Stakeholder framing, communicative interaction, and policy legitimacy: anti-smoking policy in South Korea.

Chisung Park,Jooha Lee

doi:10.1007/s11077-020-09394-z

Abstract

Since the emergence of the argumentative turn in critical policy studies, increasing attention has been paid to the crucial role played by language, context, and communicative practices in the policy process. This study aims to investigate communicative interaction between state elites and societal stakeholders in South Korea with a focus on the anti-smoking policies of two different administrations: the Roh administration (2003–2008) and the Park administration (2013–2017). As a theoretical base, this paper proposes a stakeholder-oriented approach to legitimacy, which incorporates a policy frame analysis with the concept of a three-tier policy structure (i.e., policy goals, policy tools, and tool settings). In assessing policy legitimacy, the stakeholder-oriented approach examines whether there is congruence between the three-tier policy structure and the corresponding stakeholder framing. In the Roh administration, the policy frames among the three tiers of policy structure were centered on public health promotion, whereas in the Park administration, they expanded to the domain of tax policy. The empirical findings underscore the importance of two-way communication between the government and societal stakeholders, which can be evidenced using policy frame analysis. Ultimately, the results show that policy legitimacy is more likely to be guaranteed if there is no hidden or predetermined policy intention that can be detected by stakeholder framing analysis.

Highlights

Post-positivist perspectives, long kept at the margins of policy studies by mainstream positivist theories, are considered to represent a powerful alternative approach
Political elites do not want to reveal their true intentions behind any proposed actions, which is an issue because policy legitimacy tends to be evaluated and understood in accordance with the policy goals openly stated by political elites
Drawing on the argumentative turn in critical policy studies, we suggest in Fig. 1 that public policy comprises communicative interaction between the state and society or between the public and the private, which can be either one-way or two-way

Summary

Introduction

Post-positivist perspectives, long kept at the margins of policy studies by mainstream positivist theories, are considered to represent a powerful alternative approach. As Habermas (1973) succinctly argues, policy contents and the public understanding of them can be biased due to the unilateral exertion of the government or political elites in communication processes. In such cases, political elites do not want to reveal their true intentions behind any proposed actions, which is an issue because policy legitimacy tends to be evaluated and understood in accordance with the policy goals openly stated by political elites

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion