Strategic policy narratives: A narrative policy study of the Columbia River Crossing

Abstract

This study examines how coalitions in local policy contexts implore policy narratives to expand or contain the scope of policy issues. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), a maturing theory of the policy process, is utilized in this study to conduct content analysis on 370 public documents from competing coalitions in relation to the Columbia River Crossing project; a “wicked” policy issue in the Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA region of the Pacific Northwest. From this case selection, it is hypothesized that competing coalitions will use narrative strategies of containment and expansion to achieve their desired policy outcomes. It is also theorized that shocks to a policy subsystem may result in a shift to coalitional narrative strategies. This research will shed light on how coalitions strategically implore policy narratives in cohesive and less cohesive ways to influence policy outcomes.