One discourse to rule them all? Narrating the agenda for labor market policies in France and Germany

Abstract

Despite different institutional and situational conditions, the recent French labor market reforms bear a strong resemblance to the labor market reforms in Germany in the early 2000s. Governments at both points in time turned away from the conservative welfare state model and failed to appropriately legitimize their reforms toward the public as well as their originally partly social-democratic electorate. Given the diverging conditions which are expected to lead to different strategies of legitimization, this contribution inquires after the narrative stories with which the corresponding acting government framed its reforms publicly. Surprisingly, despite the large differences that the two governments faced, the analysis shows that the respective narratives stories were not only similar but can be assigned to certain programmatic groups that used the narratives to push their own policy program and place themselves in power positions. In doing so, the contribution establishes a yet missing link between the recently established Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) and the concept of narrative stories and discourse in policy analysis, thereby adding to both research strands. This link lies in the observation that programmatic groups use narratives to strengthen in-group identification and thus improve their chances of success, which makes dominant narratives an important indicator of programmatic groups. However, when legitimizing reformseven if these are transferred from other country experiencesit is imperatively important to embed the strategies of legitimization in the national context.

Theoretical foundations of the Programmatic Action Framework (PAF)

“…In this way, the PAF can remain agnostic as to which condition precedes the other; in any given case what we expect to see is that, regardless of order, the presence of both increases the overall salience of this identity as opposed to others for the programmatic actors of a programmatic group. For this process, physical proximity is not necessary but a regular contact and cohesiveness especially in the group's public communication appear as crucial (Bandelow & Hornung, 2019).…”

Policymaking in multiple European cases

“…在EPA期刊发展过程中，我们欢迎青年学者和资深学者投稿，投稿内容应聚焦于以欧洲为背景的Anglo‐Saxon政策研究，例如倡议联盟框架（ACF） (Jenkins‐Smith, Nohrstedt, Weible, & Ingold, ; Nohrstedt & Olofsson, )、多源流框架（MSF）(Blum, ; Deruelle, ; Herweg, Zahariadis, & Zohlnhöfer, )、叙事政策框架（NPF）(Shanahan, Jones, McBeth, & Radaelli, ) 和公共政策中与叙事相关的视角(Bandelow & Hornung, )、政策设计（Fromm & Raev, ; Howlett, ）、或是政策过程中的社会认同（SIPP）(Haslam, ; Hogg, ; Hornung, Bandelow, & Vogeler, )。我们同样有兴趣将理论视角聚焦于欧洲公共政策案例、或由欧洲学者提出的公共政策，例如以行为者为中心的建构主义、抑或是计划行动框架（PAF）(Hornung & Bandelow, )。…”

“…En el desarrollo de la revista EPA, agradecemos las presentaciones de académicos junior y senior que apliquen las perspectivas anglosajonas en estudios de políticas como el Marco de Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) (Jenkins‐Smith, Nohrstedt, Weible e Ingold, ; Nohrstedt & Olofsson, ), el Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) (Blum, ; Deruelle, ; Herweg, Zahariadis y Zohlnhöfer, ), Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) (Shanahan, Jones, McBeth y Radaelli, ) y relacionados perspectivas sobre narrativas en políticas públicas (Bandelow & Hornung, ), diseño de políticas (Fromm & Raev, ; Howlett, ) o Social Identities in the Policy Process (SIPP) (Haslam, ; Hogg, ; Hornung, Bandelow y Vogeler, ) a contextos europeos. También estamos interesados en aportar lentes teóricos sobre políticas públicas derivadas de casos europeos o de académicos europeos como el constructivismo centrado en el actor (Saurugger, ) o el Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) (Hornung y Bandelow, ).…”

Policy programme cycles through old and new programmatic groups

“…More specifically, PAF postulates that the career aspirations of actors who are directly involved in the policy-making process can matter in the promotion and persistence of policy programmes, based on the premise that policy actors strive to enhance authority and expect occupational benefits and normative returns from pursuing policy ideas (Dolan 2000). Previous applications of the PAF and evidence for its hypotheses concern health policy (Genieys and Smyrl 2008), labour market policy (Bandelow and Hornung 2019) and defence policy (Faure 2020).…”