Governing Narratives: Symbolic Politics and Policy Change
Governing Narratives: Symbolic Politics and Policy Change
复制标题
主导叙事：象征政治和政策变化
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2012
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
H. Miller
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
H. Miller
通过强调公共政策中的意义制定在某种程度上更像是一场文化斗争，而不是一个理性和分析的项目，《治理叙事》将公共行政带回了政治背景。米勒在概念化公共政策的政治学方面采取了叙事的方法。在这种方法中，符号和表意文字，即图像、感情、价值观和概念化的星座，通过使用故事情节被编织到政策叙述中。例如，表意文字酸雨是环境叙事的一部分，将枯树与工业空气污染联系起来。意义捕获的斗争是一场政治斗争，在变革时期或现状实践受到质疑时最为明显。公共政策通常被认为是实证研究、定量分析和客观评估的最终结果。但是，为公共政策研究提供信息的科学和理性的经验规范，也掩盖了公共政策话语中那些在方法论严谨性之外令人烦恼的方面。诸如“三振出局”、“移民潮”、“不问不说”、“婴儿破裂”或“死亡税”之类的短语，已经在公共政策中发挥了至关重要的作用，而不是因为它们旨在反映的现实，而是因为这些象征所蕴含的意义、情感和意象在我们的文化中产生了共鸣。社会实践是社会秩序和文化稳定的物质基础，与伴随社会变革的政策话语密不可分。最终，一种成功的叙事占据了主导地位，并成为制度化的实践，并通过公共行政加以实施。政策与这些成功的故事有着共生关系。实践可能会再次改变，但这不可避免地需要新的政治承诺。象征之间的竞争并不意味着最好的叙事获胜，只是一种叙事暂时获胜。然而，颠覆既定的叙事是一项艰巨的政治任务，特别是当叙事已经演变成习惯性的制度化实践时。“治理叙事”令人信服地将公共政策与协商政治的话语和修辞联系起来。"
By highlighting the degree to which meaning making in public policy is more a cultural struggle than a rational and analytical project, " Governing Narratives" brings public administration back into a political context.In "Governing Narratives," Hugh T. Miller takes a narrative approach in conceptualizing the politics of public policy. In this approach, signs and ideographs that is, constellations of images, feelings, values, and conceptualization are woven into policy narratives through the use of story lines. For example, the ideograph acid rain is part of an environmental narrative that links dead trees to industrial air pollution. The struggle for meaning capture is a political struggle, most in evidence during times of change or when status quo practices are questioned.Public policy is often considered to be the end result of empirical studies, quantitative analyses, and objective evaluation. But the empirical norms of science and rationality that have informed public policy research have also hidden from view those vexing aspects of public policy discourse outside of methodological rigor.Phrases such as three strikes and you re out or flood of immigrants or don t ask, don t tell or crack baby or the death tax have come to play crucial roles in public policy, not because of the reality they are purported to reflect, but because the meanings, emotions, and imagery connoted by these symbolizations resonate in our culture.Social practices, the very material of social order and cultural stability, are inextricably linked to the policy discourse that accompanies social change. Eventually a winning narrative dominates and becomes institutionalized into practice and implemented via public administration. Policy is symbiotically associated with these winning narratives. Practices might change again, but this inevitably entails renewed political contestation. The competition among symbolizations does not imply that the best narrative wins, only that a narrative has won for the time being. However, unsettling the established narrative is a difficult political task, particularly when the narrative has evolved into habitual institutionalized practice."Governing Narratives" convincingly links public policy to the discourse and rhetoric of deliberative politics."