministries. While some appointments reflect technocratic expertise, many were dictated by political negotiations, highlighting the predominance of partisan interests over governance optimization. This study concludes that policy narratives legitimize political decisions, often surpassing technocratic considerations. The findings contribute to the understanding of political decision-making in Indonesia by demonstrating how institutional constraints, elite bargaining, and strategic policy narratives shape governance structures.

Background: Foreign ownership policy in Indonesian Banking has been regulated by the Government through Law Number 10 of 1998 concerning Banking. Through this law, the opportunity for foreign investors to own banking shares or establish banks in Indonesia is increasingly open. The strong foreign ownership of a bank has the potential to hinder the supervision process of the bank concerned and the practice of good governance, as well as disrupt financial system stability as a whole and threaten the economic resilience of the Indonesian state. Methods: The researcher conducted an analysis by Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) analysis and stakeholder analysis on the Minutes of Meeting on the Process of Amending Law Number 7 of 1992 to Law Number 10 of 1998 concerning Banking. This research is descriptive analytical on data obtained from the results of observations, interviews, documentation, and analysis of research subjects. Findings: The results of the study indicate that the opening of opportunities for foreign ownership in changing laws is a short-term solution provided by the government. Risk analysis has shown that the scale of the risk level of foreign ownership policy up to 99 percent is at the level of medium and high risk. Stakeholder analysis shows that the Government and Parliament are parties that have a large interest and strength in foreign ownership policies in the Indonesian banking sector. Conclusion: The Government and Parliament need to review the banking laws that have been used for 21 years. The findings highlight the need for a more balanced and strategic approach to foreign ownership policies to safeguard Indonesia's financial system stability and economic resilience. Novelty/Originality of this Article: This study contributes to the limited literature on foreign ownership policies in Indonesian banking by employing the NPF to reveal the hidden narratives and political dynamics behind the legislative process. 

Since the early 2010s, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has become a popular approach for studying the role of narratives in the public policy process. While this theoretical framework clearly states that policy narratives operate at three distinct yet interacting levels, micro (individual), meso (group and coalition) and macro (cultural and institutional), scholars are still indecisive about how to define and operationalise narratives at the macro level of analysis. Integrating concepts from the metanarrative literature into the macro level of the NPF, this research bridges this gap. We focus on the role of macro narratives in constructing national identities and analyse their impact on political behaviour in the international arena. Specifically, we analyse voting records of the United Nations General Assembly and offer an empirical model that incorporates the concept of macro narratives into traditional explanations of voting behaviours of nations. We show that affinities between macro narratives embraced by different nations are positively correlated with similarities in their voting patterns. Our results also show that the content of a nation’s macro narrative can anticipate its likelihood of voting in favour of motions regarding human rights.

This study aims to analyze the public narrative construction related to the Mataloko Geothermal Power Plant on social media by employing the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) approach. The study stems from the contradiction between the idealization of geothermal energy as a form of green energy and the emergence of social resistance caused by its ecological and social impacts. Through a qualitative, case study based analysis, this research utilizes 287 posts from five social media platforms (X, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram) during the 2024–2025 period, categorized according to the four core elements of NPF: setting, character, plot, and moral of the story. The findings reveal that public narratives construct a symbolic structure, positioning the Catholic Church, WALHI NTT, and environmental activists as heroes, the government and PLN as villains, and local communities as victims. The narrative plot evolves from optimism toward energy transition to social resistance driven by information asymmetry, environmental degradation, and a crisis of policy legitimacy. Meanwhile, the moral message emphasizes the importance of energy justice and citizen participation in the development and implementation of renewable energy policies. These findings suggest that social legitimacy plays a key role in determining the success of energy projects and that digital narratives significantly influence public opinion, shaping the direction of Indonesia’s energy transition policies.

Amid the global rise of startup ecosystems as engines of technological innovation and economic growth, Iran's policymaking for its ecosystem remains a contested arena shaped by hybrid governance and political opacity. This study asks: What narrative coalitions shape this policy arena, and what strategies do they employ under varying conditions? The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is ideally suited, providing a structured lens to analyze narrative coalitions in this context. This article employs NPF to examine policy narrations and narrative strategies in the development of Iran's startup ecosystem from 2012 to 2019. The findings reveal three primary narrative coalitions: Catch‐up (governmental actors pushing alignment with global trends for economic and governance benefits), Wealth Creation (non‐governmental actors advocating high‐risk investments for market growth), and Infiltration (other governmental actors framing the ecosystem as a security threat). These coalitions exhibit enduring alliances with adaptive strategies, with Catch‐up and Wealth Creation supporters converging to promote development, while Infiltration backers oppose it—highlighting variation and shifts in narrations within this hybrid political system. Narrative strategies evolve around the 2017 turning point (U.S. sanctions, domestic tensions): pre‐2017, pro‐development coalitions (Catch‐up and Wealth Creation) used scope limitation and angel shifts to counter Infiltration's expansion and devil shifts; post‐2017, patterns reverse, with Infiltration persisting in scope expansion via reframing. As the first empirical NPF study in the Middle East and North Africa, this qualitative analysis offers insights into narration dynamics in non‐liberal governance structures, contributing to policymaking and conflict understanding while advancing NPF's transportability across geographies and governing systems.

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the evolving policy narratives surrounding Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. Originally established in 2011 to support students with disabilities, ESA has since evolved into one of the most expansive universal school voucher programs in the United States. This study examines how policy actors frame problems, assign blame, and propose solutions through contrasting causal stories by analyzing legislative debates around SB1553, SB1431, and HB2853. ESA proponents emphasize individual liberty, market logic, and parental choice, casting public schools as failing institutions. In contrast, opponents foreground equity, collective responsibility, and the unintended consequences of defunding public education. These competing narratives reflect broader ideological divides and are reinforced through selective use of evidence, personal stories, and political messaging. The study illustrates how policy narratives are constructed within political echo chambers, selectively using evidence, personal stories, and ideology to shape public opinion and legislative outcomes.

Background Aotearoa New Zealand passed world-leading legislation to implement tobacco endgame policies, including greatly reducing the number of tobacco retailers. British American Tobacco New Zealand and Imperial Brands Australasia tried to undermine this policy via the ‘Save Our Stores’ (SOS) campaign, which purportedly represented small convenience store owners’ interests. Methods We used the Policy Dystopia Model as a framework to review discursive and instrumental strategies employed in the SOS campaign. Specifically, we critically analysed the arguments, narratives and frames employed in the campaign. Results Most SOS arguments drew on discursive strategies that emphasised unanticipated costs to the economy and society, and presented a near-apocalyptic future. Adverse outcomes included economic mayhem, thriving illicit trade, increased violent crime, fewer police, and heavier individual tax burdens. The campaign framed the government as an authoritarian legislator with misplaced priorities and used disinformation to bolster these claims. We identified a new normalisation narrative used to present very low nicotine cigarettes (VLNCs) as experimental and, by implication, risky. A metanarrative of lawlessness and decreased public safety connected the different claims. Conclusion To address the existential challenges they face, tobacco companies used several discursive strategies to oppose the retailer reduction and VLNC policies. Our findings could inform counterarguments, and help international policymakers and advocates anticipate opposition they may encounter when introducing endgame measures, such as reducing tobacco availability.

Why do individuals in democratic societies voluntarily request and support stringent policies? What factors contribute to variations in support for different restrictive measures among citizens? This study examines the micro-level impact of the securitisation narrative on individuals’ voluntary support for stringent policies within a democratic context, using the narrative policy framework. Based on evidence from a conjoint experiment conducted in Taiwan, the study finds that agreeing with the narrative ‘COVID-19 is a national security threat’ does not translate into support for all types of restrictive measures. The contents of the securitisation narrative matter significantly; individuals who are more persuaded by the narratives are more likely to support border containment measures and mask mandates because of how narrative contents were structured. These findings highlight the importance for researchers and policymakers to carefully consider policy narrative contents to effectively communicate and garner support for a range of policies during times of crisis.

Enterprise policy, which seeks to stimulate start-ups and support small businesses, attracts significant investment from government and shapes the context for entrepreneurs. Researchers have begun to study the processes underlying the formulation of enterprise policy. However, accounts of how competing interests seek to influence enterprise policymaking processes remain rare. Utilising a distinctive approach to narrative entrepreneurship, developed through a narrative policy analysis, we examine archival records of submissions from a range of stakeholders to a UK government inquiry. We develop a narrative entrepreneurship approach that allows us to analyse the stories and broader narratives told by entrepreneurs and others. Our analysis identifies different types of narrative strategy used to develop stories by two competing interest groups: a narrative from small businesses and their representatives and, contesting this, a counternarrative from other stakeholders, including the finance industry, consumer groups and large firms. We analyse how the inquiry engaged with these competing narratives and sought to make them amenable to policymaking through the creation of a simplifying, overarching metanarrative. We demonstrate that, while this metanarrative simplified the uncertain, complex and polarised issue of enterprise policy, it masked and did not resolve the underlying tensions between competing interests. Pitching to policymakers: how entrepreneurs use stories to influence enterprise policy. Government support for entrepreneurship and small businesses shapes the context in which entrepreneurs operate. However, relatively little is known about how these enterprise policies are formulated, especially the role of entrepreneurs and other stakeholders. We examine the use of stories to influence enterprise policy formulation. Analysing submissions to a UK government inquiry, we reveal the strategies used by competing interests to tell compelling stories. Our research shows how competing stories from interests such as finance providers, consumer groups and large businesses vie for prominence with those of entrepreneurs and small businesses. We show how policymakers create an overarching narrative to try and manage these conflicts but that, while simplifying the issues at hand, they may then ignore the very real problems these conflicts represent. Our study has implications for researchers studying enterprise policymaking processes, how entrepreneurs engage with governments and for the study of entrepreneurs as storytellers. In developing understanding of policymaking processes, there are also insights of relevance to policymakers and those who seek to engage with them.

No abstract available

Narrative storytelling surrounds us. Narratives are especially salient in politics, as policy problems do not simply exist, but are actively created through the stories policy actors tell. Scholars introduced the narrative policy framework (NPF) to create a generalized framework for studying how policy actors use storytelling strategically to influence policy. We use the NPF to examine the recent rise of critical race theory (CRT) in policy debates. We demonstrate that increasing exposure to the ban‐CRT narrative plots led to greater support for a ban on CRT, particularly for White and Republican individuals. Finally, we introduce and test the concept of narrative spillover, which provides a new way of thinking about how micro, meso, and macro policy narratives interact to influence‐related political beliefs and macrolevel beliefs about institutions and culture.

Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) has been in a dramatic institutional transition since the enactment of the Second Amendment of the CEC Law in 2019, followed by a series of subsequent policies. The policy narrativepresented by the government and the DPR as the policy-making actors is that the policy was carried out to strengthen the performance of the KPK. Meanwhile, counter-narratives emerged that said the opposite. This discourse took place intensively from 2019 to 2022, judging by the number of media reports. As a result of the narrative debate, based on several surveys, the KPK experienced a significant decline in the level of trust from the public. Using the Narrative Policy Analysis, this study poses the question: how does the government construct the KPK's institutional reform policy narrative? This research finds that the government policy narrative is built on distant belief systems, but is not accompanied by adequate positive incentives, resulting in a prolonged polemic. In this study, it is suggested that the government conduct a comprehensive evaluation study of this policy, open a space for open dialogue by involving counter-narrative actors, and conduct a better policy advocacy.

This study applies the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) within a non‐democratic context, exploring the role of policy narratives in the implementation of patient‐centred healthcare policy in China. Drawing on a dataset of academic journal articles that reference both “market” and “patient‐centredness,” the research reveals how local implementers reframed national policy by aligning it with operative ideology. While national policy promoted socialist altruism, local actors often reinterpreted it through a market‐oriented perspective to address institutional constraints and financial pressures. Through the strategic use of narrative elements such as heroes and villains, these grassroots narratives subtly shifted the policy's intent without overtly challenging central authority and implemented the policy symbolically on the ground. The study contributes to the scholarship of Chinese health reform by examining the interpretation of national health policy from the implementer's perspective, and to the NPF scholarship by extending its applicability to authoritarian settings and by focusing on the understudied implementation phase of the policy process.

This article explores the narrative dimension of foreign policy, using the resurgence of anti-colonial rhetoric in Russian political discourse since the invasion of Ukraine as a case study. Engaging with the ‘narrative turn’ in IR and the strategic narratives framework, it proposes to use strategic narratives as a methodological tool to identify the intended effect behind Russian actors’ discursive strategies. This approach may facilitate inferences about their foreign policy preferences, in the context of Moscow’s aggression, proclaimed efforts to ‘de-Westernise’ the international order, and reorientation towards the ‘Global South’. Empirically, the article draws on content analysis of multiple Russia-related multilingual textual and audiovisual corpora, employing a three-step approach. It first identifies the ‘narrators’ of Russia’s anti-(neo)colonial strategic narrative and its circulation among Russian elites. It then examines how this narrative is widely projected abroad by Russia’s ecosystem of information influence, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the analysis identifies three foreign policy motivations suggested by this narrative resurgence: rehabilitating Russia’s status by framing its contemporary foreign policy as a continuation of Soviet support for decolonisation; advocating for a ‘multipolar’, ‘post-Western’ international order aligned with Russian interests in the ‘Global South’ countries; and undermining Western norms and policies with a whataboutist perspective.

This study aims to analyze how Indonesian policymakers make decisions regarding the expansion of DOBs in Papua, with a focus on public narratives in the media. To see the public narrative, a Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) study will be conducted which can describe, explain the structure of public narratives in policy making. The research method uses a qualitative approach with the support of QDAS (Qualitative Data Analysis Software), and the research data sources come from trusted online media in Indonesia. The results showed that the conversation about DOB expansion in Papua was dominated by the central and local governments. This indicates that the DOB expansion policy in Papua is dominated by political elites, so it has the potential to cause conflict because it is not in accordance with the aspirations of the community. The expansion process also has the potential to trigger conflicts between the expanded regions, especially if the distribution of resources and power is not fair and transparent. The implication is that active community participation in decision-making on regional expansion is important so that policies reflect the aspirations and real needs of the Papuan people and reduce the dominance of political elites.       

The overuse of fertilizers in agriculture and their entry into freshwater has many negative impacts on biodiversity and poses problems for drinking water resources in Germany. In response to exceeding levels of nitrate concentrations in groundwater in parts of the country, an intense public dispute evolved and a significant policy change in fertilizer regulation occurred in 2020. Based on the German case of agricultural water pollution, this study demonstrates in an innovative way how discourse network analysis is a fruitful method for the integrated study of actor coalitions and their use of narrative strategies in public debate. Theoretically, the study draws on the narrative policy framework (NPF) to explain how actor coalitions use narrative strategies to attempt to influence policymaking on water pollution by agricultural activities. The empirical analysis builds on newspaper articles and press releases disseminated between 2010 and 2020. The results demonstrate how two opposing actor coalitions with congruent policy beliefs formed in the struggle over fertilizer regulation. These not only diverged in their policy beliefs but also differed in their use of narrative strategies to try to expand or contain the policy issue. More precisely, the coalitions adapted their narratives over time in response to changes in the likelihood to win or lose. Furthermore, the results suggest the coalition in favor of stricter fertilizer regulation was more sophisticated in its effort to mobilize specific target groups. Overall, the article provides a valuable contribution to the literature on the NPF by combining research on coalition formation and policy narratives.

Infodemics have emerged as a serious contemporary challenge to public health, especially in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This paper conducts a narrative thematic analysis exploring the South Korean response to the public health risks caused by misinformation, critically examining the legal, social, and ethical dimensions of dealing with the difficulties posed by health misinformation, identifying the following key themes: limitations posed by existing law in South Korea, government policies as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, self-regulation in the private sector and mitigation of the social impacts of COVID-19 misinformation. The paper offers a thematic exploration of South Korea’s integrated policy response to health misinformation within the context of the global COVID-19 infodemic and highlights the South Korean effort to balance the protection of public health and welfare with citizen’s individual rights to freedom of expression and the necessity of flexibility and adaptive policies to effectively counter COVID-19 misinformation. It observes the importance of effective public health communication and provides insight useful for dealing with potential future challenges arising from the proliferation of health misinformation and mitigating the adverse impacts of infodemics on public health initiatives, using the example of South Korea.

This article proposes an integration of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) with prospect theory to investigate how the status quo and policy change are recounted in public debates. By integrating insights from prospect theory into the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), we investigate narratives in the policy domain of farm animal welfare, which is characterized by a strong polarization of actor coalitions. We compare public debates in France and Germany between 2020 and 2021. Our analysis shows that the NPF’s analytical strength is enhanced by integrating the distinction between status quo and policy change in narrative elements. This distinction enables further empirical nuancing of actors’ narrative communication, and in combination with insights from prospect theory, it allows for new conjectures about actors’ use of narrative strategies such as the devil shift and the angel shift. In addition to the theoretical contribution, we shed light on debates surrounding farm animal welfare in Western Europe: Both animal welfare and agricultural coalitions are unsatisfied with the status quo, but they promote policy change of different kinds.

To what extent can nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) communicate policy problems in an authoritarian country, and how limited are they in narrating policy alternatives? This article seeks to develop studies on the application of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) in Russia, extend our knowledge about the use of narrative strategies in centralized and authoritarian policy processes, highlight certain methodological peculiarities related to the devil–angel shift calculation, and test causal mechanism hypotheses that have not previously been applied to the analysis of policy debates in Russia. The study examines hypotheses based on the narrative strategies (devil–angel shift, scope of conflict, and causal mechanisms) that were used by government and NGO coalitions in the debate about “landscape fire” policies in Russia over the period 2019–2021. The results show that the differences between the coalition's narrative strategies were not as significant as had been shown previously. The government coalition uses a strong angel shift in its narratives and avoids conflict expansion. The NGO coalition demonstrates a moderate angel shift, but with the use of conflict expansion in parts of the narratives. Both coalitions use the intentional or inadvertent causal mechanism blaming the citizens for starting the fires, but differ in employing causal mechanisms when discussing the large scale of landscape fires.

This paper re‐evaluates conventional Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) scholarship which has traditionally prioritized the study of specific rules configurations and their role in forming effective institutional arrangements. We suggest that effective institutional governance may actually be more reliant on the narrative foundations and personal cognitive interpretations of these rules than on the explicit rules themselves. By drawing insights from the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), which delves into the internal cognitive processes of individuals, we seek to enrich the understanding of institutional‐actor‐rule dynamics. We contend that policy actors often rely on narrative heuristics to navigate complex institutional landscapes, underscoring the role of narratives in both understanding institutional structures and instigating collective action. Although institutional scholarship recognizes the centrality of communication, its impact on shaping institutional arrangements and rule formation remains insufficiently explored. This paper advocates for the integration of the NPF and the Institutional Grammar Tools' (IGT) ADICO, identifying potential parallels between the two frameworks. Our preliminary theorization suggests a cyclical relationship between narratives and institutions, with narratives shaping and being shaped by institutional rules and norms. Building upon Narrative Attention Theory, we aim to understand the broader implications of institutional narratives in driving or reinforcing policy stasis. Our paper represents a foundational step toward a comprehensive theoretical framework on the role of narratives in institutions, spotlighting institutional rules and pointing to future research directions. Through the proposed integration of NPF and IGT's ADICO, we hope to provide a more nuanced understanding of narrative dynamics in institutional arrangements and pave the way for empirical exploration of this relationship.

The economic disruptions experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have generated a narrative of resilience and deglobalization that brings the old world order into question. Heightened public attention on perceived supply chain failures has exerted pressure on governments to intervene in firm-level operations to assure supply of essential or strategic goods. This paper argues that the narrative is founded on false premises. In particular, three supply chain myths have emerged in public and academic discourse: (i) lean management has gone too far and exacerbated disruptions in global supply chains; (ii) efficient supply chains are less resilient; and (iii) foreign supply makes supply chains less resilient. We argue that these beliefs are not adequately supported by evidence. They can displace analysis to negatively impact policy and actually diminish resilience. Drawing upon IB and supply chain management research, we investigate the root causes of perceived market failures. Recommendations are for an evidence-based debate on current events and policies.

Abstract:This study explores how stories told at a United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) public hearing justify a label change intended to reduce the prescribing of opioids to people with chronic noncancer pain (CNCP). Drawing on a social constructionist framework, which holds that narratives play an essential role in influencing public policy, I employ Loseke's method for the empirical analysis of formula stories to examine the institutional narratives told at the hearing. I find that the stories serve to construct moral boundaries around different groups of patients with pain. Patients with cancer and life-limiting illness are constructed as unquestionably deserving of treatment with opioids, while patients with CNCP are constructed as potential "addicts" needing protection from opioid-related harm. I argue that the stories serve as moral justification for the outcome of the hearing while simultaneously marginalizing the voices of CNCP patients who rely on opioids for pain relief.

The 1947 St. Louis city plan predicted a glorious future for the city, but the glorious future never came. St. Louis experienced decline and city planning in St. Louis became problematic for contributing to racial inequity. Drawing upon narrative approaches to public policy and semi-structural content analysis, this research explores those contradictory themes. It argues that the glorious future was a discursive strategy and was promised only to those not labeled socially diseased. To avoid the problems of the 1947 plan, today’s planners should maintain a focus on equity and avoid dehumanizing narrative devices in their planning.

Abstract China’s debt trap diplomacy has been debated among academia, think tanks, and the policymaking community. Unlike previous research, which mainly focuses on China’s lending practice and strategic intentions, this study looks at the measurement of this narrative and its relations with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the China threat narratives. In particular, based on Google Trends search results from 1 February 2018 to 7 November 2021, this study creatively created weekly time series data to measure the narratives. Based on an autoregressive distributed lag model, this study finds that the BRI narrative and the China threat narrative make significant contributions to the debt trap diplomacy narrative. Results based on sub-datasets show that these significant relations are mainly driven by the English-speaking Indian public and that these relations are insignificant in the United States. This study contributes to the literature on China’s debt trap diplomacy by bringing solid empirical evidence and to academia as well in methods by presenting a (still) new quantitative approach to international relations.

Health policymakers can leverage change to improve equity in access to care, patient experiences and clinical outcomes. Despite legal progress to reduce health inequalities, social and systemic injustices persist and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ+) people have increased risk of some health conditions and poorer health outcomes linked to the discrimination they experience. In 2022, 42 regional integrated care systems were created across England to reduce health inequalities and improve the wellbeing of their local population. This study aimed to examine the inclusion of UK Equality Act (2010) protected characteristics within the 42 publicly available integrated care system strategies, and to consider specifically how LGBTQ + communities and their needs, experiences and outcomes are framed within these strategies. A Critical Discourse Analysis was conducted positioned within a social constructivist paradigm. Almost all strategies talked about the needs of their populations in terms of age (42/42), disability (42/42), gender (41/42), ethnicity (39/42) and maternity or pregnancy (39/32). 27/42 strategies mentioned religion. There were no references to marital status. 22/42 strategies referred to LGBTQ + people, but only around 25% of those references provided context about the specific needs of LGBTQ + people, the health inequities they face, or services for LGBTQ + people. Regarding gender minorities, there were eight mentions of trans people and no mentions of intersex people, despite some policies using the acronym LGBQTI. While there were two mentions of inequities in care delivery for trans people, the specific health or social care needs of trans people were not described in any strategies, and there were a small number of examples where trans people were presented in a problematizing frame; with no discussion of trans inclusive care, only problems associated with being trans. Across all 42 strategies there were only four references to systemic forces (e.g. homophobia, transphobia, discrimination) affecting LGBTQ + people. While the needs of some minoritized groups are well recognized within health policies, LGBTQ + people remain marginalized. Further work is needed to educate and enable policy makers to advocate for LGBTQ + people and communities, and to ensure equitable and respectful inclusion of all minoritised groups.

This paper examines the “Double Reduction” policy issued by the Chinese government in 2021 by using a Critical Discourse Problematization Framework (CDPF) that combines Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and what’s the problem represented to be (WPR) approach. The study points out that the changing discourse of equality and equity in China is crucial for understanding the assumptions and presuppositions that lie behind and shape the “Double Reduction” policy. The analysis of the policy text conveys that the government views the privatization of education in China as being responsible for the lowered quality of public education, the competitive learning environment, and financial and mental pressure on families and parents. However, this study reveals the silent part of the “Double Reduction” policy through the WPR approach, which demonstrates that privatization of education is not the root cause of educational inequality/injustice in China. The work of this critical policy analysis aims to better understand the dilemma of education in China and provide insights to the policymakers, educators, and related stakeholders from the perspective of changing policy discourse.

Utilizing a framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper focuses on the Punjab Special Education Policy 2020 to evidence how disability and special education are discursively produced or positioned within the broader policy context of Pakistan. This paper analyzes this policy document, using Mullet’s (2018) CDA framework to explore the linguistic dimension and discursive strategies employed and their ideological underpinnings. That study finds a move to the social model of disability and rights-based education rather than traditional medical or charitable models. However, the analysis also highlights restrictions and inconsistencies in the policy’s inclusive and empowerment approach for persons with disabilities. This study exemplifies this point, and it illustrates how language and rhetorical methods can depoliticize power and render inclusion an inevitable process rather than an ongoing social battle. The findings offer an essential contribution to the broader field of disability and education in Pakistan, further informing our understanding of policy discourse as a mobilizing force behind enhancing rights and inclusion for people with disabilities. The research concludes by discussing the implications for policy and practice and suggesting areas for future research to further explore the implementation and impact of the policy. Keywords: , , , ; 

The article examines the method of critical discourse-analysis (CDA) on the example of the relations between the United States and Russia in the field of ICT security, as well as in the context of negotiations at the UN level in the same area, where both countries have a significant influence on the processes. CDA can be used to study ICT security policy in order to understand how different actors use language to discuss problems: what terms and concepts are used, as well as how they can influence public perception of the problem. CDA can also be used to study the dynamics of interaction between different actors: what interests they pursue and what compromises they are willing to make to achieve common goals. The method is connected with the theoretical framework of A. Holzscheiter, which identifies the levels of analysis (micro-agents and macro-structures), as well as the types of power/influence realization in discourse (deliberative and productive). As a demonstration of the method, the author has made a brief analysis of the discourses of ICT threats to the United States and Russia based on strategic documents of the states. It is inscribed in the structures of bilateral relations and international negotiations, presented in the form of events on a timeline. Depending on the level of analysis or the starting point of the study — agents or structures — we get completely different explanations of the causal relationships of possible explanations for policy change through discourse (productive or deliberative). The study of ICT security is further complicated by the fact that we must keep both the bilateral and international levels of interaction in focus, since these processes are closely interrelated. In conclusion, the article describes important limitations of the method, including the weak explanatory potential of the reasons for the change in ICT security policy.

ABSTRACT The Australian continent has over 6500 edible endemic plant species, fourteen of which have been certified for commercial consumption. This paper seeks to critically analyze select Australian Commonwealth Government policy relating to these Aboriginal plant foods. The aim is to purposefully examine the positioning of non-Indigenous people in Aboriginal plant foods policy discourse and reveal tacit settler colonial power relations. This is in response to a call to action from Indigenous scholars to examine how settler colonialism manifests in regulatory mechanisms, such as government policy. This paper offers a theoretically informed critical discourse analysis methodology for examining Australian Commonwealth Government policy relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. Analysis comprised an explanation of the socio-political context of Aboriginal policymaking in Australia, textual analysis of policy texts related to Aboriginal plant foods and an interpretation of discourse practice to reveal how policy discourse tacitly promotes ideological agendas. This analysis revealed that Australian Commonwealth Government Aboriginal plant foods policy is framed according to settler terms and upholds neoliberal interests. Considerable rethinking is required about how power is exercised in Commonwealth Government policy relating to Aboriginal plant foods to ensure it does not replicate and perpetuate unjust settler colonial power relations.

No abstract available

The concept of Islam Nusantara is a concept and perspective of Islam that Nahdlatul Ulama promoted at the NU Congress in 2015. It is used to mention the indigenization of Islamic practice in Indonesia, often contrasted with Arabization. The discourse of Islam Nusantara which is developing well among the government, Islamic organizations, and the community is aging several pros and cons for Indonesia's domestic politics. Furthermore, Islam Nusantara is also often used as the trademark of Indonesia's foreign policy with countries in the Middle East. This study tries to explain how Islam Nusantara Islam as a discourse has been applied in Indonesia's foreign policy towards countries in the Middle East. The study primarily relies on a critical discourse analysis method.

No abstract available

ABSTRACT In the Republic of Ireland, primary school teaching is a very attractive profession with pay being above the OECD average (Heinz and Keane 2018; Hennessey and Lynch 2017). This paper investigates how the Department of Education Inspectorate and the Teaching Council of Ireland position primary school teacher professionalism. The paper presents the findings of critical discourse analysis (CDA) of two policy texts; Looking at our schools 2016 (2016) by the Department of Education Inspectorate and Cosán framework for teachers learning (2016) by the Teaching Council of Ireland. This paper is timely because the Inspectorate and the Teaching Council of Ireland, recently published the Cosán Action Plan (2021) and Looking at our Schools 2022 (2022), both of which describe how the Department intends to integrate Cosán more deeply into Irish education as a complementary policy to Looking at our Schools (2022). At this policy juncture, this research finds that the two organisations’ understandings of teacher professionalism overlap in places but also sit in tension with each other.

ABSTRACT In the current historical moment of rewriting the Chilean Constitution, there are new hopes for producing a different socio-legal, political-economic and public health order. The Chilean case holds important implications for global health practitioners, researchers and policy-makers because it clearly shows both the impacts of neoliberal processes on a worldwide scale and neoliberal policy responses. This article contributes to the field of global health policy critical analysis by offering scrutiny of Chile’s international migrant healthcare policy from the perspective of its ideological assumptions. We apply Fairclough’s analytical perspective to the Chilean migrant healthcare policy, identifying its components, argumentative premises and ideological assumptions that contribute to the reproduction of the processes of social determination. It allows us to identify bias mobilisation, exclusion, and subordinate inclusion processes that systematically lead to the omission of structural processes in the social determination of migrants’ healthcare, contributing to their reproduction. We conclude by problematising the place of academia in said reproduction to the extent that the concepts and premises they use remain in the ideological territory of exclusion of the structural defined by the policy, disconnecting reflection and action in the health field from collective demands.

Abstract This paper examines how Sino-judicial activism shapes Data Intellectual Property Rights (DIPR) in China through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It identifies two complementary judicial discourses: local courts such as the Zhejiang High People’s Court (HCZJ) adopt a judicial continuation discourse that pragmatically extends intellectual property norms to data disputes, while the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) employs a judicial linkage discourse aligning judicial reasoning with national policy and administrative governance. Their interaction forms a Bidirectional Conceptual Coupling (BCC) – an “inside-out” projection of local court reasoning and an “outside-in” translation of policy into judicial interpretation by the SPC – that mutually legitimizes and constrains judicial and policy frameworks, balancing the demand for unified market standards with safeguards against platform-driven monopolization. Through cases such as the HCZJ’s Taobao v. Meijing and the SPC’s Anti-Unfair Competition Interpretation, the study shows DIPR as an experimental field for doctrinal innovation and institutional coordination in China’s evolving digital governance.

Nepal’s constitutional mandates for social inclusion contrast sharply with persistent bureaucratic exclusion of marginalized groups such as Dalits, Janajatis, Madhesis, and women. Despite affirmative action policies such as the 2007 Civil Service Act (45% reservation), dominant caste elites retain 72% of senior bureaucratic positions, while Dalits occupy only 5.9% against a 9% quota. Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study interrogates how bureaucratic language, media narratives, and policy frameworks sustain exclusion under the guise of creamy layer, meritocracy and efficiency. Analyzing policy documents, interviews, and media texts, the research reveals three mechanisms of exclusion: (1) gatekeeping through "technical" recruitment classifications, (2) judicial and media framing of reservations as "reverse discrimination," and (3) symbolic policy compliance without substantive power redistribution. Findings highlight intersectional barriers e.g., Dalit women facing compounded discrimination and bureaucratic resistance, evidenced by 78% of quota-elected women being proxy-controlled by male relatives. The study critiques Nepal’s inclusion paradigm as liberal multiculturalism that prioritizes recognition over redistribution, reinforcing caste-class hierarchies. It proposes transformative pathways: intersectional quotas, an Independent Inclusion Regulator, media democratization, and land-caste justice. The conclusion underscores that without dismantling structural inequalities, inclusion policies risk remaining symbolic, perpetuating exclusion while appearing progressive. This research contributes to global debates on bureaucratic resistance to social justice and the limits of affirmative action in post-conflict states.

ABSTRACT This article critically examines the political function of transparency discourse within the EU AI Act. Building upon the early Frankfurt school of critical theory, the article demonstrates how the market-friendly notion of transparency reinforces relations of power and domination, while side-lining ethical concerns and citizens’ welfare. Through critical discourse analysis, I argue that transparency discourse within the EU AI Act serves a dual purpose: ideological work and policy legitimation. It prioritizes AI industry and big tech interests over human rights concerns, places market efficiency and profit above citizens’ rights, and enables a technocratic approach that undermines the core values of the EU charter. By reinforcing hegemonic market orientation, prioritizing experts and AI providers, and hindering broader public participation, the concept of transparency oversimplifies complex ethical issues and obscures underlying normative tensions. The article contributes to critical studies of algorithmic governance by challenging the taken-for-granted assumptions surrounding transparency in EU regulation discourse.

ABSTRACT Within the expansive scopes of globalization and postcolonialism, this research examines their relevance to early childhood education (ECE) in India. A critical discourse analysis of selected government documents and national standards was conducted. The research question asked was: How do colonial discourses influence ECE texts and documents in India? A qualitative research paradigm along with a critical discourse analysis was used to deconstruct the discourse of global agencies, such as the World Bank (WB) and India’s National Education Policy. Findings indicate the rhetorical use of deficit discourse by WB to introduce neoliberal policies of privatization in education and education aid while narrowing the purpose of education to attain skills to gain profits. While India’s NEP 2020 offers a counterbalance of ECE rooted in local values and ethics, the influence of global standards, particularly through standardized testing, remains significant. The findings underscore the need for postcolonial nations to assert autonomy in shaping their education agendas to foster inclusivity and cultural responsiveness. Future research should examine not only how these policies affect global and national documents but also their implications on daily routines, norms, values, beliefs, and practices. This would provide a clearer understanding of the real-world impact on teachers, children, and families.

ABSTRACT China's national physical education and health curriculum policies are the regulatory and guiding policies for China's school physical education and health curriculum. The policies highlight physical education and health as of great significance in building a healthy China (健康中国) and a sports powerful nation (体育强国). Most academic commentary on these policies to date focused on the content and the application of teaching on student learning, but few have analysed the socio-political imperatives and how the policies construct young people's bodies in particular ways. Policy embodies contested meanings and values, privileging certain positions, whilst silencing others; it thus makes a ‘problem' exist as a particular type of ‘problem' that rationalises and legitimises the ‘suggestions' proposed by the policy. According to Foucault, discourses are the socially produced forms of ‘knowledge' that set limits upon what is possible to think, write, or speak about; it creates an epistemic ‘reality'. In this sense, China's national physical education and health curriculum policies produce ‘problems' with particular meanings that affect what gets done or not done, and how young people live their lives. In this article, we draw on Foucauldian concepts, particularly notions of ‘discourse', ‘problematisation' and ‘governance', and adopt Bacchi's ‘What's the Problem Represented to Be' approach to explore what is the specific kind of ‘problematic' body of young people that are constructed and reflected in China's physical education and health curriculum policies. We argue that by representing the ‘problem' of young people's bodies as poorly performing, the policy documents construct a sense that good-performance bodies in sports are desirable and capable of contributing to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Importantly, this prioritisation of the good-performance body in sports prioritises not only good motor abilities in sports competitions, but also the body's ‘intrinsic’ sports morality.

As a leading European funding programme aimed at enhancing the cohesion of cross‐border regions and countries, Interreg plays a significant role in fostering regional development. Sustainability, as one of the programme's central themes, covers a large portion of the objective focus, aiming for sustainable development. Although the guidelines contain implications for social sustainability, the programme demonstrates that the concept is poorly understood, which can be seen in project implementation.The purpose of this research is to investigate the conceptual framework and development of the discourse on social sustainability in the context of tourism and cohesion strategy, specifically within the Interreg programme. Thus, this article examines the social sustainability discourse within Interreg Europe's implications for cross‐border tourism development.The study is concerned with the construction of the social sustainability discourse within cohesion policy in the broader European region. In particular, this study seeks to answer the question “how does Interreg structure the discourse on social sustainability in relation to tourism?” Our research is based on a critical review of the literature, followed by a discourse analysis of the core documents of Interreg Europe 2021–2027: the Programme Manual and the Cooperation Programme document.In conclusion, three key themes emerge from the discourse on social sustainability in tourism: (1) Interreg's recognition of tourism‐dependent regions; (2) a dominant presence of the economic and environmental pillars of sustainability; and (3) an ambiguous characterization of the social pillar and its objectives. As a result, we confirm the significance of social sustainability and clear policy formulation for the development of sustainable tourism.This article warns against imprecise project objectives and the use of overly simplified and ambiguous terminology, while emphasizing the importance of social sustainability in the context of sustainable tourism development.

This article analyzes the AAA’s statements delivered in his speeches from 2011 to 2012 about a new cultural policy of Banyuwangi. Using Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, I will explore how local cultural discourses are constructed in a variety of his statements. These statements were the basic concepts of his cultural policy which was implemented in various cultural agendas in B-Fest since 2012. The formation, of course, cannot be separated from the frame of tourism industry in national and global scope. Following the framework of Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I will combine textual, discursive practice, and contextual analysis. Textual analysis examines the process of forming discourses on local culture in the midst of tourism as AAA has expressed in his speeches. Discursive practice focuses on the artist's response to the cultural policies adopted by Regent AAA. The last is contextual analysis of the real conditions of local culture and its perpetrators, bureaucratic institutions, and the global tourism industry that lays the ground for exploring critically how broader ideological and political interests are negotiated through cultural policy in Banyuwangi. The result of this study shows that Banyuwangi’s cultural policy under AAA regime uses a transformation mode which change the physical appearance of the local cultures with glamorous style. With glamorous new look based on traditional cultural diversity of Banyuwangi, especially Using cultures, carnival is not only becoming fashion show. Fashion carnival that still carries the characteristics of art form or ritual that live in society would be more attractive and luxurious so that will attract the interest of foreign or domestic tourists who yearn for the exotic society and local cultures.

Over the past two decades, depression has become a prominent global public health concern, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Movement for Global Mental Health have developed international guidelines to improve mental health services globally, prioritizing LMICs. These efforts hold promise for advancing care and treatment for depression and other mental, neurological, and substance abuse disorders in LMICs. The intervention guides, such as the WHO's mhGAP-Intervention Guides, are evidence-based tools and guidelines to help detect, diagnose, and manage the most common mental disorders. Using the Global South as an empirical site, this article draws on Foucauldian critical discourse and document analysis methods to explore how these international intervention guides operate as part of knowledge-power processes that inscribe and materialize in the world in some forms rather than others. It is proposed that these international guidelines shape the global discourse about depression through their (re)production of biopolitical assumptions and impacts, governmentality, and “conditions of possibility.” The article uses empirical data to show nuance, complexity, and multi-dimensionality where binary thinking sometimes dominates, and to make links across arguments for and against global mental health. The article concludes by identifying several resistive discourses and suggesting reconceptualizing the treatment gap for common mental disorders.

The study analyses Vice President Joe Biden's address to the UN General Assembly on the United States' departure from Afghanistan. The study uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to analyze the speech's language and rhetoric to reveal the hidden ideologies and beliefs that informed its development. The dynamic interplay between rhetoric and policy decisions and their broader ramifications in international relations and domestic understanding is the primary focus of this inquiry. Our research places the exact wording, words, and rhetorical methods against more extensive historical, geopolitical, and societal backgrounds. This research provides important insights into the complex interaction between political rhetoric, public perception, and policy repercussions by bridging these concepts with real-world effects. Especially for major foreign policy decisions, the findings illuminate how political narratives, when appropriately analyzed, disclose deeper levels of intention, rationale, and global strategy.

ABSTRACT This Special Issue collects five articles that are located in the present global context, and draw on methods from across critical discourse studies (CDS) to examine the interaction between material realities of climate change and discursive communication between different Parties and non-Party stakeholders in multimodal ways and on multiple platforms. To this end, it draws on discourses such as the UN speeches, UN documents, EU green deal policy, official documents submitted by African countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and news reports in China and Australia. In these studies, diverse social and linguistic concepts were utilized and revisited to better inform the use of linguistic and/or visual symbols in different types of public discourse. This Special Issue aims to take the field a step further by showing the importance of carrying out more international research to expand our knowledge of the global, regional, and local discourse and ideologies that shape what we come to know and understand as climate change and how it is to be addressed. We envisage it will bring significant theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights into the relations between language use, discursive practice, and social practice.

This research investigated the main linguistic strategies used in President Biden’s inauguration speech presented in 2021. Data were analyzed in light of Fairclough’s CDA framework: macro-structure (thematic)—intertextually; microstructure in syntax analysis (cohesion); stylistic (lexicon choice to display the speaker’s emphasis); and rhetoric in terms of persuasive function. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that Biden used certain persuasive strategies including creativity, metaphor, contrast, indirectness, reference, and intertextuality, for addressing critical issues. Creative expressions were drawn highlighting and magnifying significant real-life issues. Certain concepts and values (i.e., unity, democracy, and racial justice) were also accentuated as significant elements of America’s status and Biden’s ideology. Intertextuality was employed by resorting to an extract from one of the American presidents in order to convince the Americans and the international community of his ideas, vision, and policy. It appeared that indirect expressions were also used for discussing politically sensitive issues to acquire a political and interactional advantage over his political opponents. His referencing style showed his interest in others and their unity. Significant ideologies encompassing unity, equality, and freedom for US citizens were stated implicitly and explicitly. The study concludes that the effective use of linguistic and rhetorical devices is important to construct meanings in the world, be persuasive, and convey the intended vision and underlying ideologies.

Background The global burden of alcohol harm has increased and is forecast to grow further without effective policy implementation. Public–private partnerships aiming to address global health, and other societal challenges, are a burgeoning feature of neoliberal governance. Rhetorically distancing themselves from tobacco, the major alcohol companies are committed to tackling ‘harmful drinking’ and have created a distinct type of public relations organization for this purpose. The activities of such organizations are increasingly recognized as an impediment to the implementation of policies to reduce alcohol harm, including in low- and middle-income countries where markets are expanding. Methods The approach of critical discourse analysis is used to examine the discursive tactics and strategies used in Working Together ; a ‘toolkit’ published by the key global level alcohol industry public relations organization, the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD). This study considers how it works discursively to set the terms of, and overcome skepticism about partnerships, to define aims and position various actors by constructing their roles. The construction of prospective partners provides insights into the alcohol industry itself. Results The toolkit operates as an ideological resource for forming public–private partnerships across the world based on the accumulated know-how of the major companies through IARD. This allows the largest alcohol companies to exercise leadership of the industry, while remaining off-stage. The toolkit relies on a form of rhetorical work which creates distance from obvious corporate interests and the harms caused to population health and society. This is accomplished by working against evidence-informed population level approaches, and thus avoiding policies that will make any significant difference to overall alcohol harm. Unspecific “complexity” affords opportunity for preferred types of “actions”, and “partnership” provides opportunity to gain credibility by association, further minimizing the likelihood of any material harm being reduced. Conclusions The toolkit is designed to not only legitimate the inclusion of alcohol industry actors as initiating ‘partners’, but also assigns them roles as managers of a set of carefully constructed relationships. This vision of public–private partnership reproduces the hegemonic narrative that has successfully blocked policy advances for decades and led to growing alcohol harm globally.

In this paper we carry out a Critical Discourse Analysis (cda) of the UK Government’s 2022 Green Paper ‘Right Support, Right Place, Right Time’, known as ‘the SEND Review’. Our analysis is informed both by Hyatt’s (2013) Critical Higher Education Policy Discourse Analysis (chepda) framework and by our cognizance of how the term ‘special educational needs’ is constructed in the context of the state’s active and passive enactment of policies that continue to diminish the quality of disabled people’s lives. Our analysis focuses principally on deconstruction of the Green Paper with close attention to modes of legitimation, interdiscursivity, intertextuality, presupposition/implication, and lexico-grammatical construction. We present three main areas of interest: the (mis)use of and omission of ‘need’, the ubiquitous and ambiguous use of ‘we’, and the presentation of ‘newness’ in the SEND Review.

This study is a critical discourse analysis aimed at examining the forms of ideology reflected in Western media coverage and the development of religious moderation policy in Indonesia. The data in this research consists of vocabulary, sentences, and text structures containing ideologies from news texts about Islamophobia in Western media and religious moderation in Indonesia. The data sources used are television and newspaper news in America and Europe as well as television and newspaper news in Indonesia. The process of data collection is carried out by searching and selecting relevant news texts on the research topic from predetermined data sources. Then, the selected news texts are used as data in this research. The data analysis employs the critical discourse analysis technique by Fairclough and Wodak. The results show that the extensive coverage of terrorist activities by the media has resulted in Islamophobia in the West. Similarly, biased policies and discrimination against Muslims have also contributed to acts of terror. It is crucial to utilize media in a positive manner to promote unity and tolerance among different religious communities. The agenda of religious moderation should begin with individuals showing respect and appreciation for differing opinions and beliefs.

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Climate change, which nowadays is frequently framed as climate crisis in order to highlight the urgent need to take action to tackle it, has been studied extensively both in communication and political science disciplines. This contribution uses as an example the International Maritime Organization to highlight the utilization of its social media, and in particular its Twitter/X account, to frame that it supports climate action in the shipping sector and to brand itself as a green organization. The article offers an analytical framework which illustrates that policy branding is one of the most accurate tools to perform policy framing. It continues by showcasing that this is a procedure that governance institutions use to promote a deliberate message, even if this is not on track with what the institution is expected to do. The empirical data gathered, and processed through content analysis, paints a clear image of how this happens in the era of social media and leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to study policy framing and policy branding within the context they take place; otherwise, wrong conclusions might be drawn.

Abstract Objective: Maximising synergies and minimising conflicts (i.e. building policy coherence) between trade and nutrition policy is an important objective. One understudied driver of policy coherence is the alignment in the frames, discourses and values of actors involved in the respective sectors. In the present analysis, we aim to understand how such actors interpret (i.e. ‘frame’) nutrition and the implications for building trade–nutrition policy coherence. Design: We adopted a qualitative single case study design, drawing on key informant interviews with those involved in trade policy. Setting: We focused on the Australian trade policy sub-system, which has historically emphasised achieving market growth and export opportunities for Australian food producers. Participants: Nineteen key informants involved in trade policy spanning the government, civil society, business and academic sectors. Results: Nutrition had low ‘salience’ in Australian trade policy for several reasons. First, it was not a domestic political priority in Australia nor among its trading partners; few advocacy groups were advocating for nutrition in trade policy. Second, a ‘productivist’ policy paradigm in the food and trade policy sectors strongly emphasised market growth, export opportunities and deregulation over nutrition and other social objectives. Third, few opportunities existed for health advocates to influence trade policy, largely because of limited consultation processes. Fourth, the complexity of nutrition and its inter-linkages with trade presented difficulties for developing a ‘broader discourse’ for engaging the public and political leaders on the topic. Conclusions: Overcoming these ‘ideational challenges’ is likely to be important to building greater coherence between trade and nutrition policy going forward.

Introduction Public health and alcohol industry actors compete to frame alcohol policy problems and solutions. Little is known about how sudden shifts in the political context provide moments for policy actors to re-frame alcohol-related issues. South Africa’s temporary bans on alcohol sales during the COVID-19 pandemic offered an opportunity to study this phenomenon. Methods We identified Professor Charles Parry from the South African Medical Research Council as a key policy actor. Parry uses a Twitter account primarily to comment on alcohol-related issues in South Africa. We harvested his tweets posted from March 18 to August 31, 2020, coinciding with the first two alcohol sales bans. We conducted a thematic analysis of the tweets to understand how Parry framed alcohol policy evidence and issues during these ‘extraordinary times.’ Results Parry underlined the extent of alcohol-related harm during ‘normal times’ with scientific evidence and contested industry actors’ efforts to re-frame relevant evidence in a coherent and well-constructed argument. Parry used the temporary sales restrictions to highlight the magnitude of the health and social harms resulting from alcohol consumption, particularly trauma, rather than the COVID-19 transmission risks. Parry portrayed the sales ban as a policy learning opportunity (or ‘experiment’) for South Africa and beyond. Conclusions Crisis conditions can provide new openings for public health (and industry) actors to make salient particular features of alcohol and alcohol policy evidence.

ABSTRACT Commitments to inclusive education have been articulated in policy across the UK, in the context of increasingly inclusive rhetoric in education policy globally over recent years. This paper uses a critical policy analysis approach to understand the framing of inclusion within national legislation, policy documents and associated key resources from across the four UK nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The paper seeks to understand how the four UK nations articulate and portray their inclusive education policies and the political and ideological motivations and priorities that are apparent within these policies. Through this analysis, we find not only divergence between the four nations, but also within the policy documents of each nation. While documentation from Scotland shows a clearer voice and fewer examples of problematising the learner, across all UK nations we see complicated messaging and a lack of coherence in inclusive education policy.

Background: In response to the magnitude of harms caused by alcohol, the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol (GAS) was endorsed in 2010. We analysed submissions to the 2019 WHO consultation on the implementation of the GAS to identify how different stakeholders frame alcohol use and control; and to assess how stakeholders engage with the consultation process, with possibly harmful consequences for public health policy. Methods: All submissions from WHO Member States, international organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academic institutions and private sector entities were identified and used as data for an inductive framing analysis. This involved close reading and data familiarisation, thematic coding and identifying emergent framings. Through the analysis of texts, framing analysis can give insights into the values and interests of stakeholders. Because framing influences how issues are conceptualised and addressed, framing analysis is a useful tool to study policy-making processes. Results: We identified 161 unique submissions and seven attachments. Emerging frames were grouped according to their function: defining the problem, assigning causation, proposing solutions, or justifying and persuading. Submissions varied in terms of the framing they deployed and how this was presented, eg, how the problem was defined. Proposed policy solutions also varied. Targeted solutions emphasising individual responsibility tended to be supported by industry and some Member States. Calls for universal regulation and global mobilisation often came from NGOs and academia. Stakeholders drew on evidence and specific value systems to support the adoption of certain problem and solution ideas and to oppose competing framing. Conclusion: Alcohol control is a contested policy field in which different stakeholders use framing to set the agenda and influence what policy solutions are considered legitimate. WHO should consider which interests are served by these different framings and how to weigh different stakeholders in the consultation process.

Objectives The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly exacerbated health inequalities in England. Policy makers sought to ameliorate its impact. This paper aims to identify how health inequalities were framed in national policy documents published in England during the pandemic and how this impacts the framing of policy solutions. Study design Discourse analysis of selected national policy documents. Methods First, we identified relevant national policy documents through a broad search and eligibility criteria to identify illustrative policy documents. Second, we undertook a discourse analysis to understand the framing and constitution of health inequalities and consequent solutions within them. Third, we used existing health inequalities literature to critique the findings. Results Based on analysis of six documents, we found evidence of the idea of lifestyle drift with a marked disjunction between the acknowledgement of the wider determinants of heath and the policy solutions advocated. The target population for interventions is predominantly the worst off, rather than the whole social gradient. Repeated appeals to behaviour change indicate an inherent individualist epistemology. Responsibility and accountability for health inequalities appears delegated locally without the power and resource required to deliver. Conclusion Policy solutions are unlikely to address health inequalities. This could be done though through (i) shifting interventions towards structural factors and wider determinants of health, (ii) a positive vision of a health equitable society, (iii) a proportional universalism in approach and (iv) a delegation of power and resource alongside responsibility for delivering on health inequalities. These possibilities currently remain outside of the policy language of health inequalities.

Background In 2019–2020, the Ethiopian government ratified a suite of legislative measures that includes levying a tax on tobacco products. This study aims to examine stakeholders’ involvement, position, power and perception regarding the Ethiopian Food and Drug Authority (EFDA) bill (Proclamation No.1112/2019). This includes their meaning-making and interaction with each other during the bill’s formulation, adoption and implementation stages. Methods We employed a mixed-methods design drawing on three sources of data: (1) policy documents and media articles from government and/or civil society groups (n=27), (2) audio and video transcripts of parliamentary debates and (3) qualitative stakeholder interviews. Results Policy actors in both the public health camp and tobacco industry employed several framing moves, engaged in distinctive patterns of moral rhetoric, and strategically invoked moral languages to galvanise support for their policy objectives. Central to this framing debate are issues of public health and the danger of tobacco, and the protection of ‘the economy and personal freedom’. The public health camp’s arguments and persuasiveness—which led to the passage of the EFDA bill—centred around discrediting tobacco industry’s cost–benefit assessments through frame disconnection, or by polarising their own position that the financial, psychological and lost productivity costs incurred by tobacco use outweighs any tax revenue. Conclusions A successful cultivation of an epistemic community and engagement of policy entrepreneurs—both from government agencies and civil society organisations—was critical in creating a united front and a compelling affirmative policy narrative, thereby influence excise tax policy outcomes.

Especially in times of (corona) crisis, the German press plays a crucial role in communicating Germany’s economic policy orientation, influencing how the crisis is communicated to the public. The issue of joint European debt has never been more visible than in these times, as has the threat of a new euro crisis—Italy in focus. This study explores the German media framing of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using Italy as an example. Applying quantitative content analysis, the relative prevalence of frames rooted in competing economic policy paradigms (neoliberal/Keynesian) in press coverage from February to July 2020 is examined. The Keynesian paradigm dominates coverage. Using logit analysis, issue-specific neoliberal frames are identified as solution oriented, while Keynesian frames focus on evaluations. With Germany's policy shift regarding European joint debt and toward European greater fiscal integration, a paradigm shift is observable. Overall, findings demonstrate a relatively paradigmatic pluralistic reporting.

There is a growing understanding that the producers and sellers of harmful products directly and indirectly affect population health and policy, including through seeking to influence public understanding about the nature of harms and their solutions. However, the firearm industry and related organisations have not to date been the subject of this type of enquiry. This study sought to address this evidential gap through examining the ways in which the firearm industry and industry-associated organisations frame firearms, firearm-related harms and possible solutions to gun violence. This was a thematic qualitative documentary analysis of materials from 7 of the largest firearm manufacturers and associated organisations. Two authors independently extracted textual material from web articles, press releases, annual reports and shareholder communications between 1st April 2019 to 1st April 2020 (302 documents). A hybrid approach combining both deductive and inductive coding was adopted, guided by the literature on the commercial determinants of health and using NVivo version 12. The firearm industry and firearm-industry-funded organisations use framings about the safety and role of guns, evidence on associated harms and solutions that align with the industry's business interests, consistent with evidence on other harmful product manufacturers. This study identified framing strategies employed by the firearm industry and related organisations. These included attempts to undermine evidence, linking regulation to a dystopian future, minimising some of the most common harms, placing the responsibility for harms on individuals, and attempting to foster a heightened sense of risk to personal safety.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of public policy measures have been developed to curb the spread of the virus. However, little is known about the attitudes towards stay-at-home orders expressed on social media despite the fact that social media are central platforms for expressing and debating personal attitudes. To address this gap, we analyze the prevalence and framing of attitudes towards stay-at-home policies, as expressed on Twitter in the early months of the pandemic. We focus on three aspects of tweets: whether they contain an attitude towards stay-at-home measures, whether the attitude was for or against, and the moral justification for the attitude, if any. We collect and annotate a dataset of stay-at-home tweets and create classifiers that enable large-scale analysis of the relationship between moral frames and stay-at-home attitudes and their temporal evolution. Our findings suggest that frames of care are correlated with a supportive stance, whereas freedom and oppression signify an attitude against stay-at-home directives. There was widespread support for stay-at-home orders in the early weeks of lockdowns, followed by increased resistance toward the end of May and the beginning of June 2020. The resistance was associated with moral judgment that mapped to political divisions.

Highlights • Food advertising regulation a contentious policy issue.• Framing strategies used by policy actors important to capture for policy analysis.• Policy actors use different moral frameworks to support or oppose policies.• Tension between children’s rights and industry rights moral frameworks identified.

Scholarship on gender mainstreaming (GM) in the European Union (EU) consistently highlights the disappointing implementation of gender mainstreaming. This article contributes to that discussion through the analysis of the first policy frame on gender equality in the work programmes of the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Development, Horizon 2020, from 2014 until 2016. This article analyses how GM as a transformative strategy is contextualised by advisory group experts, and what is being achieved within Horizon 2020 work programmes. In opposition to the Commission’s rhetorical commitment to GM, this article demonstrates that Horizon 2020 work programmes exemplify a failure of implementing GM, further depoliticising gender equality in the Commission’s neoliberal context.

Abstract Objective: Junk-food marketing contributes significantly to childhood obesity, which in turn imposes major health and economic burdens. Despite this, political priority for addressing junk-food marketing has been weak in many countries. Competing interests, worldviews and beliefs of stakeholders involved with the issue contribute to this political inertia. An integral group of actors for driving policy change are parliamentarians, who champion policy and enact legislation. However, how parliamentarians interpret and portray (i.e. frame) the causes and solutions of public health nutrition problems is poorly understood. The present study aimed to understand how Australian parliamentarians from different political parties frame the problem of junk-food marketing. Design: Framing analysis of transcripts from the Australian Government’s Parliamentary Hansard, involving development of a theoretical framework, data collection, coding transcripts and thematic synthesis of results. Settings: Australia. Participants: None. Results: Parliamentarian framing generally reflected political party ideology. Liberal parliamentarians called for minimal government regulation and greater personal responsibility, reflecting the party’s core values of liberalism and neoliberalism. Greens parliamentarians framed the issue as systemic, highlighting the need for government intervention and reflecting the core party value of social justice. Labor parliamentarians used both frames at varying times. Conclusions: Parliamentarians’ framing was generally consistent with their party ideology, though subject to changes over time. This project provides insights into the role of framing and ideology in shaping public health policy responses and may inform communication strategies for nutrition advocates. Advocates might consider using frames that resonate with the ideologies of different political parties and adapting these over time.

ABSTRACT Sweden became an outlier among the Nordic countries in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Nordic countries have historically shared a social democratic welfare state regime, with strong cooperation and harmonization of social policies, their responses to the pandemic showcased fundamental differences to that of Sweden. In particular, Sweden’s prioritization of individual civil liberties over social rights diverged from the more coercive approaches of Finland and Norway, which placed greater emphasis on public health and social welfare. This study examines the media framing surrounding the contrasting Swedish approach and highlights the dichotomy between statist individualism/autonomy and welfare paternalism/interdependence that has been an inherent part of the Swedish welfare state framing. Employing interpretive policy analysis, the study explores the media narratives used by policy actors to frame their pandemic response in terms of individual autonomy and governmental paternalism. We identified two contrasting perspectives on governance regarding the COVID-19 policy strategy. One framing perspective backed the strategy, emphasizing the importance of safeguarding individual autonomy and minimizing central control. The other viewpoint demanded a lockdown and criticized the Swedish response as too lenient. This deviated from usual Swedish political alignments and created a polarized and lively debate around the core values of individual autonomy, agency, and central governmental paternalism.

While progress has been made recently in understanding food systems per se, much less is known about policies around those food systems. In this paper, we aim at understanding the food system policy context with the specific objective to look at policy dynamics—defined as the way policy agendas are identified, justified, and framed by decision-makers, and how they interact. Vietnam is used as a case study. Primary data were generated through face-to-face interviews complemented by an online survey. A policy framing approach was used to structure the research. The analysis reveals how the policy agenda is considered by many actors to be only partially evidence-based and highlights the extent to which the state government remains the most powerful actor in the setting of that agenda. The research also reveals the diffusion of the food safety crisis narrative beyond its original technical domain into a larger number of policy framings related to other issues of food systems, thus making it de facto the “center of gravity” of the current agenda on food systems in Vietnam. Yet, a comparison with data from other countries challenges this narrative, and reveals instead how the (legitimate) public concern about food safety is being instrumentalized by certain groups of actors to advance their own agenda. The implication of this “distorted” framing is the risk for the decision-makers to “overfocus” their attention on this short-term issue and lose sight of some other longer-term structural trends such as the emergence of obesity in Vietnamese urban population.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the Indonesian Government's communication strategies and how these strategies are framed in the media during the COVID-19 crisis. The research aims to understand the portrayal of government directives and public health measures in prominent Indonesian news outlets.   Theoretical Reference: This study is grounded in media framing theory, which examines how information is presented and the effects of this presentation on public perception. The research specifically investigates the framing of governmental crisis communication within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.   Method: A qualitative content analysis was conducted on articles from Detik.com and Liputan6.com, covering the period from January 2020 to December 2022. The analysis was facilitated by NVivo 12 Plus, which was used to systematically assess the media portrayal of government actions and public health initiatives.   Results and Conclusion: The findings reveal that Detik.com initially led in pandemic coverage, while Liputan6.com later provided more frequent updates as public information demands increased. Both outlets maintained substantial attention to the ongoing social and economic impacts of the pandemic, demonstrating continued media engagement with post-crisis issues. Distinct media framing approaches were identified, with Detik.com focusing extensively on pandemic management and Liputan6.com possibly emphasizing alternative crisis narratives. The study concludes that governmental crisis communication significantly influences public perception and highlights the crucial role of transparent and accurate information dissemination for effective public response in health emergencies.   Implications of Research: This research underscores the importance of strategic media engagement by government authorities during crises. By identifying different framing approaches, it provides insights into how media platforms can shape public understanding and reaction to government policies. The findings suggest that government agencies should prioritize clear, consistent, and transparent communication to foster trust and ensure effective public compliance during health emergencies.   Originality/Value: This study contributes to the limited body of research on media framing of governmental communication during health crises in Indonesia. It offers valuable insights into the dynamics between government communication strategies and media portrayal, highlighting the significant role of media in influencing public perception during a pandemic. This research emphasizes the necessity of effective communication strategies to manage public responses and mitigate the impact of health emergencies.

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Today, the power of discourse is incontestable. Within the field of language policy and planning (LPP), language policy (LP) has been conceptualized in various ways. One paradigm-shifting conceptualization is viewing LP as discourse. The discursive power of language policies is quite real as it can be contested in official state discourses about language and language-related issues. This paper employs corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis to examine the macro-discourses of crisis, quality, equity, equality, and change in Morocco’s language policy. The study scrutinizes these discourses and explores their “manipulative” use in official policy texts. It contends that these macro-discourses are strategically used to rationalize the spread and strengthening of foreign languages to the detriment of national ones. Specifically, the analysis shows that crisis discourse serves as a powerful strategy to legitimize change and create a sense of urgency that often sidelines crucial questions about the nature and beneficiaries of the proposed changes. Furthermore, the discourse of quality ties educational “quality” to the mastery of foreign languages. Likewise, renovation and modernization discourses are found to align systematically with the promotion of these languages. Also, the rhetoric of equity in language-in-education policy appears to justify biased decisions that favour foreign language instruction, risking the perpetuation and exacerbation of existing educational inequities. Consequently, this study implies that more attention should be paid to the intricate dynamics of language policy, especially its discursive power, which could potentially amplify disparities in education systems instead of eliminating them.

Society continues to be confronted with the deep inadequacies of the current global order. Rampant income inequality between and within countries, dramatic disparities in access to resources, as seen during the COVID pandemic, persistent degradation of the environment, and numerous other problems are tied to existing systems of economy and government. Current global economic systems are implicated in perpetuating these problems. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born out of the recognition that dramatic changes were needed to address these intersecting challenges. There is general recognition that transformation of global systems and the relationship between sectors is needed. We conduct a structured, theoretically-informed analysis of SDG documents produced by United Nations agencies with the aim of examining the framing of economic policy goals, a historically dominant domain of consideration in development policy, in relation to health, social and environmental goals. We apply a novel typology to categorize the framing of policy goals. This analysis identified that the formal discourse associated with the SDGs marks a notable change from the pre-SDG development discourse. The ‘transformational’ agenda issued in the SDG documents is in part situated in relation to a critique of previous and existing approaches to development that privilege economic goals over health, social and environmental goals, and position economic policy as the solution to societal concerns. At the same time, we find that there is tension between the aspiration of transformation and an overwhelming focus on economic goals. This work has implications for health governance, where we find that health goals are still often framed as a means to achieve economic policy goals. Health scholars and advocates can draw from our analysis to critically examine how health fits within the transformational development agenda and how sectoral policy goals can move beyond a crude emphasis on economic growth.

No abstract available

ABSTRACT School choice is a controversial issue in the public discussion of education. In Chile, the new School Admission System (SAE) was recently implemented to gradually reverse the country’s high educational segregation. However, this system is facing strong opposition. Voucher and free choice promoters have opposed SAE because they claim it violates the freedom of families and merit. The media have actively participated in this debate, working as political actors. By applying a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative thematic analysis, we study how Chilean media have framed school choice, and discuss the political contention faced by policies that attempt to reverse the primacy of the market in a global context of neoliberal education policies.

Hartal Doktor Kontrak (HDK) Movement first surfaced in June 2021 following prolonged dissatisfaction towards the contract appointment policy of medical doctors in Malaysia. On the 26th of July 2021, an unprecedented strike (Hartal) was organised by contract doctors across Malaysia. It generated major media attention. This study sought to evaluate how the HDK movement was framed in the mainstream media and to analyse the framing trend in conjunction with the chronology of HDK movement events. A total of 109 news articles in two major national newspapers were analysed from 1st June 2021 until 28th February 2022 using quantitative content analysis method. The five-dimension media frame (responsibility, human interest, conflict, morality, and economic consequences) by Semetko & Valkenburg was applied to determine the trend of media framing. MANOVA test was performed to scrutinise the differences in frame portrayal before and after Hartal. Overall, the responsibility frame was the most used (76.2%) both pre- and post-strike, with the most frequently highlighted items being solutions to the HDK issue and the roles played by the government. The human interest frame and conflict frame followed next, with at least one item of each frame being featured in 33.0 and 32.1% of all news articles. Despite more news articles published post-strike, the aggregate mean scores of all the frames were higher during the pre-strike period, demonstrating how media framing in the earlier period significantly affected the subsequent events of the HDK movement and its impact on the contract appointment policy. In this case, media framing set an agenda for stakeholders to implement necessary policy changes to prevent subsequent strikes and to seek long-term solutions. Lastly, this study presents a novel approach to evaluating certain controversial matters that may not be suitably addressed by the conventional research method such as primary quantitative data collection or qualitative interviews.

Frames shape public opinion on policy issues, with implications for policy adoption and agenda-setting. What impact do common issue frames for racial equity in education have on voters’ support for racially equitable education policy? Across survey experiments with two independent representative polls of California voters, framing effects were moderated by voters’ prior policy preferences. Among respondents concerned with tax policy, a frame emphasizing the economic benefits of equity elicited higher priority for racial equity in education. Among respondents concerned with social justice, an “equal opportunity” frame elicited higher priority ratings. However, exploratory analyses showed frames only mattered when respondents held mixed policy preferences. Among respondents who (a) valued both tax policy and social justice issues, or who (b) valued neither, both frames were equally impactful.

Abstract Since the end of the Cold War, the protection of civilians has increased its weight on the United Nations (UN) agenda. This article (1) maps the evolution of civilian protection within the UN framework as an indicator of its shifting priorities, (2) identifies breakpoints in the prevalence and character of the protection discourse, and (3) explores how internal processes of policy development and real-world triggers (namely conflicts and peacekeeping operations) shaped this transformation. The article uses Structural Topic Modeling (STM) to analyze an original corpus of Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on complex humanitarian emergencies since 1990. The analysis uncovers two distinct forms of protection, labeled as “Ground protection” and “Political–legal protection,” which are characterized by contrasting temporal and geographic trajectories. Moreover, critical junctures in the protection rhetoric (during the years 2000, 2005, and 2008) coincide with policy watersheds rather than conflict outbreaks or trends in peacekeeping deployment. This article offers a comprehensive analysis of the intricate evolution of civilian protection using text-as-data methods, which uses its theory-building design to encourage further explorations on the interplay between internal and external factors in shaping its progression within the UN framework.

The global implementation of structural policies to tackle obesity has been slow, likely because of the competing interests of governments and the food industry. We used the discussion of the Chilean Food Labeling Law to identify influential stakeholders in the media and their frames during different periods of the law’s implementation. This involved a content analysis of the food regulation media coverage in five key periods from 2007, when the food bill was first introduced in Congress, to 2018, when the second phase of the law was implemented (N = 1295). We found that most of the law coverage was through elite press. Half of the sources were from the food industry (26.7%) and government (26.2%), while other stakeholders, were less prevalent. Frames were mostly competing, except for cooperation with the law. The main food industry frame used during the discussion of the law was the “economic threat” (41.9%), whose prevalence decreased at the post-implementation period (13%, p < 0.01). No other relevant stakeholders changed their framing. Our results highlight that there are several aspects of public health communication, such as the type of media used, the involvement of scholars and civil society, and the framing, that could be improved to advance food environment policies.

The delegitimization of policy advice has generated a defensive response that combines an assertion of the superior scientific character of expertise with a forthright affirmation of social and political values. This more value-driven discourse of policy expertise is examined with the case study of the Global Solutions Summit/World Policy Forum, launched in 2017 to support the Think20 network of global policy advisors supporting the G20 meetings under the German presidency. The Global Solutions Summit has evolved into a more policy-wonkish version of the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos and now is a switching point of global policy advice for the G7 as well. Through participant observation and an analysis of the proceedings of the annual summits since 2017, the article shows a distinctive configuration of normatively framed policy advice designed to overcome the social and political pathologies that have been the foundation of populist critiques of policy expertise.

On August 9, 2017, South Korea announced a new measure to expand National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage, which was nicknamed "Mooncare." At the early stage of its implementation, the interpretation of a policy by social actors influences its success and the formation of social conflicts around it. This study sought to identify the strategies for interpreting Mooncare in newspapers and government documents and examine the conflicts between them. Therefore, this study used text mining methods that are well-suited to processing large amounts of natural language data. Findings revealed that, while the conservative newspaper The Chosun Ilbo tended to highlight the financial feasibility of Mooncare, the liberal newspaper The Hankyoreh emphasized the change in rationality of government from the previous administration implied by Mooncare. Additionally, medical newspapers tended to adopt the perspective of healthcare providers and to focus on the changes in the medical system that may threaten them. In contrast, general newspapers tended to adopt the perspective of Mooncare's beneficiaries. Finally, government documents were found to focus on simply introducing the benefits of Mooncare, not responding to the framings of various media. This study identified how various social actors interpreted Mooncare. The results suggest that the government should assume a more active role in the meaning making of the policy.

This study examines how the news framing of immigration influences the public’s feelings toward immigrants and their preference for immigration policy in the United States. Unlike prior experimental research that documents the respondents’ immediate reactions to several hand-crafted news frames, this study provides strong empirical evidence for the association between the respondents’ real-world news exposure and their opinion change over time. Combining a computational media content analysis and a two-wave panel survey, the research demonstrates that while exposure to certain frames in the mainstream media would directly lead to public support for a stricter immigration policy, partisan media tend to affect public opinion indirectly by influencing their feelings toward immigrants in opposite directions.

The American educational policy agenda has been fraught with neoliberal laws that center educational improvement and innovation (Barros, 2012). Neoliberalism operates on the premise that market competition will spur excellence in educational opportunities and decrease the education debt in marginalized communities (Fejes & Salling Olesen, 2016). Moreover, in the case of urban education systemic reforms, researchers need to endeavor how marginalized communities relay their concerns or endorsements in the media. News articles are one appropriate unit of analysis for investigating this problem. In this paper, I examine how an education reform law in Puerto Rico, Ley de Reforma Educativa de Puerto Rico (LREPR), was reported on in the four most popular newspapers on the Island. Conducting content analysis of newspaper articles produced findings that contribute to the policy literature by describing three central frames found in the media coverage of LREPR: (a) rhetoric on the “Free Selection of Schools” school voucher program, (b) the effects of mass school closures on municipalities, and (c) rhetoric on Alianza Schools—Puerto Rico’s Charter Schools Initiative. I close with how the frames depart from the Republican-leaning political affiliation of the newspapers and present a collective resistance to the neoliberal education reform policy.

The purpose of this article is twofold: to theoretically assess ideational and organizational explanatory factors in the adoption of artificial intelligence policies; and to examine the extent to which the European Union has managed to facilitate a coordinated artificial intelligence policy in the Nordic countries. The study utilizes a mixed-methods approach based on systematic web searching, systematic policy document analysis and key informant semi-structured interviews. The study finds that the European Union has utilized framing-based strategies to set an agenda for a coordinated European artificial intelligence policy. Moreover, the strategy has affected member-state artificial intelligence policies to the extent that key tenets of European Union artificial intelligence discourse have penetrated Nordic public documents. However, the extent to which the Nordic countries incorporate European Union artificial intelligence policy discourse diverges at the national level. Differentiated national organizational capacities among Nordic countries make the adoption of artificial intelligence policies divergent. This observation is theoretically accounted for through a conversation between organizational theory of public governance and discursive institutionalism. The study argues that the framing of European Union artificial intelligence policies is filtered through organizational structures among states. Points for practitioners The study illuminates how policymakers in the Nordic countries are affected by the European Union when crafting their own artificial intelligence policies. The European Commission profoundly influences the policymaking of member states and affiliated states through the policy strategy of policy framing. The Commission uses this soft measure to nudge member states to comply with the European Union policy framework. Second, the study shows how ‘organizations matter’: variation in national organizational capacities in the Nordic states contributes to variation in national policy adoption. Even though Nordic countries adopt European Union-level policy frames, their implementation is shaped by varying organizational capacities available at the national level.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a global food crisis. Like previous food crises how the debate is framed by food policy actors can have a bearing on policy outcomes. This study researches how the policy responses to migrant horticultural labour shortages, due to the pandemic, were framed in the Italian print media and how this relates to longer-term food policy making. Data were gathered from the six highest-circulation Italian daily newspapers. The coverage was dominated by left-leaning outlets and peaked in relation to Covid-19 recovery policies and political processes. Farmer industry bodies were the most quoted group, and the legalisation of undocumented migrant workers was the most frequently discussed policy response. A frames analysis was conducted and identified three principal frames: food security, worker exploitation and immigration. The worker exploitation and immigration frames were most frequently used by left-leaning newspapers, while centre-right papers used the food security frame the most often. The results suggest that media framing could contribute to both policy change, helping to open policy windows, as well as policy lock-ins, side-lining certain debates, actors and policy solutions. The research aims to contribute to growing empirical work which seeks to understand the impact of Covid-19 on migrant agricultural workers and food policy.

Context Scotland is the first country in the world to pass legislation introducing a minimum unit price (MUP) for alcohol in an attempt to reduce consumption and associated harms by increasing the price of the cheapest alcohol. We investigated the competing ways in which policy stakeholders presented the debate. We then established whether a change in framing helped explain the policy's emergence. Methods We conducted a detailed policy case study through analysis of evidence submitted to the Scottish parliament, and in-depth, one-to-one interviews (n = 36) with politicians, civil servants, advocates, researchers, and industry representatives. Findings Public- and voluntary-sector stakeholders tended to support MUP, while industry representatives were more divided. Two markedly different ways of presenting alcohol as a policy problem were evident. Critics of MUP (all of whom were related to industry) emphasized social disorder issues, particularly among young people, and hence argued for targeted approaches. In contrast, advocates for MUP (with the exception of those in industry) focused on alcohol as a health issue arising from overconsumption at a population level, thus suggesting that population-based interventions were necessary. Industry stakeholders favoring MUP adopted a hybrid framing, maintaining several aspects of the critical framing. Our interview data showed that public health advocates worked hard to redefine the policy issue by deliberately presenting a consistent alternative framing. Conclusions Framing alcohol policy as a broad, multisectoral, public health issue that requires a whole-population approach has been crucial to enabling policymakers to seriously consider MUP, and public health advocates intentionally presented alcohol policy in this way. This reframing helped prioritize public health considerations in the policy debate and represents a deliberate strategy for consideration by those advocating for policy change around the world and in other public health areas.

This paper uses interpretive policy analysis to trace the various meanings of government, victims, and experts produced in the discourses of social disasters. These social meanings vary depending on the social disaster and the key policy actors involved. The meaning of a government that is more lenient towards corporations than victims and the identity of victims as 'pure bereaved families' who conform to the government are products of a developmental state. However, after the Sewol Ferry disaster, an active victim identity that actively pursues victims' rights has been formed through the activities of bereaved families and civic groups. Furthermore, during the investigation process of social disasters, there is a continuous clash between two meanings of expertise called technocratic expertise and democratic expertise among officials and victims. In conclusion, this paper emphasizes the need for a victim support system based on the 'thoughtful partisanship' of disaster experts and the empathy of public officials.

Abstract Food and fuel insecurity have been rising in Scotland since 2021, yet very little exists on the dual burden of these poverties. This study, by way of a qualitative interpretative health policy analysis, seeks to better understand the policies and programmes available to mitigate food and fuel insecurity and the associated health burdens in Scotland. Thirty semi-structured key informant interviews were undertaken between April and December 2023 with policy experts in these fields. Interviews were transcribed, abductively coded, analysed, and triangulated with academic, policy and grey literature to compare and contrast policy responses. Given the importance of income when discussing multidimensional poverty, it is unsurprising that a major intervention towards ending food and fuel insecurity is the benefit system at large, which was overall described as insufficient and poorly organised. A cash first approach has been identified as paramount to address food insecurity and take over the ever-growing charity efforts (food bank larders, cooked meals, etc), which are largely considered “sticking plasters” by stakeholders. Fuel insecurity has been increasingly modelling food insecurity tactics - growing charity sector led approach such as introducing fuel banks and warm spaces. While these efforts are often similarly described as “sticking plasters,” many experts report that given the complexity of the issue - poor housing stock, unfair payment systems, lack of trained personnel, and market mis-regulation - increased income alone is insufficient to tackle fuel insecurity, stressing the need for a multidimensional approach to poverty. The health system, while increasingly burdened by both dimensions, was described as having little bandwidth for prevention and saw the role instead up to government and charities. Working with health systems may, however, help to identify those most impacted by food and fuel insecurity such as people with kidney failure.

Ghana’s child protection system reveals a significant gap between its legal framework and its practical implementation. Despite being the first nation to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), Ghana struggles to enforce these mandates because of a direct clash between global standards and local traditions. This study argues that the system fails not because of a lack of resources, but because universal rights-based principles do not align with Ghana’s duty-oriented cultural practices. To investigate this gap, the research employs a dual-method approach, combining a systematic review of 24 core documents, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, with Interpretive Policy Analysis to evaluate how society defines childhood, family responsibility, and welfare. The findings reveal that Western concepts, such as the “best interests of the child,” often function as tools of control, prioritizing individualism over Ghanaian communal values. This creates a “double bind” for families where the formal legal system feels culturally intrusive, yet the traditional kinship networks they trust lack legal authority. To bridge this gap, the study proposes a hybrid governance model that coordinates legal definitions with actual kinship structures, empowers community-based justice and diversion programs, and provides practitioners with culturally sensitive training. By treating cultural differences as opportunities for meaning-making rather than barriers to progress, this study provides a path toward a more robust child protection system in Ghana.

BackgroundSince the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the rate of uninsured in the United States has declined significantly. However, not all legal residents have benefited equally. As part of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership with the Marshallese community, an interpretative policy analysis research project was conducted to document Marshallese Compact of Free Association (COFA) migrants’ understanding and experiences regarding the ACA and related health policies. This article is structured to allow the voice of Marshallese COFA migrants to explain their understanding and interpretation of the ACA and related polices on their health in their own words.MethodsQualitative data was collected from 48 participants in five focus groups conducted at the local community center and three individual interviews for those unable to attend the focus groups. Marshallese community co-investigators participated throughout the research and writing process to ensure that cultural context and nuances in meaning were accurately captured and presented. Community co-investigators assisted with the development of the semi-structured interview guide, facilitated focus groups, and participated in qualitative data analysis.ResultsContent analysis revealed six consistent themes across all focus groups and individual interviews that include: understanding, experiences, effect on health, relational/historical lenses, economic contribution, and pleas. Working with Marshallese community co-investigators, we selected quotations that most represented the participants’ collective experiences. The Marshallese view the ACA and their lack of coverage as part of the broader relationship between the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the United States. The Marshallese state that they have honored the COFA relationship, and they believe the United States is failing to meet its obligations of care and support outlined in the COFA.ConclusionWhile the ACA and Medicaid Expansion have reduced the national uninsured rate, Marshallese COFA migrants have not benefited equally from this policy. The lack of healthcare coverage for the Marshallese COFA migrants exacerbates the health disparities this underserved population faces. This article is an important contribution to researchers because it presents the Marshallese’s interpretation of the policy, which will help inform policy makers that are working to improve Marshallese COFA migrant health.

Even before the COVID-19 global pandemic, the world saw the adoption and proliferation of numerous digital tools and technologies, or a global digital transformation. This paved the way for digital inclusion, particularly through e-commerce and shared services platforms which helped to reduce barriers to entry and created abundant socio-economic opportunities across income groups. As a result, digital literacy becomes a vital aspect of modern life due to the rapid global shift toward this digital transformation. Numerous scholars have investigated the benefits of digital literacies since 1995. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate good practices and lessons learned on how digital literacy may serve as a policy instrument for social innovation and socio-economic transformations. The empirical approach is interpretive, through an understanding of digital literacy categorized into three primary pillars: (i) the evolution and foundational concepts of digital literacy, (ii) frameworks and measures of digital literacy, and (iii) the capacity and skills associated with digital literacy. The paper also examines how digital literacy capacity and skills shape social innovation initiatives in Singapore and the UAE, impacting the socio-economic transformation of individuals, families, and communities. Our interpretive approach from field observations and policy implementation, offers a multi-dimensional perspective on digital literacy research, and its socio-economic impact on people and communities. These insights can assist researchers new to this field to gain a more thorough understanding of digital literacy’s broad ecosystem and its extensive impact on communities and nations as a key driver of socio-economic change.

BACKGROUND Professional nursing associations across jurisdictions engaged in significant policy advocacy during the COVID-19 pandemic to support nurses, the public and health systems. While professional nursing associations have a long history of engaging in policy advocacy, scholars have rarely critically examined this important function. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine how professional nursing associations engage in the process of policy advocacy and (b) to develop knowledge specific to policy advocacy in the context of a global pandemic. METHODS This study was conducted using interpretive description. A total of eight individuals from four professional nursing associations (two local, one national and one international) participated. Data sources included semi-structured interviews conducted between October 2021 and December 2021 and internal and external documents produced by organizations. Data collection and analysis occurred concurrently. Within-case analysis was conducted prior to cross-case comparisons. FINDINGS Six key themes were developed to illustrate the lessons learned from these organizations including their organization's role in supporting a wide audience (professional nursing associations as a compass); the scope of their policy priorities (bridging the gaps between issues and solutions), the breadth of their advocacy strategies (top down, bottom up and everything in between), the factors influencing their decision-making (looking in and looking out), their evaluation practices (focus on contribution, not attribution) and the importance of capitalizing on windows of opportunity. CONCLUSIONS This study provides insight into the nature of policy advocacy carried out by professional nursing associations. IMPACT The findings suggest the need for those leading this important function to think critically about their role in supporting a wide range of audiences, the breadth and depth of their policy priorities and advocacy strategies, the factors that influence their decision-making, and the ways in which their policy advocacy work can be evaluated to move towards greater influence and impact.

Self-employment (SE) is a growing precarious work arrangement internationally. In the current digital age, SE appears in configurations and contours that differ from the labor market of 50 years ago and is part of a ‘paradigm shift’ from manufacturing/managerial capitalism to entrepreneurial capitalism. Our purpose in this paper is to reflect on how a growing working population of self-employed people accesses social support systems when they are not working due to injury and sickness in the two comparable countries of Canada and Australia. We adopted ‘interpretive policy analysis’ as a methodological framework and searched a wide range of documents related to work disability policy and practice, including official data, legal and policy texts from both countries, and five prominent academic databases. Three major themes emerged from the policy review and analysis: (i) defining self-employment: contested views; (ii) the relationship between misclassification of SE and social security systems; (iii) existing social security systems for workers and self-employed workers: Ontario and NSW. Our comparative discussion leads us toward conclusions about what might need to be done to better protect self-employed workers in terms of reforming the existing social security systems for the countries. Because of similarities and differences in support available for SE’d workers in the two countries, our study provides insights into what might be required to move the different countries toward sustainable labour markets for their respective self-employed populations.

Background: The difference between ‘policy as promised’ and ‘policy as practiced’ can be attributed to implementation gaps. Actor relationships and power struggles are central to these gaps but have been studied using only a handful of theoretical and analytical frameworks. Actor interface analysis provides a methodological entry point to examine policy implementation and practices of power. As this approach has rarely been used in health policy analysis, this article aims, first, to synthesise knowledge about use of actor interface analysis in health policy implementation and, second, to provide guiding steps to conduct actor interface analysis. Methods: We conducted an interpretive synthesis of literature using a set of 6 papers, selected using purposeful searches and focusing on actor dynamics and practices of power in policy experiences. Drawing upon the framework synthesis approach and using a guiding framework, the synthesis focused on 4 questions – the type of actor interfaces formed, the power practices observed, the effect of such power practices on implementation and the underpinning factors for the power practices. Results: Multiple interface encounters and power practices were identified which included domination, control, contestation, collaborations, resistance, and negotiations. The lifeworlds of actors that underpinned the power practices, were rooted in social-organisational power relationships, personal experiences and interests, and social-ideological standpoints like values and beliefs of actors. The power practices influenced implementation both positively and negatively. Conclusion: Based on the learnings from synthesis, this paper provides guiding steps for conducting actor interface analysis. Additionally, it presents 2 useful tools for power analysis: (1) ‘actor lifeworlds,’ to understand underpinning factors for power practices and (2) relationships of lifeworlds, interface encounters and power practices with their effect on policy implementation. We suggest that interface analysis should be applied in more empirical settings and across varied health policy experiences to nuance the method better.

This conceptual article examines how consultants use a mundane policy device, the powerpoint presentation, to manage education policy relations between international lenders and education ministries in the global South. The article theorizes presentations as socio-material assemblages that combine consultants, software, visualization conventions, presentation styles, and participant structures in ways that enable consultants to control public interpretations of program evidence. Our analysis is a “constitutive argument” (Pacewicz, 2022) about how to conceptualize presentations. We draw evidence from diverse sources including published accounts by consultants, descriptions of presentations in corporate settings, internet discussions of slide construction, online archives of slides, and data from semi-structured interviews with 12 current or former members of a education ministry in a South Asian country. We argue that consultants use mundane presentation technologies to establish closed interpretive spaces in which they can control interpretation by rendering project information in visually coded forms and structuring interaction through language ideologies and participant structures that ritualize presentation discourse. We close by highlighting implications of these arguments and noting lacunae in our account to be addressed in further research.

The existence of poverty in Germany was long denied in politics and media. This problem denial resulted from insufficient research and the pervasive belief that Germany’s comprehensive welfare state had eradicated poverty. This article traces how poverty gradually became a legible policy problem through European-level initiatives, coalitions between civil society and poverty researchers, as well as self-advocacy efforts. Focusing on the institutionalization of the federal government’s Report on Poverty and Wealth ( Armuts- und Reichtumsbericht ), and the integration of marginalized voices through shadow reporting and lived experience workshops, the study examines how actors mobilized new knowledge to (re)configure established political perceptions. Based on qualitative interviews with policy makers, poverty researchers and civil society representatives, the study combines interpretive process tracing with policy feedback theory to identify and analyse key episodes and central mechanisms driving this process. Ultimately, the article proposes an interpretivist framework that sensitizes process tracing and policy feedback theory to reveal how definitional interventions gain institutional traction through underlying mechanisms over time. In this way, it makes two distinct contributions to the field: the explanation of a political process of problem recognition and agenda-setting on poverty and what can be learned from it; and a critical discussion of the use of interpretive process tracing in the analysis of this historical process.

Background Tobacco industry interference has been identified as the greatest obstacle to the implementation of evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use. Understanding and addressing industry interference in public health policy-making is therefore crucial. Existing conceptualisations of corporate political activity (CPA) are embedded in a business perspective and do not attend to CPA’s social and public health costs; most have not drawn on the unique resource represented by internal tobacco industry documents. Building on this literature, including systematic reviews, we develop a critically informed conceptual model of tobacco industry political activity. Methods and Findings We thematically analysed published papers included in two systematic reviews examining tobacco industry influence on taxation and marketing of tobacco; we included 45 of 46 papers in the former category and 20 of 48 papers in the latter (n = 65). We used a grounded theory approach to build taxonomies of “discursive” (argument-based) and “instrumental” (action-based) industry strategies and from these devised the Policy Dystopia Model, which shows that the industry, working through different constituencies, constructs a metanarrative to argue that proposed policies will lead to a dysfunctional future of policy failure and widely dispersed adverse social and economic consequences. Simultaneously, it uses diverse, interlocking insider and outsider instrumental strategies to disseminate this narrative and enhance its persuasiveness in order to secure its preferred policy outcomes. Limitations are that many papers were historical (some dating back to the 1970s) and focused on high-income regions. Conclusions The model provides an evidence-based, accessible way of understanding diverse corporate political strategies. It should enable public health actors and officials to preempt these strategies and develop realistic assessments of the industry’s claims.

With U.S. classrooms increasingly characterized by linguistic diversity, policies mandating teacher training around English learning have proliferated. Recent federal oversight prompted Massachusetts to implement an initiative to endorse its 70,000+ teachers in Sheltered English Immersion (SEI). While policy research has productively emphasized teachers as policy interpreters within such initiatives, almost no research exists on the role teacher educators play in the policy interpretive process. Therefore, this study documents how teacher educators across Massachusetts interpreted and operationalized the SEI endorsement policy. Drawing on document and interview analysis, findings highlight key experiences, contextual factors, and ideological dispositions that informed participants’ policy interpretations. Instructors navigated tensions between their own goals to affirm linguistic diversity and the monolingual orientations produced through the state’s recently overturned English-only policy. These findings demonstrate the affordances of examining the role of language ideologies in policy interpretation, with implications for large-scale language policy initiatives and educational policy interpretation more broadly.

Background: Open Minds, Healthy Minds, Ontario's Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions Strategy commits to the transformation of mental health and addictions services for all Ontarians. Objective: We analyzed the formulation and implementation of this Strategy to address the question: What are the prospects for transformative change in Ontario's current approach to mental health and addictions? Methods: Qualitative policy analysis using interpretive description of key documents of the policy process, drawing on policy network and horizontal governance theory. Results: Three features set this policy process apart from previous reform efforts: (1) expansion of the state pluralist network to those outside of health, (2) extension of the policy network approach into the Strategy's implementation stage and (3) the combined presence of political and policy leadership. Conclusions: There is reason for optimism that the approach of the Strategy has increased the prospects for the transformation of Ontario's mental health and addictions system.

Scholars of India’s foreign policy generally prefer interpretive approaches and qualitative methods that explain actions in terms of the beliefs and theories of actors. Yet often, neither are well explained or justified. This article argues that more systematic engagement with recent work on interpretivism would generate better grounded analyses of India’s foreign policy. Using the case of the Jaishankar doctrine—the theory and practice of foreign policy advanced by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar—it shows how an approach derived from Mark Bevir’s use of traditions and dilemmas offers one way forward. It examines how Jaishankar has crafted a philosophy, language and set of foreign policy practices premised on various intellectual inheritances in response to the international circumstances that India must navigate concerning China in the aftermath of the 2020–2021 Galwan crisis.

In 2004, President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya refused to sign a popular Bill on National Social Health Insurance into law. Drawing on innovations in framing theory, this research provides a social explanation for this decision. In addition to document review, this study involved interpretive analysis of transcripts from 50 semi-structured interviews with leading actors involved in the health financing policy process in Kenya, 2014-15. The frame-critical analysis focused on how actors engaged in (1) sensemaking, (2) naming, which includes selecting and categorizing and (3) storytelling. We demonstrated that actors' abilities to make sense of the Bill were largely influenced by their own understandings of the finer features of the Bill and the array of interest groups privy to the debate. This was reinforced by a process of naming, which selects and categorizes aspects of the Bill, including the public persona of its primary sponsor, its affordability, sustainability, technical dimensions and linkages to notions of economic liberalism. Actors used these understandings and names to tell stories of ideational warfare, which involved narrative accounts of policy resistance and betrayal. This analysis illustrates the difficulty in enacting sweeping reform measures and thus provides a basis for understanding incrementalism in Kenyan health policy.

Process tracing (PT) is a popular method that is increasingly applied in policy studies, including foreign policy analysis (FPA). However, while policy research and FPA have strong interpretivist strands, PT has been predominantly developed and applied within a regularity-oriented, broadly positivist framework. This article advances an analyticist approach to PT for policy research. Pivoting around ideal typification, it reconceptualizes mechanisms as ideal types and distinguishes between mechanisms proper, their concrete instantiations, and the processes they concatenate into. This reconceptualization enables researchers to treat knowledge as socially constructed, to produce meaning-sensitive and contextually rich case descriptions while retaining the possibility of drawing analytically general and portable conclusions, and to advance a constitutive understanding of causation grounded in locally embedded processes. Although not inherently interpretive, this reconceptualization makes PT amenable to interpretive research in ways the regularity-oriented approach is not. The advantages of this approach are shown through a reinterpretation of a published FPA study by Eun A. Jo: ‘Memory, Institutions, and the Domestic Politics of South Korean–Japanese Relations’. This example demonstrates the added value of analyticist PT highlighting the sometimes nuanced differences in what regularity-oriented and analyticist approaches to PT afford.

Food security is integral to national security discourse directly related to agricultural inputs such as land, water, seeds, and fertilizers. The food production capacity of any country depends mainly on the adequacy of inputs. This study examines the nature and implications of input scarcity in Bangladesh's food security because the state's one‐third of people remain food insecure. With thematic content analysis, time series data, and a critical interpretive approach, the findings show that though Bangladesh achieved self‐sufficiency in food grains, the country faces a substantial reduction threat to food production due to declining cultivated land, water scarcity, poor fertilizer and seed market governance, and inadequate support of bank loans. The study reveals that Bangladesh's soil fertility decreases due to the excessive and imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers, and two‐thirds of farmers do not get improved seeds at fair prices on time because of structural weaknesses in seed markets. The South Asian country also faces a severe threat on the irrigation front as the country is losing surface and groundwater increasingly. Moreover, 1% of agricultural land is ruined yearly due to land conversion to other sectors. Against these backdrops, this article has explored some policy options for reducing the critical constraints in the input sector, which can create a dialogue with existing food and agriculture policies.

Abstract The use of artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making in public policy processes is influenced by a range of diverse drivers. This article provides a comprehensive view of 13 drivers and their interrelationships, identified through empirical findings from the taxation and social security domains in Belgium. These drivers are organized into five hierarchical layers that policy designers need to focus on when introducing advanced analytics in fraud detection: (a) trust layer, (b) interoperability layer, (c) perceived benefits layer, (d) data governance layer, and (e) digital governance layer. The layered approach enables a holistic view of assessing adoption challenges concerning new digital technologies. The research uses thematic analysis and interpretive structural modeling.

COVID-19 illustrated what governments can do to mobilise against a global threat. Despite the strong governmental response to COVID-19 in Canada, another ‘pandemic’, gender-based violence (GBV), has been causing grave harm with generally insufficient policy responses. Using interpretive description methodology, 26 interviews were conducted with shelter staff and 5 focus groups with 24 executive directors (EDs) from GBV service organizations in Ontario, Canada. Five main themes were identified and explored, namely that: (1) there are in fact four pandemics at play; (2) the interplay of pandemics amplified existing systemic weaknesses; (3) the key role of informal partnerships and community support, (4) temporary changes in patterns of funding allocation; and (5) exhaustion as a consequence of addressing multiple and concurrent pandemics. Implications and recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and the GBV sector are discussed.

The background of this paper is For discuss about analysis orientation achievements objective education national through policy independent learn. this study important as base direction implementation education in Indonesia. in the review process use library research method with method gather information form journal, book as well as appropriate literature with theme, then in the analysis in a manner deductive and interpretive, so produce A conclusion that policy independent Study is something step appropriate For reach suitable ideal education with objective education national that is prepare generation tough, smart, creative, and has character in accordance with values Indonesian nation. However in achievement Of course need collaboration cross stakeholders education, and engagement active parents  as well as society.

This study explores the evolution of China’s intangible cultural heritage (ICH) governance through the lens of discursive institutionalism, with a specific focus on how institutional discourse and arrangements shape the spatial configuration and symbolic meaning of ICH-related landscapes. By analyzing policy discourse, governance actors, resource mobilization, and regulatory mechanisms, the study traces the transition from community-led practices to increasingly formalized and spatialized systems under the influence of the 2003 UNESCO Convention. Drawing on a combination of historical policy analysis and place-specific institutional insights, the research finds that while institutional reforms have enhanced administrative coherence and international alignment, they have also at times disrupted vernacular meanings and weakened residents’ place-based cultural attachments. Conversely, localized revitalization initiatives can foster community resilience and landscape justice. These findings are derived from an interpretive synthesis of institutional trajectories and spatial governance practices. Overall, the study contributes to the theoretical integration of discursive institutionalism and cultural geography, offering new insights into heritage governance and sustainable cultural planning in rapidly urbanizing contexts.

Public trust and civic predisposition are cornerstones of well-functioning democratic societies, and burdensome citizen-state encounters may undermine positive views of government, especially for racially minoritized clientele. Leveraging insights from policy feedback theory, we argue that administrative burden has the potential to undermine trust in government and civic predisposition through two mechanisms: 1) interpretive effects: burdensome experiences that induce negative emotional responses and 2) resource effects: experiences of losing access to public benefits. In our OLS regression analysis of survey data from applicants for a means-tested public benefit program in the U.S. (n=2,250), we find that clients who lost access to benefits were significantly less likely to trust government, and these findings were driven by racially minoritized clients rather than White clients. Our findings demonstrate that experiences of administrative burden that result in the loss of public benefits may result in racialized policy feedback, by disproportionately reducing trust in government and civic predisposition for racially minoritized clientele.

This study explores the symbolic use of language in Surabaya's cultural heritage preservation policies using the Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) approach. It analyzes policy documents and interviews with stakeholders and communities related to Hotel Majapahit, Tugu Pahlawan, and Tanjung Perak Main Harbormaster Building. The findings highlight how language in policy is not merely communicative but symbolic, reflecting community values, beliefs, and emotional ties to heritage. The paradigm shift in policy, from conservative to progressive and localistic approaches, is reflected in the change from "object" to "area", which expands the meaning of cultural heritage from physical aspects to social and environmental contexts. This study contributes theoretically to public policy and practically recommends inclusive language strategies for heritage policy.

Abstract This paper critically examines how education policy and leadership practices in Hong Kong conceptualize and influence teacher wellbeing, using an Asia as Method approach and interpretive policy analysis. The study investigates the systemic conditions, such as workload intensification, performance accountability, and socio-cultural expectations, that contribute to high levels of stress, burnout, and dissatisfaction among teachers and school leaders. These wellbeing challenges are understood to be influenced by policy frameworks that often prioritize student outcomes while neglecting the wellbeing of educators. Through analysis of key policy texts and leadership discourses, the paper argues that teacher wellbeing remains insufficiently addressed in Hong Kong’s education system. It calls for a comprehensive and contextually grounded policy response that integrates conceptions of wellbeing and related policy influences, leadership practice and development, and resource investment. Asia as Method enables a critical decentering of Western paradigms, offering a localized lens to understand wellbeing as a relational and systemic construct. The study contributes a nuanced framework for reframing teacher wellbeing and its relationship with education policy and leadership, emphasizing the need for culturally responsive strategies to foster sustainable and supportive environments for teachers.

This interdisciplinary article argues that Foreign Policy (FP) interpretive lenses (IL’s)—heuristics oft used in International Studies disciplines to examine statecraft—are a useful and underappreciated tool for comparative state migration policy and legal analysis. IL’s have value as conceptual tools for scholars in examining state migration law and policy, and as accessible analytical frameworks that can be taught to nonprofessional audiences to assist them with seeing beyond preconceived bias when examining immigration. This article lays ground in the area by painting with broad brushstrokes how three IL’s—realism, isolationism, and liberalism—can be used as lines of inquiry into shedding new insight into state migration law, including historical U.S. immigration policy cases from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. * Copyright © 2018 Robbie J. Totten, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Politics & Global Studies Department in the College of Arts & Sciences at American Jewish University (AJU). The author thanks McKenna Lux and Galina Kaye for research assistance, Nathan Schwartzman and Susan Hatch Morgan of Oxford Editing for help with Bluebook citation formatting, Popy Daty and Stephen Singer of the AJU Ostrow Library for library reference assistance, Penny Nguyen-Totten for help with the chart, and the AJU Roland Fund for generous financial support while completing the article. The author also acknowledges for outstanding editorial assistance the UC Davis Journal of International Law & Policy team, including Benjamin Chen, Renate Fessler, Stefan Cohen, Tim Lee, Kasumi Kanetaka, Ramya Auroprem, Tim Nguyen, Alex Preve, Saydie Grewe, Moyi Liu, Matthew Rowan, Marina Amendola, and Kirin Jessel. And the author is thankful for the feedback that he received on ideas within this article from students in his POL 321: U.S. Immigration Policy class at AJU in the fall 2016 semester; PS 106: National Security and United States Immigration Policy course at UCSB in the spring 2014 quarter; and PS 139: National Security and United States Immigration Policy class at UCLA in the spring 2013 quarter. 24.2 TOTTENFOREIGN POLICY INTERPRETIVE LENSES AND STATE MIGRATION LAW.DOCX 5/30/2018 12:54 PM 136 University of California, Davis [Vol. 24:2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 137 I. FOREIGN POLICY INTERPRETIVE LENSES APPLICATIONS TO STATE MIGRATION LAW AND POLICY ............................................. 146 A. Terminological and Methodological Comments ..................... 146 B. Realism Foreign Policy Interpretive Lens Overview............... 150 C. Realism Foreign Policy Interpretive Lens and State Migration Policy ...................................................................... 152 1. Realism Objective: Utilize Immigrants to Enhance Economic and Military Power of the State ........................ 153 a. Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Federal “OpenDoor” Immigration Policy .......................................... 153 2. Realism Objective: Protect the State from Perceived Domestic Security Threats by Immigrants ........................ 155 a. 1903 Immigration Law Blocking Anarchists .............. 156 3. Realism Objective: Use Immigration to Maintain International Order (“Balance of Power”) ......................... 157 a. 1948 Displaced Persons Act & 1953 Refugee Relief Act .................................................................... 157 D. Isolationism Foreign Policy Interpretive Lens Overview ........ 158 E. Isolationism Foreign Policy Interpretive Lens and State Migration Policy ...................................................................... 161 1. Isolationism Objective: Restrict Migration to Prevent Costly and Dangerous Global Encounters ......................... 161 a. 1924 National Origins Act Stipulation: The Restrictive Immigrant Quotas for the Eastern Hemisphere ................................................................. 162 2. Isolationism Objective: Accept Immigrants for Regional Foreign Policy or Vital National Interest Reasons .............................................................................. 163 a. 1924 National Origins Act Stipulation: Western Hemisphere Exemption from the Immigrant Quotas .. 164 F. Liberalism Foreign Policy Interpretive Lens Overview .......... 165 G. Liberalism Foreign Policy Interpretive Lens and State Migration Policy ...................................................................... 168 1. Liberalism Objective: Promote Free Interstate Exchange of Immigrant Laborers ...................................... 168 a. 1965 Immigration & Nationality Act .......................... 169 2. Liberalism Objective: Use Immigration to Support Democratic Regimes.......................................................... 171 a. Cold War Refugee Policy (e.g., with Cuban Refugees) .................................................................... 172 3. Liberalism Objective: Utilize International 24.2 TOTTENFOREIGN POLICY INTERPRETIVE LENSES AND STATE MIGRATION LAW.docx 5/30/2018 12:54 PM 2018] Foreign Policy Interpretive Lenses and State Migration Law 137 Organizations, Protocols, and Law to Facilitate Open and Safe International Migration Flows ............................ 173 a. 1980 Refugee Act ....................................................... 174 II. CONCLUSION: RESEARCH AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS ............... 175

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the foundations of religious authority and ethical formation in contemporary societies. This study examines how algorithmic systems—such as chatbots, recommendation algorithms, and AI-generated sermons—reshape religious legitimacy and moral discourse. Employing a conceptual–philosophical approach grounded in personalist realism, the research integrates theological anthropology with normative policy analysis to assess the ethical implications of AI in religious life. The findings indicate that AI shifts religious authority from institutional mediation toward algorithmic visibility and data-driven influence. While this transformation democratizes access to religious knowledge, it also fragments theological coherence and weakens interpretive accountability. A central moral paradox emerges: increased participation in religious discourse coexists with diminished spiritual depth and responsibility. Ethical concerns arise from distributed agency, opaque algorithmic processes, and the reduction of human dignity to data-based representations. The study argues that prevailing regulatory frameworks, which focus primarily on technical governance and risk mitigation, are insufficient to address the deeper moral challenges posed by AI in religious contexts. It therefore proposes a shift toward a transcendental policy framework that conceives governance as moral praxis oriented toward truth, responsibility, and human flourishing. Policy recommendations include the development of a Religious Digital Ethics Framework, the establishment of a Digital Religious Ethics Council, and the integration of interfaith digital ethics education. The study concludes that religious policy must be grounded in the principle of imago Dei, ensuring that technological innovation remains subordinate to human dignity and humanity’s spiritual vocation.

State policies are state efforts to shape its relationship with society and maintain the political order. In this process, the interpretive effect of information is an important mechanism. However, the key question remains: what information is the state communicating through its policies? Previous studies on policy contents and policy discourses have offered valuable insights for this question, but have not fully explored the state’s symbolic logic. Discursive practice theory suggests that policies are state self-presentation actions, through which the state builds its identity and its relationship with society. A critical discourse analysis of China’s anti-corruption policies indicates that the state systematically employs problem-definition, solution-selection, implementation-decision, and outcome-evaluation discourses, to present itself as (1) a tenacious defender of public interests, (2) a rational responder to tough problems, (3) a powerful warrior against stubborn enemies, and (4) a progressive achiever in changing circumstances. Understanding the nature of public policies as state self-presentation action can enhance understanding of the policy-making process and the political effects of public policies. It can also facilitate the practice of policy analysts.

Policymakers and administrators frequently encounter structural barriers such as rigid policies, poor interagency coordination, and fragmented services that limit their ability to respond effectively. This study adapted the well-established Qualitative Interpretive Meta-Synthesis (QIMS) method to examine how communities, policymakers, and practitioners utilize, resist, or reinterpret research evidence within social welfare policymaking. Through the collaborative efforts of 12 social work graduate students and faculty, the team applied constant comparative analysis and triangulation to identify three overarching themes: (1) Evidence Is Filtered Through Politics, Power, and Context, (2) Intermediaries and Trusted Brokers Are Key, and (3) Evidence Must Compete with Funding and Resource Pressures. These themes reveal that while evidence can influence policymakers, several barriers often limit its impact such as deeply held political beliefs, budget limitations, and lack of engagement from government agencies. Despite these obstacles, participants highlighted that evidence becomes more relevant when it is communicated strategically, shared within strong relationships, and aligned with the needs of local citizens. Servings as connectors between data, policy, and practice, Social workers can play a vital role by promoting evidence-based policies, and cultivating partnerships between municipal governments to strengthen public services.

Abstract This inaugural article delineates the vision and scope of the new section “Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies” of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. The co-editors present the five key features of the section: the comparative, the transnational, the relational, the global, and the self-reflective. Concretely, they invite contributions on qualitative empirical research that (i) is comparative in its methods and interpretive framework, (ii) draws on the transnational dimension, (iii) considers the relational dimension of network governance, (iv) recognizes an unequal global setting, and (v) is self-reflective and interrogates international comparison as a governance tool. By definition, qualitative comparison is contextual comparison that differentiates between place and space and the temporalities of comparative policy analysis (period, timing, tempo, sequence, lifespan, and age).

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The purpose of this study is to explore the theoretical potential of the Discursive Institutionalism(DI) approach for reinterpreting the policy-making process of the National Curriculum. To this end, the study first outlines the background and key concepts of DI and then examines the characteristics and implications of a Swedish study that analyzes the National Curriculum policy-making process using this approach. Subsequently, it revisits the distinctive features and related discussions surrounding the formation of Korea’s National Curriculum policy and explores the theoretical potential of applying DI to Korean National Curriculum policy research, from both epistemological and methodological perspectives. The findings of the study are as follows: 1) The concept of ideas in DI enables a rich explanation of the recontextualization process through which innovative ideas are adopted and introduced into the National Curriculum policy agenda. Furthermore, policy idea, programmatic idea, and philosophical ideas are serve as an analytical framework for exploring how such innovative ideas are justified and legitimized within the policy recontextualization process. 2) The concepts of coordinative discourse and communicative discourse in DI offer an analytical framework for capturing the discursive interactions among actors involved in the formation of National Curriculum policy. 3) From an epistemological perspective, reinterpreting the formation of Korea's National Curriculum policy necessitates an interactive understanding that explains how institutional contexts influence sentient agents, who, in turn, can also lead institutional change. From a methodological standpoint, DI provides a comprehensive analytical framework for examining the policy process from multiple dimensions.

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Explaining how and why housing policies change is an ongoing theoretical challenge for housing scholars. A key approach is the ‘housing regimes’ framework (Kemeny 2006), drawing from Esping-Andersen’s work on the role of labour/capital struggles in shaping welfare states. However, this framework has been criticised (Stephens 2020; Clapham 2020) for inadequately explaining housing system changes, including neoliberal shifts and financialization. In response, scholars have turned to political science and sociology theories on policy change, such as historical institutionalism (Ruonavaara 2020) and discursive theories focusing on interactions between policy actors (Clapham 2018). This article builds on Clapham’s discursive turn in housing studies by incorporating concepts from ‘discursive institutionalism’ (DI) (Schmidt 2008). DI explains policy change by examining the interplay of ideas, interactions, and power dynamics in a given policy field. DI provides a methodological framework for understanding how policy actors develop and use ideas to shape policies, while considering the influence of the institutional context and power relations. The aim of the article is to highlight the utility of DI as a framework for examining housing policy change. As a vehicle for doing so, an analysis of social housing policy change in New Zealand employing DI is provided for empirical reference. The article builds on Clapham’s (2018) focus on discourse in housing studies, adding DI to the repertoire of conceptual frameworks available to researchers interested in the causal role of ideas and discourse in policy change processes.

The worldwide explosion of social welfare has been described as the “quiet revolution” of our time. This paper analyses the expansion of social welfare in India during the early part of the 2000s. What explains this expansion of encompassing social welfare in India, following a history of disparate and fragmented social policies? The answer, I argue, lies in recognizing the importance of the “politics of the poor,” the ensemble of negotiations that encompass both electoral participation and contentious politics vis-à-vis the political institutions in India. The paper develops this argument by drawing together insights from discursive institutionalism, Indian politics, and the politics of welfare literature. Doing so enables me to examine the ways in which poor people’s political practices were interpreted by India’s parliamentarians to justify the legislation of India’s flagship social welfare program the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. I analyze the discourses communicated through 78 parliamentary debates in English and Hindi to enact the law. I blend this analysis with process tracing of electoral behavior of India’s poor and the Maoist insurrection that exploded in the country’s poorest districts at the turn of the century.

This article explores Danish renewable energy policy and policymaking, focusing on the development of nearshore wind energy and the role played by various actors, their competing ideas, the discursive processes in which they participate, and the institutional settings where exchanges occur. The research employs a case study design, concentrating on the Vesterhav Syd nearshore windfarm project. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews, the paper exploits Discursive Institutionalism and one of its recent refinements, labelled Ideational Power that highlights power over, through and in ideas. The data gathered provides compelling evidence of the ways in which actors struggle for dominance, each seeking to persuade others of their preferred policy problem definition and solutions: a process that oscillates between highly technical coordinative discourses among government agencies and business organisations and more politicised communicative discourses among a wider set of actors that includes community groups. Significantly, this case reveals the power of various policy stakeholders in Danish energy policy, suggesting that once decisions are taken at the national level of governance to construct a windfarm, only limited influence can be exerted by local groups on the outcomes. Our findings raise wider questions about such processes beyond the Danish case.

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Abstract A good deal of research and practice on digital innovation public sector projects takes for granted a stability-change dichotomy which positions these two phenomena as opposite and difficult to conciliate. In this area There is a shortage of studies focusing on how projects as the main vehicles for digital innovation could mediate between change and stability in the public sector. To address this gap this paper proposes Discursive Institutionalism (DI) to better understand the dynamics of this type of projects. A case study of a multi-actor project in the Albanian context extends the scope of the analysis to the transitional institutional environment in which the project unfolded. Findings suggest that large-scale multi-actor digital innovation public sector projects can not only be seen as temporary endeavors but also as strategic points of interaction for multifaceted stakeholders whose ideas and discourses could converge at levels of policies, programs and philosophies in order to keep required stability in the face of change. Using DI, a number of propositions are formulated and empirically validated to draw insights and implications for future project policy formulation, research and practice.

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This paper develops the concept of authoritarian institutionalism — understood as a combination of authoritarianism as a form of discursive closure and institutionalism as a non-antagonistic construction of social relations following the logic of difference based on Laclau’s theory — which can yield insights from a discursive angle into the workings of “competitive authoritarian” regimes characterized by formally multi-party systems. Based on these considerations, the paper undertakes a periodization of party politics in Russia since 1993, which presents a useful case for probing the boundaries of authoritarian institutionalism given the regime-engineered dynamics of party competition since the days of so-called “managed democracy.” In applying the discourse-theoretical toolkit of difference/equivalence, the analysis identifies two phases of authoritarian consolidation since 2000 that have expanded the authoritarian dimension while curtailing the institutionalist operation of difference in the party system, raising the question of a “GDR-ization” of party politics since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Shrinking cities are increasingly drawing global attention, but urban shrinkage is seldom considered as an enduring structural condition necessitating a move beyond growth‐centric strategies. The focus often remains on mitigating symptoms rather than embracing the broader implications of long‐term decline. Understanding of what drives decision‐makers to shift from mere recognition to acceptance of shrinkage, and to rethink conventional responses, remains underexplored. Drawing on Schmidt’s discursive institutionalism, this study examines how discourse drives institutional change in two European regions: Parkstad Limburg in the Netherlands, and Satakunta in Finland. Our analysis goes beyond agenda‐setting to examine how discourse on shrinking cities evolves, enabling decision‐makers not only to recognize the problem but also to acknowledge its profound implications and complex challenges. We conclude that accepting shrinkage necessitates optimistic reframing, robust knowledge generation and national‐level engagement. While contextual factors play a role, acceptance is unlikely without addressing these critical dimensions.

This paper covers the theme that the mass instability and the fact that the UK immigration policy has been ineffective since 2010 can not be attributed to material factors only or the sentiment of individuals. Instead, it is driven by powerful and unified discourses of power that render policy agreeable and the production. The presented study will provide a novel methodological instrument since Discursive Institutionalism (DI) and Foucauldian discourse analysis are merged together. DI illuminates the contribution of the political agencies in producing and challenging persuasive stories, but Foucauldian analysis offers an understanding of the manner in which persuasive stories control and define migrant people as powers by constructing regimes of truth. With the Hostile Environment and recent reforms, the regularity has become evident, which is then succeeded by the leaders adopting the issue of migration as either a sovereignty issue, a management issue, or a situation of crisis.

This article examines how major EU-wide media discursively framed European integration in terms of prevalent actors, narratives and policy areas in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Based on the combination of theoretical insights from discursive institutionalism and the grand theories of European integration, the article performs a qualitative analysis of textual content in six of the most influential EU-wide media sources as of 2023, taking the form of a competitive theory testing. Challenging the established literature on EU-related national media coverage, it finds that, consistently with discursive neo-functionalism, the Russian military aggression of Ukraine has led to the discursive empowerment of EU supranational actors, most notably the European Commission, and to an increased salience of more European integration and transnational solidarity narratives. This has happened despite the fact that the conflict was mainly framed as falling within the realm of intergovernmental policy areas, such as energy policy, security and defence.

Transnational policy discourses shape teacher professionalism through discursive patterns in policy initiatives from the global policy actor, OECD. The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ has emerged through discourses on teacher professionalism, spurring ambiguities regarding what the policy idea is and ought to be in Sweden. The aim of this article is to critically examine the construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, in relation to teachers and the educational institution, through the lens of discursive institutionalism and strands in Curriculum Theory. The focus is a critical understanding of the interplay between ideas, discourses, actors and institutional context. The analysis of policy documents shows how the policy idea is constructed and legitimised through actors’ coordinative and communicative discourses at the national level, influenced by the OECD at the transnational level. The policy idea is intertwined with ideas and discourses on teachers’ professional development through a national professional programme and institutional conditions for goal attainment in schools. Tensions emerge regarding underlying assumptions about teacher quality, highlighting ideas of what teachers are and ought to be, within comprehensive reform strategies. Tensions entail emerging ideas of standardisation and differentiation and ambiguities regarding the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’.

Building on historical and discursive institutionalism, this article examines the agent-based dynamics of gradual institutional change. Specifically, using marriage equality in the United States as a case study, we examine how actors’ ideational work enabled them to make use of the political and discursive opportunities afforded by multiple venues to legitimize the process of institutional change to take off sequentially through layering, displacement, and conversion. We also pay special attention to how the discursive strategies deployed by LGBT advocates, religious-conservative organizations and other private actors created new opportunities to influence policy debates and tip the scales to their preferred policy outcome. The sequential perspective adopted in this study allows problematizing traditional conceptualizations of which actors support or contest the status quo, as enduring oppositional dynamics lead them to perform both roles in subsequent phases of the institutional change process.

This article aims to generate new insights into the City’s influence during the Brexit negotiations. Integrating theories of discursive institutionalism and business power, we set out to analyse the dynamic ‘discursive power’ of finance. From this perspective, a key source of the City’s influence historically has been a powerful strategic discourse about London’s role as Europe’s leading global financial centre. This was strengthened following the financial crisis to emphasise its contribution to the ‘real’ economy and emerging regulatory threats from the EU. We argue that Brexit challenges the City’s discursive power by removing ‘ideational constraints’ on acceptable policy discourse, and undermining the ‘discursive co-production’ of financial power by government and industry. By encouraging financial actors to re-evaluate their interests, this has contributed to increasing discursive fragmentation and incoherence. Evidence for this comes from the City’s ambiguous policy preferences on Brexit, and the emergence of a rival pro-Brexit ‘discursive coalition’.

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ABSTRACT Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, EU enlargement has gained more attention in the European Parliament (EP). To explore the change in rhetoric, the study identifies and compares EU enlargement discourses during two plenary session debates on EU enlargement in 2020 and 2024, differentiating them into normative, pragmatic, institutional and geopolitical. In theoretical terms, the study relies on discursive institutionalism which underscores actors’ agency in driving institutional change. Methodologically, it is based on qualitative frame analysis. Our results demonstrate an increased salience of institutional and geopolitical discourses, specifically, the EU’s integration capacity, the institutional reform of the EU and security of the European continent in light of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Overall, the study underscores the European Parliament’s evolving role in the EU enlargement process.

This article analyses how the role and remit of public service media (PSM) and its relationship to current media and societal developments are framed in recent media policy discourses in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, countries often described as Media Welfare States (MWS). Employing the framework of discursive (media) institutionalism and frame analysis as a method, we analyse policy documents covering a 10-year period to identify differences in national PSM framing. Our findings confirm shared challenges related to platformisation, disinformation, audience fragmentation, and competition with commercial media. More interestingly, clear national differences emerge in how PSM is framed. Comparing these national findings to the four pillars of the MWS, we identify a recent paradigm shift where the consensus on the societal role and remit of PSM has weakened. We argue that future policymaking should consider these developments when discussing how best to safeguard Nordic PSM.

ABSTRACT How do ideas and institutions shape China’s policymaking? Drawing on discursive institutionalism, this paper develops a conceptual framework to examine the intricate “discursive engineering” underpinning Chinese governance. We identify four distinct types of discourse—ideological, imperative, directive, and communicative—each serving specific functions, targeting different audiences, and exerting unique forms of power. By analyzing a comprehensive dataset of Weibo posts from state media accounts throughout China’s Zero-COVID era, we find that discourse alone explains nearly as much policy stringency variation as all socio-economic factors combined. Our analysis also shows how discourse evolves with shifting policy objectives: imperative discourse secures local implementation, while directive discourse grants flexibility. This orchestrated approach balances top-down control with local autonomy and carefully manages state-society relations. Our findings suggest that discourse functions not merely as a propaganda tool, but as a pivotal institution within contemporary Chinese governance.

Conservation initiatives involve a complex interplay of various ecological, socio-political, and economic factors. Ecological resettlement (ER), implemented within the context of nature conservation policies, stands as one of the most contested issues worldwide. This study aims to navigate the domain of ER policy in conservation through discursive institutionalism and a policy arrangement approach. Focusing on Nepal's conservation policy pathways over the last seven decades, we critically analyze policy ideas and narratives, trends, patterns of policy development, institutional arrangements, driving factors, and responses to contemporary ER policies. Methods involved a systematic literature review (n = 271), a comprehensive review of policy documents and project reports (n > 150), and expert interviews (n = 20). Over the past 50 years, >7600 households in Nepal have been displaced in the name of ER, persisting despite the rhetoric of participatory conservation. With changes in political regimes, conservation policy has shifted from a hunting-focused approach to landscape-level and transboundary conservation. Initially influenced by internal factors such as economic and political governance, conservation policies were later shaped by international conservation discourse. Also, the operational sphere of such policy ideas and narratives - including actors, resources, discourses, and rules - along with trends, priorities, institutional arrangements, and driving factors of ER policies, has changed over time. Further, the exclusion of deprived communities and the capture of conservation benefits by elites have undermined conservation values. This research stresses the importance of a judicious balance between people's welfare and nature's integrity, emphasizing community-based natural resource management models accredited to a conservation standard. We further urge the revision of displacement-oriented conservation policies to secure the rights of indigenous people and traditional landholders, thereby ensuring conservation and sustainable development at both national and global levels.

Abstract This research analyzed how advocacy coalitions competed for greater influence over Brazil's agrotoxins policy from 1999 to 2018. The premise was that changes in public policy are effected through changes in institutions, or the rules of the game. A theoretical approach was proposed that articulates the Advocacy Coalition Framework, New Discursive Institutionalism, and the Gradual and Transformative Institutional Change Model. A literature search and document analysis were conducted, emphasizing the usefulness of shorthand notes from meetings and public hearings in parliamentary committees, as well as interventions by parliamentarians in the National Congress. The collected data were then subjected to a content analysis based on a priori defined categories. Four hundred and sixteen individual and organizational agents were mapped, forming three advocacy coalitions defined by shared ideas: agroproductivists, agroecologists, and technocrats. The work of political and institutional entrepreneurs and policy brokers linked to the advocacy coalitions during this period was also characterized. Finally, the discursive strategies, behaviors, and types of gradual and transformative institutional change adopted by each advocacy coalition were described by analyzing key events in a timeline. The findings suggest that the entrepreneurs, as representatives of the coalitions, were interested in promoting changes to the scope of agrotoxins policy and the institutions that influence it. The main contribution of this research was outlining the coalitions' strategies and understanding the role of entrepreneurs as representatives of the coalitions.

Although a core concept in the field of communication, discourse and how it operates in policy-making has not received much attention from platform governance scholars. Accordingly, this study theorizes the relationship between platform governance and policy discourses, drawing on Julia Black’s work on regulatory conversations and Vivian Schmidt’s discursive institutionalism framework. We use the framework to conceptualize platform governance and attendant power relations between policy actors as constituted through institutionalized policy discourses. We apply the framework to examine Australia’s Online Safety Act, which introduces a co-regulatory platform governance approach to tackle illegal and harmful content and behaviour online. Our analysis situates the policy as a communicative constitution of platform governance and a product of the interplay between institutionalized power dynamics and policy discourses. Our framework and case study have implications for platform governance scholarship, offering insights into the role policy discourse plays in shaping and legitimating co-regulatory platform governance initiatives.

ABSTRACT The Global Compact for Migration (GCM) involves the establishment of an implementation mechanism that combines the periodic organisation of deliberation and information exchange between states with the routine drafting of texts and the design of governmental technologies. The GCM also tasked the UN Network on Migration (Network) with supporting the implementation mechanism in response to the needs of states. To achieve this task, the Network aimed to play a role in creating and maintaining the implementation mechanism and to leverage its expert knowledge to shape the states’ implementation efforts. This article asks how the Network has institutionalised the implementation mechanism and with what consequences for its expert authority vis-à-vis states. Drawing on insights from discursive institutionalism, the article conducts a critical discourse analysis of texts that communicate and describe the Network’s institutional work between 2019 and 2022. It demonstrates that the Network institutionalised the implementation mechanism as an experimentalist institution to bolster its expert authority and position itself as a central unit in the GCM implementation that monitors and steers the actions of states. However, the Network’s position as a central unit does not fundamentally challenge the centrality of state sovereignty in global migration governance.

This article examines how the Bank of England contributed to mitigating political instability in the UK between 2016 and 2024, a period marked by Brexit, rapid ministerial turnover and economic volatility. Using historical and discursive institutionalism as theoretical frameworks, the study analyses the Bank's interventions during three critical episodes: the Governor’s reassuring response following David Cameron's post-Brexit referendum resignation; the Bank's stabilising role during Liz Truss's mini-budget crisis; and its contested deployment of quantitative easing. Through analysis of the Bank's coordinative discourse among policy actors and communicative discourse with the public, the research demonstrates how this 330-year-old institution has deployed institutional authority and strategic communication to maintain financial and political stability during a period of enduring upheaval. The study reveals the complex interplay between technocratic expertise and democratic accountability, showing how the Bank's discursive power and perceived neutrality have allowed it to manage leadership vacuums during political crises. While these interventions helped preserve stability, they raise important questions about the democratic legitimacy of central bank independence and the concentration of macroeconomic power in unelected institutions. The findings contribute to our understanding of how institutional resilience can both temper political instability and potentially reconfigure power dynamics in liberal democracies.

This article examines the role of ordoliberal ideas in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) reforms adopted during the Euro crisis. Drawing on discursive institutionalism and morphological analysis, the study employs process‐tracing and discourse analysis to reconstruct the reform process. The analysis primarily focuses on the public discourses of German leaders and the documents of the Van Rompuy Task Force. The article argues that ordoliberal ideas played a crucial role in the formation of the German government's preferences regarding the EMU reforms. Their impact was more limited in the reform process, where other actors were involved and Germany had to accept compromises. As a result, the reforms were more flexible than Germany would have preferred. However, to the extent that the reforms align with Germany's approach based on fiscal discipline and national responsibility, they reflect an ordoliberal rationality. In this sense, the reforms contributed to the incorporation and strengthening (albeit partial and incomplete) of the ordoliberal principles of fiscal discipline, national responsibility, competitiveness and Ordnungspolitik within the EMU rules during the crisis. These are the constitutive principles of competitive federalism, a model of European integration in which the role of supranational institutions is to enforce a regulatory framework that, by reducing their discretion in fiscal and monetary policy, exposes member states to market pressure and prompts them to adopt neoliberal policies to remain competitive with each other.

European Strategic Autonomy (ESA) became a highly influential concept guiding policy-making practice of the European Union, with the view to strengthen its international actorness. This article contributes to recent research on ESA that is rooted in constructivism and discursive institutionalism. It approaches ESA as an idea that is shaped through ideational power, reproduced through narrative practice and implemented through policy-making effort. It focuses on the role of the institutions of the European Union in the process of conceptualizing and implementing ESA in the EU. It claims that EU institutions have been instrumental to the move from narrative on ESA to policy-making of ESA. It argues that initiatives undertaken by the EU to build its strategic autonomy usually fall under four main categories: strengthening EU’s own strategic capacity, reducing EU’s strategic vulnerabilities, building EU’s situational awareness and strategic partnering with other actors. These four types of action constitute an analytical model elaborated in this article, that is meant to help answer a general question: how does a polity define its strategic autonomy?

Reacting to the economic shock caused by the spread of the Coronavirus, the European Union suspended for 2020–2023 its rules for national budgets and adopted in 2020 a one-off Next Generation EU (NGEU) programme in addition to the general multiannual budget. The latter made it possible to finance major measures, primarily supporting the Grean Deal and digitalisation. The debate on the prospects for fiscal integration has intensified in expert circles as a consequence. In practical terms, the article aims to examine whether this will result in Brussels abandoning its commitments to strict fiscal discipline in the longer term. To better understand how the actualities thus described go together in European practice, constructivist theory and, in particular, discursive institutionalism is employed. It allows to demonstrate intuitively the vulnerabilities of continued technocratic, functionalist integration, including both “politics without policy” at the national level and “policy without politics” at the European level. This combination provokes deficit of democracy in the system, because prevailing assumptions and values in the EU do not legitimize such kind of social interaction. Beyond that, organizational culture theory serves in the article to produce a refined typology for examining the dynamics of fiscal governance modus vivendi in the EU. It consists of four ideal types, with collective representations (institutional dispositions) inherent to each one of these types on a standalone basis. In following the cultural version of organization theory, a researcher has the opportunity to clarify, which of the four types are more in tune with currently prevailing ideology of fiscal integration in the EU. The conclusion is that fiscal integration is undergoing a change from an authoritarian-liberal regime towards a disciplinary-liberal one. In practice, the Commission starts combining the function of an executive body in regulating national budgetary policies with that of a European pro-treasury. However, a significant increase in the general supranational budget should not be expected. Neither will the EU abandon its commitment to fiscal discipline.

Drawing on existing literature, this paper conducts a critical analysis of ESG standards in global agricultural supply chains and its impact on producers in the Global South. It develops a multi-level and cross-theoretical analytical framework to address the limitations of current studies, which have more focused on macro-level governance while neglecting cross-level perspectives that explain how institutional pressures are transmitted and how producers respond. At the macro level, the World Society Theory is used to reveal how ESG standards shape discursive and resource allocation power within transnational governance networks, explaining their global diffusion, legitimization, and the consequent establishment of market access standards and asymmetrical discursive authority. At the meso level, the New Institutionalism is used to illuminate the mechanisms through which coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures are transmitted along supply chains. At the micro level, the Theory of Planned Behavior explains why producers in the Global South, constrained by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, tend to adopt symbolic compliance rather than substantive transformation. The findings suggest that ESG certification, originally designed as a 'universal tool to promote sustainability, has gradually evolved into an institutionalized pressure: under conditions of resource and capacity constraints, the compliance practices of Southern producers resemble symbolic performances, reflecting the structural oppression embedded in green governance.

The article offers a historical and analytical study of the mechanisms of interaction between the think tanks of the People’s Republic of China and the countries of Central Asia within the broader evolution of bilateral rela-tions from the mid 20th century to the present. Drawing on the principles of historical institutionalism, the re-search traces the key stages in the formation of expert cooperation from the limited academic contacts of the Soviet period to the institutionalization of mechanisms within the Belt and Road Initiative and multilateral struc-tures such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Special attention is given to the transformation of Chi-nese think tanks into instruments of soft power and public diplomacy, as well as to the responses and adaptive strategies of Central Asian partners, including the development of their own analytical institutions. The study examines the challenges accompanying bilateral interaction, including discursive dominance, resource asym-metry, and differences in institutional culture. The article concludes by emphasizing the need to transition to-ward a more balanced model of expert dialogue based on the principles of equality, coordination, and strategic trust.

The European Union’s ageing societies poses major policy challenges for pension systems. Since the economies and the societies of Member States are increasingly integrated, the success and failure of national pension policies and reforms have an ever-increasing impact beyond national borders. However, the ‘subsidiarity principle’ and member state autonomy over taxes, limits the EU’s power regarding pension policy. This paper explores the influence of the European Semester discourse on recent pension reforms in the Netherlands and Ireland. We draw on discursive institutionalism (DI) to understand further the nature and form of European Semester driven pension reform ideas and how they are communicated and acted on, in each country. Based on the evidence on pension reform in The Netherlands and Ireland, we find a divergence in effectiveness between cognitive and normative ideas in EU discourse and that cognitive ideas are privileged over normative ideas with respect to influencing pension policy reforms. While the focus of this research is pension policy, this study enhances our understanding of how the EU approach in terms of its discourse, influences national reform in policy areas where the ‘subsidiarity principle’ applies. We suggest that policymakers and other actors may very consciously choose one form of discourse over the other to negotiate their preferred pathway towards implementation.

In the last decade, the idea of total defence – a whole-of-society approach integrating civilian and military capabilities – has gained renewed prominence in Europe, including within the European Union (EU). Concurrently, the concept of strategic autonomy – the EU’s ability to act independently – has emerged as a central feature in its security policy, driving ambitions for ‘a quantum leap forward on security and defence’. 1 Despite significant conceptual overlaps, the relationship between total defence and strategic autonomy remains underexplored. Drawing on discursive institutionalism and the ideational power framework, this article examines EU security discourses from 2010 to 2024, analysing how strategic autonomy has shaped the development of European total defence. The study considers three dimensions of ideational power – through, over , and in – showing that while the idea of total defence predates strategic autonomy, the latter has certainly elevated the idea of European total defence and enhanced collective capability building, especially through entwining civilian and military domains, and yet has constrained the establishment of a unified military defence. The findings underscore the long-term discursive evolution underpinning the EU’s security strategy and its ongoing efforts to consolidate a European total defence framework, now more tangible than ever.

ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship is often about the individual drive for innovation and the exploitation of opportunities; however, in an increasingly connected world, entrepreneurial ecosystems have gained considerable research interest. In many developed countries, entrepreneurial ecosystems emerge from organic collaborations between businesses and investors, with little political involvement. However, in a post-communist country like Kazakhstan, different stakeholders have diverse expectations, leading to tensions among them. In this study, we took a qualitative approach and drew from discursive institutionalism theory in entrepreneurship research in order to understand the influence of politics on the governance of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our findings reveal tensions between collective aspirations and individual goals, generating multiple institutional logics. The generative institutional discourse that is brought about by politics, their influence on governance, and facilitating factors is a mechanism that helps to turn such tensions into policies and collective action. To gain a better understanding of the influence of politics on the governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems, we propose a generative institutional discourse model.

Disasters exacerbate political tensions, making politicians more vulnerable to criticisms from both internal and external actors. This vulnerability fuels political actors' desire to undermine their rivals' popularity through blame games. While blame games are frequent and intense in Turkish politics, how they are linguistically constructed has received less scholarly attention. This study aimed to understand how Turkish governmental and oppositional actors utilize blame‐game strategies in the context of weather‐related disasters. Through a content analysis of politicians' statements across 41 weather‐related events, the study establishes a framework for analyzing blame games in non‐Western democracies and identifies a Turkish style of weather‐related disaster blame game, which has salient, yet slightly distant, characteristics. The study concludes that all political actors engage in a blame game as part of political competition. However, their communication strategies, including both blame‐making and blame‐avoidance, vary in frequency and linguistic style depending on their position. Governmental actors deflect blame by highlighting past actions and promising aid, while the opposition counters by offering vague policy suggestions. Both sides make blames, but the government criticizes past policies and the opposition's current actions, while the opposition focuses on the government's current policies and the actors' potentially unethical conduct.

This article explores the formative role of political rhetoric in constructing and contesting national identity in Ukraine during the post-Soviet period of 1991-2004. In a transitional context marked by institutional fragility, historical ambivalence, and regional polarization, political elites deployed rhetoric not only to reflect societal change but to actively shape collective imaginaries. Situated between the ideological legacy of the Soviet Union and the aspirational pull of European integration, Ukrainian political actors used discourse to navigate competing visions of sovereignty, identity, and geopolitical orientation. The study draws upon a broad empirical base, including presidential speeches, opposition discourse, party manifestos, electoral rhetoric, and symbolic statements. Using a combined methodology of political discourse analysis, content analysis, and sociological interpretation, the article traces identity narratives across four dimensions: memory politics (e.g., Holodomor, WWII), foreign policy alignment (Europe vs. Russia), language and cultural policy, and regional fragmentation. Special attention is given to the contrasting rhetorical strategies of Presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, alongside opposition figures such as Vyacheslav Chornovil, Viktor Yushchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, and Petro Symonenko. The findings show that rhetoric served as a key mechanism of political legitimation and socialization, reinforcing generational and regional cleavages while laying the semantic groundwork for Ukraine’s emerging European orientation. Kravchuk’s discourse affirmed independence while maintaining symbolic continuity, relying on notions of unity, legality, and cultural inclusiveness to stabilise the early post-Soviet state. In contrast, Kuchma institutionalised a rhetoric of strategic ambiguity: balancing Soviet nostalgia and economic reliance on Russia with growing appeals to European integration and democratic modernity. Oppositional rhetoric challenged this ambivalence by articulating alternative identity projects. Figures such as Vyacheslav Chornovil, Viktor Yushchenko, and Yulia Tymoshenko offered competing narratives grounded in civic nationalism, European orientation, and historical justice. Their discourses mobilised younger generations and regional communities in Western and Central Ukraine, particularly through the reframing of the Holodomor, advocacy for Ukrainian as the sole state language, and emphasis on democratic reform. These rhetorical strategies laid the semantic groundwork for subsequent pro-European mobilisations, including the Orange Revolution. Meanwhile, leftist and pro-Soviet actors, especially the Communist Party of Ukraine, preserved a counter-narrative centred on Soviet achievements, Russian cultural affinity, and economic stability.

This study analyzes why political rhetoric fails to translate into policy implementation in Ghana Beyond Aid by comparing it with South Korea’s Five-Year Economic Development Plan through the lens of the Multiple Streams Framework. While both countries experienced a policy window in the decision stage, only Korea sustained implementation through adaptive policy change with attention from policy entrepreneurs. In contrast, Ghana’s agenda regressed into rhetoric and weakened streams, exacerbated by external shocks. The findings offer insights for developing countries pursuing self-reliance strategies, emphasizing the need for flexible policy change and continuous leadership engagement to sustain development initiatives beyond political rhetoric.

We study the implications of regime personalization on the incentives of political elites to politicize their policy agenda and express loyalty to the ruler. Because revering the autocrat is one of the observable manifestations of personalization, while the process of personalization may be, in turn, influenced by an increased prevalence of leader‐centered rhetoric, isolating the effects of personalization on policy and political rhetoric is difficult. We distinguish between the negative, fear‐driven motivation to politicize speech by regime officials and the positive motivation linked to their expectations of regime durability. The former is influenced by political repression, whereas the latter is moored to the ruler's poll standing—of importance for electoral autocracies in particular. Drawing from over 1000 annual legislative addresses of Russian governors in 2007–2023, we show that elites politicize their rhetoric following arrests of their peers, and they also closely track the autocrat's popularity. We contribute to the literature on personalization and authoritarian speech.

ABSTRACT This article examines Trump's 2024 campaign rhetoric on in-vitro fertilization (IVF), arguing that his repeated promises of expanded access operate as a uniquely effective and affective tool of authoritarianism. Using Berlant's cruel optimism, I show how these promises invite investment in the illusion of affordable IVF while obscuring political, regulatory, economic, and infrastructural barriers that make this treatment unattainable for many. Through policy analysis and personal experience, I illustrate how Trump's rhetoric disguises patriarchal control as care and manipulates reproductive desire into political dependence. These dynamics deepen reproductive inequalities, forcing patients (including me) to seek fertility care beyond US borders.

We study France’s 1995 ban on firm donations to politicians. We use a difference-in-differences approach and a novel dataset combining the campaign manifestos issued by candidates running in French parliamentary elections with data on their campaign contributions. We show that banning firm donations discourages candidates from advertising their local presence during the campaign, as well as economic issues. The ban also leads candidates from nonmainstream parties to use more extreme language. This suggests that private donors shape politicians’ topics of interest, and that campaign finance reforms may affect the information made available to voters through their impact on candidates’ rhetoric. (JEL D22, D72, D83, K16)

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to shed light on Berlusconi’s political strategy to reshape the state by examining some of the incentives for discretionary changes in the tax-benefit system during his administrations. We argue that by exploiting the typically categorical and fragmented nature of the Italian welfare system, Berlusconi’s governments engaged in the ‘art of manipulation’ within the tax-benefit framework, reflecting his efforts in social engineering to forge new electoral alliances. It is well established that redistributive programmes are the outcome of intense political decision-making, as they create redistributive advantages among different social groups. This article contends that, under the guise of economic liberalism, the Berlusconi governments devised redistributive strategies aimed at constructing new social constituencies to bolster and legitimize his dominant position. Although his governments promised a pact of ‘From Decline to Growth’ for all through tax-benefit redistribution, they ultimately introduced only incremental changes rather than long-term structural reforms. In conclusion, Berlusconi’s neoliberal ‘revolution’ was more rhetoric than reality.

No abstract available

Legal rhetoric is a powerful tool in American political discourse, shaping public perception, policy justification, and judicial influence. This qualitative case study examines how U.S. political leaders employ legal language to establish credibility, persuade audiences, and align policies with constitutional principles. Analysing speeches delivered by historical and contemporary figures, including Lincoln, Roosevelt, King, Reagan, Obama, and Trump, this study identifies key linguistic and rhetorical strategies, such as legal formalism, authoritative tone, and citations of legal texts. The findings highlight the enduring role of legal rhetoric in governance and democracy, with implications for legal discourse, political communication, and English for Specific Purposes (ESP).

Upon assuming office, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders systematically targeting the transgender community. These policies must be understood within the framework of anti-gender ideology and right-wing populism. The anti-gender ideology serves a dual purpose – first, it functions as a canopy under which conservatives are mobilized in the name of preserving cultural and traditional norms and second, by positioning gender-diverse individuals as a cultural threat, it diverts attention from economic and structural inequalities in society. This article examines how Trump’s speeches, political advertisements and policy decisions align with broader right-wing populist trends and their implications for gender politics and trans rights. I argue that these executive orders are not merely policy rollbacks but a strategic continuation of Trump’s ‘anti-gender’ campaign rhetoric in the 2024 U.S. Presidential elections, aimed at consolidating his conservative base. I first analyse how he employed anti-trans rhetoric during the campaign, then outline the key executive orders passed by his administration curbing transgender rights. Finally, I discuss the broader implications of these exclusionary policies for the future of gender and sexuality rights.

This paper analyzes how language shapes political power dynamics in India's complex linguistic landscape. It scrutinizes rhetorical techniques used by national and regional political parties across the ideological spectrum, including euphemisms, doublespeak, code-switching, shifting political correctness, and debates around language policy. Case studies exemplify how such linguistic tools frame policies, assert regional identities, signal social reform orientations, justify controversial actions, and expand appeal across constituencies. The analysis reveals how language is intricately tied to messaging, positioning, and electoral machinery of Indian parties. Examining political rhetoric and linguistic conflicts provides vital perspective on the deeper regional tensions, social reform commitments, and power structures underlying Indian politics.

This article presents a corpus-assisted analysis of the rhetoric employed in the political tweets of Lauren Boebert and Isabel Díaz-Ayuso on the micro-blogging site X (formerly Twitter). This study adopts the analytical framework Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005), to explore how these politicians utilize negativity as a strategic tool to discredit and weaken their adversaries. The research identifies key motifs and evaluative strategies within their tweets, illustrating the role of negativity in political discourse. Findings reveal that both politicians direct their negativity toward their political rivals, viz., presidents Joe Biden and Pedro Sánchez, while channeling it towards immigrants and independentist parties. Amongst the evaluative resources most commonly deployed, Lauren Boebert and Isabel Díaz-Ayuso utilize inscribed negative judgments of propriety and veracity to accuse their rivals based on their lack of morality and truthfulness regarding various policy issues. The qualitative study has also revealed that politicians present their stances through monoglossic formulations that leave no room for argumentation and debate. This idea reinforces that even if their negativity is not intended as a polarizing agent, it may affect the potential electorate. This study contributes to understanding the dynamics of online political communication, highlighting the implications of negativity in shaping public opinion and political narratives.

This article presents an original account of the strategic options available to political parties in the form of the position, salience and rhetoric framework. It builds upon existing accounts of party competition by conceiving of rhetorical justification as a distinct tool in the armoury of party strategists alongside the manipulation of policy position and issue salience. It applies that framework to the case of post-devolution Scotland via a quantitative text analysis of the written record of First Ministers Questions sessions in the Scottish Parliament. It shows how the main political parties in Scotland between them utilised all of the strategic tools contained within the PSR framework in the early twenty-first century up to the most recent 2021 election to the Holyrood parliament. It argues that the tactical choices the main Scottish parties made within this framework can help explain the differing electoral fortunes experienced by those parties in the post-devolution era.

Global and interconnected sustainability challenges require systems thinking and policy coherence to support bold and coordinated action. To chart a course for action, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a suite of targets across international and national levels. Here, we explore intentions and contributions over time of the Mexican multifaceted rural-development program Sembrando Vida (SV) to the SDGs, to assess its policy coherence for sustainable development, especially in relation to climate change. We reviewed online documents and newspaper articles, interviewed key SV staff and analyzed the Mexican President’s morning conference speeches. We show that multiplicity and adaptation of stated intentions suggest opportunistic forms of policy drift with limited policy coherence. The potential of the SV program remains promising, but it requires clearer objectives, coherent strategy, expert knowledge, community support and evaluation. These results demonstrate how political context can cause policy drift and negatively impact intended policy coherence for sustainable development.

The assessment of Japan’s security policy during the first 23 years of the twenty-first century went through a 180-degree turn from that of a reactive pacifist to a proactive strategic player. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of new challenges at a global and regional level, Japan’s leading political drivers, summed up in the Yoshida Doctrine, seemed unable to address the new geopolitical context, entering a phase of reform. The late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s unusually strong and long leadership between 2012 and 2020 undoubtedly contributed to this shift. While the role of prime ministers in post-Abe years appears to have reverted to a more traditional facilitator role, the strategic direction Abe set in such initiatives as the Quadrilateral meetings among the United States, Japan, Australia and India, as well as the enhancement of Japan’s participation in collective defence and security, remain largely intact in rhetoric. Exploring how this rhetoric exercise translated into more tangible security policies, the article examines Japan’s security diplomacy and defence strategy in the post-Abe context.

ABSTRACT Amid geopolitical uncertainties, countries adopt new industrial policies to reshore strategic industries. Simultaneously, rising political discontent underscores the importance of intra-national industrial location. Within this context, we introduce the concept of strategic regional path development, a mechanism for (supra-)national industrial capacity-building based on top-down government interventions. Using a semiconductor innovation zone (Technum Quebec, innovation zone) as a case study, we find that while the innovation zone is driven by national objectives, the region is mobilised instrumentally (regional dynamics are secondary) and rhetorically (regional development narrative aligns actors). Ultimately, success depends on reconciling perspectives on the innovation zone’s purpose across policymaking levels and actors.

This article examines several issues related to Hungary, the personality and management style of its leader Viktor Orban, and the policies pursued by this European country towards migrants and refugees. Hungary is a state whose migration policy over the past years has been at odds with the European mainstream. This is largely due to the views of Orban himself. For him, the issue of migration is central, axial in his worldview. This course is perceived differently: the Hungarian Prime Minister has both supporters and opponents. In the scientific research literature one can also find polar assessments. At the same time, Orban is a significant figure for the study of migrant discourse, and his policies obviously strive to be framed in a new eclectic ideology. The Prime Minister of Hungary continues to pursue his course, maneuvering between various forces and interest groups - potential allies from other states, opponents from the European liberal establishment, his own electorate, and voters of other Hungarian parties.

This article discusses the political rhetoric regarding immigration and the presence of immigrants declared by the French presidential candidates in the 2017 French presidential election. The issue of immigration is one of the most important aspects of French domestic and foreign policy. The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions and acceptance of immigrants from the 2017 French presidential candidates, and their impact on the French public. The theory used in this research is Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional models, namely the microstructural, mesostructural, and macrostructural dimensions. The data taken is the first source in the form of newspapers, online media, books, and journal articles. The results of this study indicate that the political rhetoric by presidential candidates in the 2017 French presidential election campaign forms its own identity and acceptance of immigrants in the French public view. Five French presidential candidates presented rhetoric related to immigration and the existence of immigrants with different framing according to the party ideology they adhere to. However, the rhetoric presented by presidential candidate Macron from En Marche! is more acceptable to French society than other presidential candidates.

This paper explores the relationship between populist rhetoric and political communication within the context of Dravidian politics in Indian politics. Populist rhetoric has been a strategic tool used by both national and regional party leaders, but here, we are specifying regional parties’ usage, particularly the Dravidian Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), to articulate issues of socio-economic inequality, equality in caste status, and linguistic and cultural Tamil identity? These include Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai (ANNA), Muthuvel Karunanidhi (Kalaignar), Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran (MGR), and Jayaram Jayalalithaa (JJ & AMMA). They were key figures in the construction of these narratives, and Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin (Thalapathy) utilized their iconic status to cultivate an emotional attachment with the masses and grassroots support. Kalaignar is given special attention because his literary prowess, his theatrical skills and his rhetoric policy were of great use to reinforce the Dravidian ideals and consolidate his political legacy. It analyses the election manifestos, political speeches and public perceptions to understand recurring populist themes in the form of anti-elitism, welfare-oriented policies and identity-driven politics. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study incorporates document analysis, field surveys, semi-structured interviews and historical comparisons to trace the evolution of populist narratives within Dravidian politics. The findings indicate the dual nature of populist rhetoric, both mobilizing an apparatus for inclusive governance and potentially turning out to be the harbinger of societal polarization. Situating this with regional and global political contexts is exactly what this study will be adding to the debate on the dynamic interplay between identity, governance and democratic participation in Tamil Nadu and Indian politics. In this paper, a mixed-method design is used to analysis the nexus between political party identification, welfare policies and electoral behavior in Tamil Nadu. Virudhunagar district has been chosen due to its high literacy rate, HDI (2017) ranking and prevalence of strong Dravidian parties (Dravidian Munnetra Kazhagam & AIADMK). The research uses quantitative surveys (210 people: 121 rural, 89 urban) and qualitative interviews. Stratified random sampling was used so that representation cut across income levels, grounded communities, gender and party platforms. The findings indicate the dual nature of populism – both mobilizing an apparatus for inclusive governance and potentially turning out to be the harbinger of societal polarizations. Situating this with regional and global political contexts is exactly what this study will be adding to the debate on dynamic interplay between identity, governance and democratic participation in Tamil Nadu, India.

Immigration became an especially thorny and publicly discussed issue with the so-called Refugee Crisis beginning in 2015. The stance of the Czech and Polish governments was dominated by strong anti-Muslim and anti-immigration rhetoric. Still, both countries have witnessed a steady increase in mainly short-term immigration from various Asian countries such as Bangladesh or Pakistan ever since. This paper analyses Czech and Polish migration policies against the backdrop of a historically constructed notion of anti-illegal immigration policy, and category of temporary migration, coupled with the problematic nature of debt-financed migration in Asia. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Czechia and Poland (2018-2021), in-depth and semi-structured interviews with migration experts, academic and grey literature, official documents, and the method of Accidental ethnography, this paper argues that silencing of actual labor immigration in political communication while employing anti-migration rhetoric represents a discursive gap typical for liberal democracies. It further concludes that rendering migrant labor as a temporary commodity and turning a blind eye on recruitment of international migrants represents a continuity practice of migrant labor subordination within the nation-state, originating during colonialism and the advent of capitalism in the nineteenth century.

The transformation of higher education provision by neoliberal values has been well documented. However, recent criticisms and even attacks upon higher education indicate a new politics extending beyond neoliberalism. This article draws on the sociology of conventions to unpick the distinctions at work in these new criticisms of universities. By distinguishing between values based in the market world, industrial world and civic world, we elaborate the political basis of recent value controversies around higher education (HE), reflected in policy and rhetoric. Looking to reject aspects of the neoliberal HE model, some critics have sought to revalue higher education upon productivist values, attacking universities for failing to generate ‘use’ value for students and society. Populist actors have launched stronger criticisms, aiming to revalue higher education on nationalistic and traditional values. This has generated the devaluation of higher education in national public spheres. As higher education has expanded globally, this new politics emerges from conflicts within and between conservative and liberal elites. Trends in Hungary and Brazil indicate the successes and failures of populist attacks on universities. Trends in the United Kingdom and Australia reflect productivist revaluations of market-based HE. Elite revaluation and devaluation is producing an emerging new global politics of HE.

How do smaller states position themselves in the biggest diplomatic forum when a regional power with which they share deep economic and political ties is engaged in foreign adventurism with its neighbors? We answer this question by examining how the five Central Asian countries (the “-stans”) have crafted their United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speeches in the aftermath of three recent instances of Russian foreign adventurism: Russo-Georgian War in 2008, Crimea Annexation in 2014, and the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022. Our quantitative assessment of the appearance of sovereignty frames in the UN General Debate corpus from 1992 to 2022 suggests that while historically the Central Asian states have refrained from invoking themes related to sovereignty, the recent full-scale invasion of Ukraine has shifted these countries’ position, whereby they no longer keep themselves away from discussions related to state sovereignty. The fact that Central Asian countries are willing to engage in discussions that are not liked by Russia suggests that these countries are attempting to make their concerns about an aggressive regional power known to the global community.

ABSTRACT This article traces the convergence of state redress and the educational construction of citizenship from the 1990s onwards in Australia. It examines how successive settler political leaders used the education of a historical consciousness—settler citizens’ relation to past, present and future—as a core strategy to seek resolution to the problematic national past. The article examines key political speeches that sought to mediate the settler nation's past in light of growing international and domestic pressures, including Keating's 1992 Redfern Park speech and Rudd's 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations, and one of conservative backlash: Howard's 1996 Menzies Lecture. Rudd's subsequent national policy agenda of apology and an Australian Curriculum sought to inaugurate a new era in the settler nation's history. That program was embodied by the figure of the future citizen positioned to reckon with the nation's unjust past, a task inscribed in the inaugural national history curriculum.

The paper examines how populism came into existence in the 21 st century and evolved, on a case by case analysis, taking into consideration the rhetoric as well as the policy implications. Populism, which tends to be a call to the people against perceived elite in other political structures, cultures and economic situations, softens in different ways. The research paper investigates how simplified stories, emotional appeals, and identity-based messages that politicians employ can receive the support of the population and rebrand the political discussion. The case studies analysis in different areas shows that the trends of populist rhetoric like anti-establishment rhetoric, nationalism, and creation of in-group and out-group relationships are prevalent in different areas. In addition to the rhetorical observation, the paper evaluates the actual world effects of populist politics particularly in economic policy, immigration, institutional change, and media control. The findings suggest that the populist movement can be linked with the purported inclusivity and systemic change-making but the outcome of the policy may produce opposite outcomes including institutional strain, policy instability, and democratic standard change. Comparative approach enables one to assess convergences and divergences in the sense of the influence of populism on the manner in which the governance and the public policy are carried out. The paper would contribute to the improved understanding of the relationship between the political communication and the policy change in the new democracies. It brings out the importance of the contextual factor such as economic inequalities, political mistrust, and globalization to dictate populist course. The fact that rhetoric and practical conclusions narrow makes the research useful to policy makers, scholars and institutions that want to find an effective countermeasure to deal with the challenge in contemporary populism.

The study explores the definition of public policy as a technocratic function and examines the underlying capacity of rhetoric to persuade the public in the developmental setting. It is common to describe public policy as a technical, logical process of making decisions based on facts. However, academic research indicates that policy is essentially a rhetorical and communicative activity in which narratives and persuasion are crucial to gaining legitimacy. Using the Aristotelian triad of ethos (credibility), logos (logic), and pathos (emotion) as an analytical framework, this study explores the crucial role of rhetoric in public policy and development. With an emphasis on Nepal's changing policy environment, the study uses a qualitative, interpretive design to analyze national development plans, policy documents, and international agreements. The results show that Nepal's development discourse is marked by pathos, using aspirational narratives of national pride and inclusion to navigate political transitions and post-conflict reconstruction, whereas international development organizations heavily rely on logos-dominated technocratic language to project neutrality. The study also looks at how these rhetorical techniques are used to create institutional trust and public consent in times of crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2015 earthquake. The study comes to the conclusion that rhetoric is a fundamental component of governance rather than an incidental aspect. In order to close the gap between policy intentions and lived realities in sustainable development, it makes the case for a move toward ethical rhetoric a practice that strikes a balance between

Abstract Governments worldwide have to face navigating multiple crises, often requiring political measures that challenge social status quo arrangements. Radical-right populist parties frequently operate as amplifiers of citizens’ status-quo threat perceptions by blaming established political actors, potentially undermining political support and satisfaction with democracy. This study examines how radical-right populist parties and their rhetoric affect political support during progressive policy change, focusing particularly on immigration, climate, and gender equality policies. Moreover, it examines the claim that groups vulnerable to experiencing threat tend in particular to respond with lower political support to progressive policy change, as well as populist rhetoric. Using observational data from West European democracies and experimental evidence from Germany, the study finds that an erosion of political support is particularly strong when progressive policies coincide with radical-right populist party success. Surprisingly, these effects are remarkably universal across societal groups, challenging assumptions that democratic backlash primarily stems from those who feel easily threatened. The findings suggest that radical-right populist rhetoric can effectively catalyse opposition to progressive policies regardless of citizens’ socioeconomic status or ideological orientation.

INTRODUCTION: The Primary Health Care approach (PHC) can contribute towards universal health coverage (UHC). However, implementing the PHC approach in Africa remains suboptimal. One way to ascertain political commitment to the PHC approach is its reflection in the national health policies (NHP). Several PHC initiatives have helped define and guide the PHC definition, implementation, and evaluation. These include the Alma Ata PHC conference, the Ouagadougou Declaration on PHC in Africa, and the Astana conference. The aim of this paper is to explore to what extent the guidance and characteristics of the PHC approach have been reflected and integrated into the National Health Policies (NHPs) in countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). METHODS: The READ approach was undertaken to analyze eight publicly available NHPs. A 12-point checklist was developed to extract relevant data from the policy documents.  The WHO Health Systems building blocks are used as the analytical framework to understand the key features of the PHC approach mentioned in the policies. RESULTS: All the NHPs were developed after the Alma Ata conference in 1978. Six of the eight NHPs reviewed were updated after the Ouagadougou declaration on PHC in Africa in 2008. None of the NHPs were updated after the 2018 Astana PHC conference. Based on the checklist, Lesotho had the most integrated PHC elements (n=12), while Eswatini had the least (n=4). Based on the policy review, there seems to be commitment and priority placed on leadership, governance, and access to essential medicines. However, more still needs to be done to improve service delivery in terms of integrated patient centered care (only included in 3 out of the 8), health financing for primary care, integrated health information systems and the community health workers as part of the health workforce. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, NHPs should guide implementation, and the NHP is a reference document for many organizations wishing to partner with the government in improving health care services. As such, it should be updated in line with the new evidence and learning and reflect the country’s priorities to help align development actors.

The 2025 U.S. shift to reciprocal tariffs marks a deliberate move from economic reciprocity to politically driven protectionism.  Framed by populist themes of equity and sovereignty, the policy masks distributional costs, including inflation, supply chain disruptions, and reduced industrial competitiveness.  Beneath the rhetoric lie electoral motivations and nationalist pressures rather than genuine trade rebalancing.  Global reprisals have escalated, undermining U.S. trade credibility and jeopardizing alliances.  A multi-scalar analysis reveals the disparity between justification and execution.  The return of retaliatory tariffs reflects a broader politicization and securitization of trade, demanding a revised International Political Economy framework for a fragmented global order.   Received: 30 July 2025 / Accepted: 23 August 2025 / Published: 12 September 2025

In 2018, Donald Trump initiated a trade war with China, which was influenced by his populist approach and status as a political newcomer. This paper analyzes how Trump, a populist political newcomer, communicated with the public to gain support and persuade or pressure established establishment politics to overcome domestic constraints and achieve a foreign policy shift toward China. Trump bypassed conventional media, leveraging public dissatisfaction and communicating directly through social media. His rhetoric painted China as a threat to American jobs and economic stability, reviving nationalism such as “America First” and shifting public opinion toward a hardline stance. Trump justified aggressive policies against China, emphasizing economic security as national security. Despite domestic opposition, Trump used executive orders to bypass legislative hurdles and implemented significant policy shifts, setting a precedent for future administrations and illustrating how populist leaders can justify radical foreign policy changes by leveraging domestic dissatisfaction and nationalism.

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ABSTRACT In this study, we focus on the nexus between the populist domestic politics of Hungary and the Hungarian foreign policy. We find that conventional explanations involving pragmatism and nationalism are limited, so we take the analytical approach of political marketing to understand the rhetoric and behavior of the Orbán government, with special reference to its relations with China. We argue that through its high-profile “Opening to the East” policy, the Orbán government attempted, with mixed outcomes, to communicate its foreign policy promises and results as persuasion and contestation to its domestic audience largely for its own political gains.

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Since the European Union referendum in 2016, UK net migration has increased to record levels. Despite the Leave campaign's promise to ‘take back control’—and a Conservative government that has adopted increasingly negative rhetoric about immigration—growing numbers of workers and international students have migrated to the UK. This apparent puzzle can be explained by examining the political economy of immigration policy. The UK economy is structurally dependent on migrants who take up jobs that British citizens shun and who address skills shortages caused by under‐investment in training and education, as well as international students who help finance UK universities. As free movement came to an end, the Johnson government responded by liberalising immigration policy selectively. More recently, political pressure from the right has prompted the Sunak government to adopt policies that restrict the rights of migrant workers, international students and many British citizens to live with their families.

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ABSTRACT In recent years, the language of digital sovereignty has become ubiquitous in Europe. However, we still lack systematic knowledge if and to what extent the discourse on digital sovereignty is accompanied by actual policy change in different areas of EU policymaking. Drawing on a range of both qualitative and quantitative methods, the various contributions to this special issue examine discursive and policy change in nine major areas of EU digital policymaking. While they find policy change towards more control of the digital across all policy areas examined, this shift is only sometimes accompanied by discursive change towards digital sovereignty. This, we argue, is the result of ideational trade-offs actors face when using the language of digital sovereignty in different venues, policy areas, or countries. Considering current geo-political and geo-economic challenges, this special issue sheds light on recent transformations of EU digital policymaking and its discursive politics in the digital age.

In recent years, governments have considered how to respond to “disinformation.” However, there is little academic literature on Canada’s response in the area of security and foreign policy. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing how and why Canadian government foreign and security actors have “securitized” foreign disinformation. It argues that, since 2014, they have increased awareness about disinformation and transformed it into a matter of “security” through rhetoric and discursive framing, as well as stated policy intentions and actions. This has occurred in response to perceived threats, but without coherent policy. The findings suggest that challenges are linked to persistent difficulties in defining and understanding disinformation. The result has been fragmented actions, some of which may legitimate actions that deviate from “normal political processes.” The implications are that definitional challenges need to be addressed, the role of security actors assessed, and a clearly articulated and holistic strategy drawn.

Depictions of school choice offering greater individual and local autonomy are widespread, yet they sit uneasily with portrayals of such policies within African-American political discourse. This article analyses the ways in which opposition to publicly funded private school vouchers has been used as a cue to signal solidaristic ties to the African-American electorate. School choice is highly racialized. Black politicians have been known to campaign against school choice policies by presenting them as tools of White outsiders to break up and divide the Black community. Although opinion polls have indicated that a majority of African-American voters support education vouchers, in a campaign context school choice policies can be framed through the prisms of racial authenticity and community control. Using data drawn from interviews with political operatives and archival research in Newark, New Jersey, this article demonstrates that school choice can paradoxically be rendered as a policy of community disempowerment.

Populists are often identified based on their behavior, but the discursive element of their identities is also a frequently observed characteristic of this type of leader. We examine the determinants of populist foreign policy rhetoric in the case of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. We argue that a leftist populist leader such as Chávez will focus on anti-imperialist themes, and we consider two mechanisms that may indicate the conditions under which he will use them: diversion, which would typically be expected from a populist, and capacity. We use time-series analysis of rhetorical data scraped from the entire corpus of Aló Presidente—Chávez’s weekly television series—to test our hypotheses. The evidence supports the capacity mechanism, that Chávez is emboldened to use anti-imperialist rhetoric when the price of oil is high. His rhetoric, thus, matches his resources and ability to provide domestic and international goods to support his own identity as a protector and savior of the common people from domestic and global elites engaged in the imperialistic enterprise.

ABSTRACT The article examines the Hungarian government’s rhetoric on Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine during the early months of the invasion, drawing on the literature on state security identity. It finds that the Hungarian government portrayed the war as an impersonal force, a kind of maelstrom on its doorstep into which Hungary might “drift” if heedless policy proposals by Western states and the Hungarian political opposition were put into practice. According to this rhetoric, it was the Hungarian government’s judicious and patriotic leadership that enabled the country to steer clear of drifting into the war. In contrast with the pro-Western rhetoric of Hungarian governments of the 1990s and 2000s, Hungary was now explicitly identified as a “Central European” state with its own security interests, but one that was threatened by the self-interested and reckless actions of Western states and the Hungarian political opposition.

This paper investigates whether populism, independent of its substantive policy correlates, diffuses within party systems as a rhetorical strategy. Building on theories of political contagion, I argue that populism’s simplicity and flexibility make it an attractive tool for parties seeking to mobilize voters, disrupt competitors, and respond to systemic pressures. Using the V-Party dataset, which provides expert-coded estimates of populist rhetoric across a global sample of parties, I construct a leave-one-out (LOO) Index to capture systemic populist signals. Time-series cross-sectional regression models with fixed effects reveal that higher levels of systemic populism significantly increase the likelihood of parties adopting populist rhetoric in subsequent electoral cycles. The effect is most pronounced for anti-elitism and people-centrism, while pluralistic norms and non-violence remain stable. Right-leaning parties exhibit stronger responsiveness, reflecting the natural alignment between populist themes and conservative platforms.

This article presents the argument from its theoretical-methodological perspective, based on Amossy (2018a; 2018b) and Charaudeau (2012). We use this perspective to investigate the argumentative strategies of diplomatic and journalistic discourses in constructing Brazil's public image (from 1988 to 2022). We analyzed Brazil's speeches at the UN General Assembly and Folha de S. Paulo's texts about these meetings. We observe that peace is driven by diplomacy as a supreme value. The guidelines for conducting the PEB also have recurring themes. The analysis of journalistic discourses allowed us to identify that, in some periods, the journalistic construction marks opposition to the government and the conduct of PEB. We perceive journalism as a political actor active in the diplomatic field, with the function of reporting events. Still, doing so can also contribute to constructing public opinions and disseminating values about PEB.

With the rise of neoliberal reforms and efforts to privatize education, there is a growing need to examine how actors and groups from the public and private sectors influence educational policy change together. In this article, we advance a critical approach to understanding the changing discursive space of educational politics by following discourses through an expansive policy network that goes beyond its traditional boundaries. Specifically, we draw on argumentative discourse analysis (ADA), which allows for the analysis of how and why various actors and groups come together to assign certain meanings to educational phenomena or problems, leading to policy responses or changes. Rooted in Foucault’s notions of discourse and power, ADA offers a unique approach to discourse analysis that can illuminate policy change through discourse coalitions. Three case studies from educational policy scholarship are discussed to illustrate the value and utility of ADA in future critical education policy studies.

ABSTRACT This article presents the findings of an in-depth analysis of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s position and argumentation regarding the European Union (EU). The study explores the ideational sources (cognitive and normative) and interactive functions (communicative and coordinative) of his foreign policy discourse. We argue that Erdogan instrumentalises and politicises foreign policy discourse for the coordinative function of political mobilisation. First, Erdogan’s dual approach is shaped by his leadership roles (president versus party chairperson), his target audience (national versus international), and timing (election versus non-election periods), with Euroscepticism and antagonistic argumentation featuring prominently in his discourse. Second, as party chairperson, Erdogan employs nationalist chauvinism, a normative source shared by relevant institutional actors, to fulfil a coordinative function. Third, cognitive dissonance stemming from his positional dichotomy, alongside misrepresenting actors and processes, allows him a blame strategy, framed by accusations of 1) double standards, 2) the EU’s miscalculation, 3) pacta sunt servanda, and 4) the actions of ‘certain’ member states.

The discussion of factors driving young people’s involvement in serious violence continues to be well documented across policy, news media, and academic research. The government response to riots taking place across the UK in 2011 set a precedent for an increasingly punitive discourse surrounding young people’s involvement in criminal lifestyles, as well as the Criminal Justice System’s response to the overall issue. In order to develop a greater understanding of the complex breadth of driving factors behind serious youth violence and their discoursal representation, this article presents findings of a multifaceted investigation through the interpretivist paradigm, merging macro-level policy with micro-level community insights. The article commences with an argumentative discourse analysis of a selection of Government and Youth Violence Commission policy documents before drawing on three semi-structured interviews with community-level practitioners in England working within policing and youth work organisations. The findings reveal a complex interplay of socio-environmental factors, poverty, domestic trauma, cultural dimensions, and street-based exploitation positioned alongside constructs of social exclusion and masculinity. The study uncovers a broad issue of systemic marginalisation and reduction in community resources, exacerbating conditions of social exclusion that create a greater propensity for involvement in serious youth violence. The findings support calls for the framing of serious youth violence as an issue of ‘public health’, encouraging deeper investigation into underlying socio-economic, cultural, and political conditions.

Despite variation across Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) policies, project-based public research funding allocation models, characterized by a complexity of policy objectives, are becoming increasingly prevalent. This article examines the emergence of such a development within a specific context through a case study on the policy process leading to the establishment of Finland’s Strategic Research funding instrument. Drawing on the policy proposal, organizational responses, and interviews, it explores five frames for and against the proposal and its development into a decision. Based on the empirical analysis, I propose the notion of ‘fragmented cohesion’ to characterize how several stakeholder organizations employed framing as an argumentative tool to valorize the proposal’s objectives, while selectively justifying and opposing the proposed methods of achieving them. I argue that this dynamic increased the likelihood of policymakers embracing one-size-fits-all models across diverse sectors, as originally outlined, rather than case-by-case consideration.

This study analyzes the discourses surrounding the “Haneuli Law,” a legislative initiative triggered by the 2025 Daejeon elementary school homicide, to explore how divergent perceptions of school safety and teacher management systems shape policy judgments and responses. Drawing on a constructionist perspective that understands policy not as a neutral instrument but as a process constituting social identities and power relations, the study examined transcripts from four rounds of focus group discussions involving teachers, parents, education officials, and field experts. Applying a policy argument analysis framework, the findings reveal consensus on the normative value of safeguarding student safety, but also expose divergent argumentative structures: teachers emphasized concerns over over-legislation and stigmatization, parents stressed the necessity of mandatory legislation, and expert groups highlighted procedural legitimacy and legal coherence. These results demonstrate that even a shared recognition of crisis can produce divergent policy trajectories, as differences in causal interpretation lead to bifurcated judgments and responses. The study confirms that policy design and implementation debates are not mere opinion conflicts, but negotiation processes in which social perceptions, values, and emotional frames intersect. It further suggests the necessity of policy communication strategies that enable conditional institutional design attentive to both student safety and the professional particularities of teaching.

This study examines the Makan Bergizi Gratis program, promoted by Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka in Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election, which functioned simultaneously as a nutritional policy and populist strategy. Within the digital sphere, Ferry Irwandi a YouTube-based influencer, framed and critiqued the program, offering an alternative discourse on welfare populism. Using a descriptive qualitative method within a critical paradigm, the research applies Teun A. van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis to one YouTube video (814,000 views) transcribed verbatim, analyzing textual structures, social cognition, and social context. The findings reveal that Ferry constructed counter-discourse through three themes: deconstructing the notion of “free,” questioning bureaucratic transparency, and positioning himself as a digital political actor. His rhetorical strategies included informal diction, metaphors, repetition, and presuppositions, which built both emotional proximity and argumentative credibility. At the social cognition level, he projected fiscal skepticism and youth-oriented advocacy, while in the broader context, he leveraged YouTube’s symbolic capital to resist state narratives and promote transparency. The study concludes that digital platforms operate as contested arenas where non-structural actors shape political literacy and public opinion, highlighting the role of creators in democratizing electoral discourse.

This article argues that the Turkish press of the early republican years was one of the instruments used by the Turkish political discourse of the early republican years to disseminate and reproduce its values in the public sphere. This article attempts to examine the discursive distinction between Turkey and the Ottoman Empire in terms of their international relations through the Turkish press discourse. To this end, this article focuses on the Turkish newspaper column "Sabah Gazeteleri ne diyorlar?" published in the Turkish newspaper Haber Akşam Postası on June 11, 1938, and conducts an argumentation analysis of the column by applying the Vienna School of Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl & Wodak 2001; Wodak 1990, 1994; Wodak & Meyer 2001; Wodak & Chilton 2005; Wodak et al. 2009). This article examines the rhetorical, discursive, and argumentative strategies used by the editorial writer Asım Us to persuade readers. One of the key findings of the article is the following: the negative portrayal of the Ottoman Empire versus the positive portrayal of Turkey. While the Ottoman Empire was described as "defeated" in World War I, Turkey was portrayed as a "victorious" country that was able to sign the Treaty of Lausanne with the Entente powers on an equal footing.

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Drawing on narrative analysis developed by communications scholars, and applied by scholars of economics and international law and in policy analysis, this article studies action 1 of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD's) base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project as a policy narrative. The authors outline the role of narrative in international tax policy making and evaluate the probability and the argumentative and material coherence of the OECD's story about the need to ensure the stability of the international tax framework and system. Focusing on the narrative strategy adopted by the OECD to promote its pillar one proposal, the authors assess the likely persuasiveness of the OECD's stability argument—in particular, how it may have influenced the response to the proposal by the members of the Inclusive Framework on BEPS. The authors conclude that the OECD's concern about potentially destabilizing effects of digital services taxes and similar taxes on the international income tax system propagates a global fiscal illusion, and may not sustain long-term support for pillar one by many members of the Inclusive Framework.

The new Egypt has adopted the green economy policy through its Sustainable Development Strategy “Egypt Vision 2030”. To achieve the objectives of this paper, a pragmatic model of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) was introduced to study the dynamics and networking processes of the key actors during the formulation and implementation of the green economy policy in Egypt. This research presented a thorough qualitative analysis by using the documentary research methodology through the informative and the argumentative exploratory documentary research type to investigate the selected research topic. The paper concluded with concrete assumptions in relation to the external context, the public policy issue, the advocacy coalition, the policy-oriented learning, the advocacy coalition instruments and the policy change of the green economy policy in Egypt.

Abstract Technocracy is becoming increasingly relevant in Western democracies and particularly in Italy, a country characterised by four technocratic governments in three decades. Despite the growing number of dedicated studies, there is a persistent gap in the existing literature concerning the discursive dimension of technocracy – namely, how technocrats frame the historical context, legitimise their policy agendas and, more broadly, the establishment of their governments. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the speeches given by four Italian technocratic Prime Ministers to the parliament when asking for the vote of confidence. Methodologically, we perform first the content analysis to map the themes addressed in the speeches, their quantitative relevance and variation over time. Then, we turn to critical discourse analysis to understand the specific argumentative strategies that legitimise policy action in five key and interrelated dimensions: context, legitimation, the state, European Union and political economy. The analysis seeks to answer three research questions: What are the main discursive strategies of legitimation used by technocrats? Do they change significantly between governments and over time? Do partisan policy options and worldviews emerge clearly, or do they remain under the surface? The paper aims to contribute to the theoretical conceptualisation and empirical analysis of technocracy by highlighting the subjective, performative and overall political dimensions of the phenomenon.

Background and Aim Public health policy development is subject to a range of stakeholders presenting their arguments to influence opinion on the best options for policy action. This paper compares stakeholders’ positions in the discourse networks of two pricing policy debates in the United Kingdom: minimum unit pricing for alcohol (MUP) and the soft drinks industry levy (SDIL). Design Discourse analysis was combined with network visualization to create representations of stakeholders’ positions across the two policy debates as they were represented in 11 national UK newspapers. Setting United Kingdom. Observations For the MUP debate 1924 statements by 152 people from 87 organizations were coded from 348 articles. For the SDIL debate 3883 statements by 214 people from 175 organizations were coded from 511 articles. Measurements Network analysis techniques were used to identify robust argumentative similarities and maximize the identification of network structures. Network measures of size, connectedness and cohesion were used to compare discourse networks. Findings The networks for both pricing debates involve a similar range of stakeholder types and form clusters representing policy discourse coalitions. The SDIL network is larger than the MUP network, particularly the proponents’ cluster, with more than three times as many stakeholders. Both networks have tight clusters of manufacturers, think-tanks and commercial analysts in the opponents’ coalition. Public health stakeholders appear in both networks, but no health charity or advocacy group is common to both. Conclusion A comparison of the discourse in the UK press during the policy development processes for minimum unit pricing for alcohol and the soft drinks industry levy suggests greater cross-sector collaboration among policy opponents than proponents.

Large investments in metro systems, supported through a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) regime, have become the preferred policy option to achieve sustainable and inclusive urban mobility in India. In this paper, we examine the particular practices and power relations through which metro-TOD policies have emerged and gained discursive dominance in India’s urban transport policies. We do so by bringing together urban policy mobilities (UPM) and argumentative discourse analysis (ADA) to conceptualize (im)mobility as the intense movement of specific discursive framings to the exclusion of others. Our analysis brings out the crucial role played by Urban Mobility India (UMI), an annual conference organized by the Indian federal government, in the (im)mobility of metro-TOD policies across Indian cities. We contribute to the growing literature on the power-laden nature of policy circulation in the Global South and address concerns regarding lack of analytical attention to marginalized policy pathways and immobile elements of mobile policies in UPM literature. We argue that policy mobility scholars can move beyond the analytical binaries of mobile/immobile policies by drawing upon the concepts of ADA which allow close examination of the discursive politics at play in policy related conferences. By studying the intra-national (im)mobility of metro-TOD policies in India, we expand the bounds of UPM literature towards a geography that has received limited attention thus far.

Abstract This study explores the evolving cooperation perspectives of Central Asian states against the backdrop of an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. This protracted conflict has triggered regional and global geopolitical shifts, prompting reassessment of the roles and strategies of the various global and regional actors. Focusing on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, this research employs the argumentative framework of Political Discourse Analysis to examine the prospects for cooperative actions drawing insights from five Central Asian leaders’ 2022 speech in Cholpan-Ata. Guided by the shelter-seeking foreign policy strategy, the findings reveal Central Asian leaders’ commitment to pursuing a cohesive regional strategy as an immediate necessity to address shared challenges, including security, economic and infrastructural development and water resource management to promote enhanced cooperation within the region. The study advocates for taking proactive, tangible, and assertive policy measures to realize the proposed actions, emphasizing the importance of a unified approach in navigating the complex geopolitical dynamics.

ABSTRACT We employ a mixed-method research design to assess the resonance of key frames used in the UK policy debate over shale gas development amongst two distinct public audiences. We elaborate a conceptual framework drawn from argumentative discourse analysis and social movement studies. The framework conceptualises resonance as the result of frame plausibility, acceptability and trustworthiness. We utilise semi-structured interviews to analyse how frames resonate with local “campaigning publics” in the case study region of the Fylde, Lancashire, UK. The plausibility of the frames and trustworthiness of key organisations amongst the general public are also assessed through a nationally representative UK survey. We find that, amongst the general public, the frames of the anti-shale development discourse coalition are viewed as more plausible than those of the pro-shale coalition. This finding offers a partial explanation for the failure of UK shale policy. Our local community interviews identify contrasting views on frame resonance amongst local “campaigning publics”. We illustrate these contrasting views on frame resonance by exploring how pro – and anti-shale development interviewees generally held different perceptions about the trustworthiness of key actors and institutions, the promise of economic benefits, and the framing contests over climate change and risk and regulation.