Sense and sensibility: Narrative strategies shaping megaproject development

Abstract

This study examines how policymakers’ different narrative strategies influence citizens’ attitudes towards megaprojects thus shaping their development. Drawing on an in-depth case study about the Lyon-Turin trainline, we identify two distinct narrative ideal-types: hedonic narrative and instrumental narrative. Our findings demonstrate that these strategies influence both rational thinking (sense) and emotional engagement (sensibility). Hedonic narratives can have a negative impact on citizens’ attitudes by making them feel uncertain and consequently leading them to oppose the project, while instrumental narratives can have positive impact on citizens’ attitudes by making them informed and consequently leading them to supporting the project. Therefore, our findings highlight the significance of employing different narrative strategies, and the different effects of mobilizing the different narrative strategies vis-a-vis megaprojects in two institutional contexts. In addition, our study contributed to this special issue by mobilizing a novel comprehensive methodological approach Latent Dirichlet Algorithm (LDA), along with qualitative methods to gain insights into the complex dynamics of stakeholder behavior in megaprojects.