POLICY ENTREPRENEURS, NARRATIVES, AND POLICY CHANGE
Abstract
The goal of this dissertation is to uncover how policy entrepreneurs use narratives to influence policy change. Prior studies have attributed scientific evidence to policy change and neglected narratives as an attributing factor. Primarily, narratives have been considered value-laden and unsystematic. However, this study hopes to enrich the policy change literature by using the Narrative Policy Framework to examine systematically how powerful actors use beneficial and failure narratives to influence policy change. This study will demonstrate that policy change does not solely occur due to exogenous events and can be ascribed to the story lines created by powerful actors to sway public opinion.