The impact of narratives on policymaking at the national level
Work Package 7
Months 18-33:
August 2022 – November 2023
Work Package 7, along with WP8, analyses how different narratives shape, and are deployed in, the political debate and policymaking. Focusing on the national level, WP7 aims to:
- Understand how narratives on migration and integration have evolved over the past decade in national political debates and policymaking.
- Explain the conditions under which different narratives have emerged and gained traction in each country.
- Chart how narratives are received and processed in different policymaking venues.
- Understand the implications of these responses for policy outputs.
This WP conducts comparative analysis on the six European countries covered by WP3 – France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom – over a 10-year period. After mapping the dominant political narratives on migration for each case study, it assesses the influence of these narratives on policy rhetoric and practice, focusing on how policy actors have responded to different narratives.
As a result, seven Working Papers are produced: six of them focusing on each case study and one assessing to what extent different contexts lead to different dynamics between narrative production and policymaking from a cross-national comparative perspective. The conclusions are put together in a Policy Brief aiming to foster facts-based rather than emotions-based policymaking.
Led by: UEDIN (Christina Boswell).
In cooperation with: Sciences Po, CIDOB, CUAS Mainz, FIERI, TK and IAI.
Related publications
This Policy Brief focuses on how migration narratives shape and are deployed in political debate and policymaking. Drawing on research on migration narratives in six European countries, it outlines six key findings and sets out four recommendations for officials and stakeholders to encourage a calm and evidence-based debate on immigration.
This Working Paper analyses how different narratives on migration shape and are deployed in political debate and policymaking. It investigates how political actors process salient narratives on migration that emerge in the public and political domain and how they inform policy.
This Working Paper analyses how different narratives on migration shape and are deployed in political debate and policymaking in the United Kingdom. It investigates how political actors process salient narratives on migration that emerge in the public and political domain and how they inform policy.
This Working Paper examines the way in which narratives on migration circulate in France across communicative and coordinative spheres. It explores whether narratives are embraced, adapted, ignored, or rejected between the media, Parliament, and administrations.
This Working Paper analyses how recurrent elements of certain migration narratives circulate in the communicative (media and political arenas) and in the coordinative spheres (the one of policy making) at different levels in the Italian political system, focusing on three specific events.
This Working Paper analyses the interplay of migration narratives as they traverse the media, politics, and policymaking arenas in Spain. More specifically, it examines how narratives on migration, circulate within the mass media and the political debate and subsequently influence policy-making processes.
This Working Paper investigates the evolving landscape of migration narratives in Germany. It delves into whether and how media narratives are embraced, adapted, ignored or rejected in political debates and policymaking.
