Narratives and the Policy Process: Applications of the Narrative Policy Framework. Chapter 10: Innovations and Future Directions for the Narrative Policy Framework

Abstract

The NPF started as an iterative scientific journey exploring whether narratives play a role in the policy process. Because we were prepared to be wrong—even warned and such—we never would have predicted what the next fifteen years would yield. Yet, two things happened. First, our results held over time, indicating that narratives could be systematically and thus reliably studied as a critical mechanism of policy change. Second, scholarly interest in the NPF exploded. Thus, with the NPF’s seminal naming, subsequent articles, and the first edited volume, we set out to create a comprehensive framework for the study of narratives in the policy process.