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This paper expands on the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) by adding a theoretical and empirical exploration into macrolevel narratives. Existing NPF research largely neglects macrolevel narratives, which prevents the NPF from developing its full power. The main contributions of this paper are threefold: (1) It provides a definition of macrolevel narratives by conceptualizing them as the “story form” of a policy paradigm. (2) It proposes a model and an empirical approach, which may lay the foundation for a standard macrolevel NPF approach. (3) It contributes to the NPF's aim of connecting the macro and meso level. The paper tests the model in a comparative multi‐method design applied to the Swiss child and adult protection policy. The findings show that macrolevel NPF analysis helps understand where mesolevel policy debates come from, namely from an underlying paradigm and its effects on institutions and culture that enable and constrain macrolevel narratives.

The Child and Adult Protection Authorities (KESB) have been the subject of controversial discussion since their establishment in 2013. The reform of the Guardianship Law provided for an institutional shift away from local guardianship authorities to regional specialist authorities. This article uses the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to examine the history of today’s controversy, simultaneously proposing an analytic strengthening of said framework. Previous NPF studies summarize policy actors into opponents and proponents. As a result, we do not know whether different actors use different narratives. We therefore separate the expert from the MP discourse. The analysis shows that the experts' arguments for a new institutional arrangement and a person‐oriented narrative dominated, which put the fundamental rights of the persons affected by guardianship measures up front. The study contributes to the understanding of the current controversy, in which a person‐oriented narrative seems to be dominant again, directed against the new authorities.

This article introduces the distinction between substance (questions of policy design) and process (questions of power in the policy process) to the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). While both occur in existing NPF research, so far, they are not separated analytically. We conceptualize them as categories of the “policy dimension,” a new aspect of narrative content. Applying this dimension to an exploratory case, we show that such an analysis leads to useful insights for NPF scholars. Substance policy narrative elements show a debate about a policy's implementation model, whereas process policy narrative elements reveal that this debate is permeated by power conflicts. Furthermore, we find that the two categories' occurrence in narratives is influenced by the debate venue, whereas political parties as narrators do not seem to be relevant. The policy dimension allows for new research avenues and provides practitioners with a new tool to understand and intervene in policy debates.

What does the reputation management of a public authority look like under extreme conditions? The present article studies the Swiss Child and Adult Protection Authorities (CAPA), which experienced a major reputational crisis after a mother killed her two children in 2015 and accused the CAPA of bearing responsibility. We use the CAPA as one of the most contested public organizations in Switzerland to study reputation management when a public authority is under severe attack and draw learnings for public organizations in similar situations in the future. Applying the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) in a content analysis to newspaper articles from the Germanspeaking part of Switzerland, we examine narratives uttered by CAPA representatives. Furthermore, by comparing the CAPA's communication with a similar case in the Romandie, we draw general lessons for public organizations that want to improve their reputation management and crisis communication. The results show how in German-speaking Switzerland, negative media reports increased sharply and caused lasting damage to the CAPA's reputation. By contrast, the scandal in French-speaking Switzerland did not lead to a full-blown crisis. Our findings underscore the need for public organizations to speak up when under attack, to build up the respective communication skills and resources and to employ positive narratives with shiny hero characters rather than negative narratives emphasizing villains. ABSTRAKTWie sieht das Reputationsmanagement einer Behörde unter Extrembedingungen aus? Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht die schweizerischen Kindes-und Erwachsenenschutzbehörden (KESB), die eine schwere Reputationskrise erlebten, nachdem eine Mutter im Jahr 2015 ihre beiden Kinder getötet und die KESB beschuldigt hatte, dafür verantwortlich zu sein. Wir verwenden die KESB als eine der am stärksten umstrittenen öffentlichen Organisationen in der Schweiz, um zu untersuchen, wie Reputationsmanagement aussieht, wenn eine öffentliche Behörde massiv angegriffen wird, und um Lehren für öffentliche Organisationen in der Zukunft zu ziehen, wenn sie sich in ähnlichen Situationen wiederfinden. Wir untersuchen Narrative von KESB-*Author affiliations can be found in the back matter of this article 52 Kuenzler et al.