Communication breakdown: understanding the role of policy narratives in conflict and consensus

At the heart of this paper is an analysis of a policy initiative in ‘Citizen Power’ promoted by a city council, which began with apparent consensus and widespread support, but quickly became embroiled in conflict and recrimination. The theory developed to explain these paradoxical outcomes focusses on the policy narratives which shaped those actors’ thoughts and actions before and during the crucial period. A conceptual framework is derived from the literature which highlights the constraining and performative characteristics of policy narratives. A detailed analysis uses a dramaturgical approach to present the case study and show how processes of narrative constraint and performance produce a particular ‘mix’ of conflict and consensus in each of three Acts. The conclusion to the paper suggests that political actors often find it so difficult to communicate with one another, because they do not share a common narrative base which goes so far back in time that it is practically inaccessible to the other party. Hence long, drawn out battles over meaning may be fought out, not consciously or necessarily with malicious intent, but because the two sides simply do not understand each other.