An Examination of Policy Narratives in Agricultural Biotechnology Policy in India

Juhi Huda

World Affairs, 2018, vol. 181, issue 1, 42-68

Abstract: The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) focuses attention on the importance of narratives in policy debates and on their empirical analysis. While NPF has become an increasingly important and accepted approach to studying the policy process, the vast majority of research applies it to the policy contexts of the United States, which limits tests of its potential generalizability and responsiveness to cultural specificity. To broaden the contextual scope of the approach, this study applies the NPF to a non‐U.S. policy context through examining the controversial issue of agricultural biotechnology policy in India. It analyzes media coverage from leading English newspapers in India to explore the strategic use of narrative variables in policy narratives. In doing so, it highlights the important role of incomplete policy narratives in policy debates and outcomes. Policy narratives do not always contain a full suite of narrative components, and yet they may be among the most common messages received by the public and political actors. Through an analysis of incomplete narratives, this study attempts to further refine the definition of policy narratives and consider which narratives are important from empirical and audience reception perspectives. Results show that incomplete narratives occur more frequently and contain relevant narrative variables. El Marco de Políticas Narrativas (NPF) enfoca su atención en la importancia de las narrativas en los debates políticos y en su análisis empírico. Este estudio aplica el NPF a un contexto político fuera de EE. UU. y examina el controvertido tema de la biotecnología agrícola en India. Analiza el cubrimiento de medios de periódicos de habla inglesa en India para explorar el uso estratégico de variables narrativas dentro de las narrativas políticas. Evalúa el papel que juegan las narrativas políticas incompletas dentro de los debates políticos y sus resultados. Las narrativas políticas no siempre contienen una gama entera de componentes narrativos y sin embargo podrían estar entre los mensajes más comunes que recibe el público y los actores políticos. A través de un análisis de narrativas incompletas, este estudio intenta refinar más la definición de las narrativas políticas y considerar qué narrativas son importantes para las perspectivas de recepción empíricas y de la audiencia. Los resultados muestran que las narrativas incompletas ocurren más frecuentemente y contienen variables narrativas relevantes. 叙述性政策框架 (NPF) 聚焦于政策辩论中叙述的重要性以及相关的实证分析。本文将NPF应用于非美国政策的背景中，并考察了与印度农业生物技术政策相关的争议性问题。本文分析了印度主流英文报纸的媒体报道，以探索政策叙述中对叙述变量的策略性使用。本文评估了不完整政策叙述在政策辩论和政策结果中的作用。政策叙述并不总是包含一整套的叙述内容，但它们可能是公众和政治行为者接收的最常见的信息之一。通过对不完整叙述的分析，本文试图进一步完善政策叙述的定义，并从实证和观众接受的角度来考量哪些叙述具有重要性。结果表明，不完整叙述出现地更为频繁，并且包含了相关的叙述变量。

Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:woraff:v:181:y:2018:i:1:p:42-68

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