Contentious and controversial policy issues: Using frame analysis to expose and resolve the intractability of the GRA debate

在一个日益两极化的政治领域，迫切需要进行研究，以理解有争议的、看似不可调和的政策辩论，寻求超越顽固的方法，朝着政策妥协的方向努力。在进步的社会正义运动中，围绕性和社会性别展开的激烈争论引发了持续不断的政治争议和冲突。我的博士研究将考察政策框架，以及政府和社会运动制定政策框架的过程。我将试图理解行为者如何以及为什么使用框架，政府在制定政策时如何应对外部框架并构建自己的框架，以及这些过程如何导致复杂社会问题的两极分化和难以解决。我还对框架的过程如何与竞争性知识和有争议的概念定义相关感兴趣；框架在多大程度上基于主观知识，或者框架在多大程度上构建这种知识。使用框架分析，我将对苏格兰和英国政府对《性别承认法案》（GRA）拟议改革的处理进行比较研究。这个话题和争议性问题的两极分化意味着它是一个非常有趣的案例研究，用于分析框架，竞争知识和有争议的政策。这项博士研究将建立在我的本科论文的初步分析基础上，其中我使用框架分析来研究对苏格兰政府2017年关于GRA改革咨询的三个组织反应。对这个问题的进一步研究将采用更深入和复杂的方法来扩大分析的范围。

In an increasingly polarised political sphere, urgent research is required to understand contentious and seemingly irreconcilable policy debates, to seek ways to move beyond intractability and work towards policy compromise. This is the case for highly topical debates over sex and gender, which is creating persistent political controversy and conflict within progressive social justice movements. My PhD research would examine policy frames, and the process of framing by governments and social movements. I would seek to understand how and why actors use framing, how governments respond to external frames and construct their own in the creation of policy, and how these processes cause polarisation and intractability of complex social problems. I am also interested in how the process of framing relates to competing knowledge and contested definitions of concepts; to what extent frames are based on subjective knowledge, or to what extent frames work to construct this knowledge. Using frame analysis, I would conduct a comparative study on the Scottish and UK governments' handling of proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA). The polarisation of this topical and controversial issue means that it is an extremely interesting case study for analysis of framing, competing knowledge, and contentious policy. This PhD research would build upon initial analysis from my undergraduate dissertation, in which I used frame analysis to study three organisational responses to the Scottish Government 2017 consultation on GRA reform. Further research on this issue would apply more in-depth and sophisticated methodology to widen the scope of the analysis.