Frank Fischer
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199242641
- eISBN:
- 9780191599255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924264X.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This is the third of four chapters offering a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores the narrative form of discourse and narrative ...
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This is the third of four chapters offering a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores the narrative form of discourse and narrative analysis, an emerging and promising orientation in policy analysis. The social meanings uncovered by the interpretive analysis described in Chapter 7 are typically embedded in a policy narrative, designed to portray the fuller picture of a policy problem and the potential solutions. Built around interpretations, the narrative represents the policy situation, and offers a view of what has to be done and what the expected consequences will be. While there is a fair amount of conceptual overlap between the concepts of discourse and narration, narrative analysis is used in this discussion to refer to the analysis of stories. The first two sections of the chapter examines the general features of a narrative story, emphasizing its uses in both the social sciences and everyday social contexts, and discusses the basic epistemological issues involved in the production of a narrative text. The second three sections survey two prominent approaches to narrative discourse analyses that have emerged in the field of policy analysis per se: those of Stone and Roe. The last section examines how the logic of good reasons underlies the rationality of the narrative.Less
This is the third of four chapters offering a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores the narrative form of discourse and narrative analysis, an emerging and promising orientation in policy analysis. The social meanings uncovered by the interpretive analysis described in Chapter 7 are typically embedded in a policy narrative, designed to portray the fuller picture of a policy problem and the potential solutions. Built around interpretations, the narrative represents the policy situation, and offers a view of what has to be done and what the expected consequences will be. While there is a fair amount of conceptual overlap between the concepts of discourse and narration, narrative analysis is used in this discussion to refer to the analysis of stories. The first two sections of the chapter examines the general features of a narrative story, emphasizing its uses in both the social sciences and everyday social contexts, and discusses the basic epistemological issues involved in the production of a narrative text. The second three sections survey two prominent approaches to narrative discourse analyses that have emerged in the field of policy analysis per se: those of Stone and Roe. The last section examines how the logic of good reasons underlies the rationality of the narrative.
Frank Fischer
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199242641
- eISBN:
- 9780191599255
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924264X.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
In recent years a set of new ‘postempiricist’ approaches to public policy, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, ...
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In recent years a set of new ‘postempiricist’ approaches to public policy, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, empiricist models in policy analysis. In this book, Frank Fischer brings together this work for the first time and critically examines its implications for the field of public policy studies. He describes the theoretical, methodological and political dimensions of this emerging approach to policy research. The book includes a discussion of the social construction of policy problems, the role of interpretation and narrative analysis in policy inquiry, the dialectics of policy argumentation, and the uses of participatory policy analysis. After an introductory chapter, ten further chapters are arranged in four parts: Part I, Public Policy and the Discursive Construction of Reality (two chapters), introduces the re-emergence of interest in ideas and discourse. It then turns to the postempiricist or constructionist view of social reality, presenting public policy as a discursive construct that turns on multiple interpretations. Part II, Public Policy as Discursive Politics (two chapters), examines more specifically the nature of discursive politics and discourse theory and illustrates through a particular disciplinary debate the theoretical, methodological, and political implications of such a conceptual reframing of policy inquiry. Part III, Discursive Policy Inquiry: Resituating Empirical Analysis (four chapters), offers a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores specific methodological perspectives pertinent to such an orientation, in particular the role of interpretation in policy analysis, narrative policy analysis, and the dialectics of policy argumentation. Part IV, Deliberative Governance (two chapters), discusses the participatory implications of such a method and the role of the policy analyst as facilitator of citizen deliberation .Less
In recent years a set of new ‘postempiricist’ approaches to public policy, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, empiricist models in policy analysis. In this book, Frank Fischer brings together this work for the first time and critically examines its implications for the field of public policy studies. He describes the theoretical, methodological and political dimensions of this emerging approach to policy research. The book includes a discussion of the social construction of policy problems, the role of interpretation and narrative analysis in policy inquiry, the dialectics of policy argumentation, and the uses of participatory policy analysis. After an introductory chapter, ten further chapters are arranged in four parts: Part I, Public Policy and the Discursive Construction of Reality (two chapters), introduces the re-emergence of interest in ideas and discourse. It then turns to the postempiricist or constructionist view of social reality, presenting public policy as a discursive construct that turns on multiple interpretations. Part II, Public Policy as Discursive Politics (two chapters), examines more specifically the nature of discursive politics and discourse theory and illustrates through a particular disciplinary debate the theoretical, methodological, and political implications of such a conceptual reframing of policy inquiry. Part III, Discursive Policy Inquiry: Resituating Empirical Analysis (four chapters), offers a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores specific methodological perspectives pertinent to such an orientation, in particular the role of interpretation in policy analysis, narrative policy analysis, and the dialectics of policy argumentation. Part IV, Deliberative Governance (two chapters), discusses the participatory implications of such a method and the role of the policy analyst as facilitator of citizen deliberation .
Erin Heidt-Forsythe
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520298187
- eISBN:
- 9780520970434
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520298187.003.0003
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter begins a response to the questions of what creates the unique system of egg donation regulations by examining the ways that stakeholders—legislators, advocates, scientists, and invested ...
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This chapter begins a response to the questions of what creates the unique system of egg donation regulations by examining the ways that stakeholders—legislators, advocates, scientists, and invested citizens—frame the issue of egg donation in reproduction and research. I explore one policy area of egg donation politics in the United States, compensation in California, New York, Arizona, and Louisiana between 1990 and 2010. This chapter explores and illuminates framing processes about egg donation through explaining the method of policy narrative analysis, case selection, and political contexts in each state.Less
This chapter begins a response to the questions of what creates the unique system of egg donation regulations by examining the ways that stakeholders—legislators, advocates, scientists, and invested citizens—frame the issue of egg donation in reproduction and research. I explore one policy area of egg donation politics in the United States, compensation in California, New York, Arizona, and Louisiana between 1990 and 2010. This chapter explores and illuminates framing processes about egg donation through explaining the method of policy narrative analysis, case selection, and political contexts in each state.
