Abstract. Compelling stories are essential to policies, and as policies face challenges the stori... more Abstract. Compelling stories are essential to policies, and as policies face challenges the stories change. This chapter discusses three distinct but intertwined themes: (i) policy as meta-narrative, (ii) policy as narration, and (iii) policy as narrative-networks. First, policymakers (and other actors) construct general stories that serve to capture and convey a policy initiative in a coherent, repeatable plot. But much of policy also emerges from the interpretive actions of street-level and other actors who actively narrate a policy into existence (possibly changing the script in the process). And, lastly, policy also takes the form of active communities, which we refer to as narrative-networks, which coalesce around a policy initiative and further its realization. These communities can challenge dominant policy narratives. We illustrate these ideas with the example of drug enforcement in the USA, using contrasting narratives from the Reagan and Obama eras to dramatize the importance of narratives in the policy process. Keywords: narrative-networks, policy narratives, narrative analysis, resistance networks
There is growing evidence that the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events may be incre... more There is growing evidence that the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events may be increasing in conjunction with climate change. This means that many communities will encounter phenomena, such as extreme storm surge events, never before experienced by local residents. The tragic effects of Typhoon Haiyan on the city of Tacloban, Philippines, in November 2013 were attributed, in part, to the inability of routine technical bulletins to communicate the unprecedented nature of the predicted storm surge. In response, the authors construct a relational model of risk communication that suggests that narrative messages that simulate direct face-to-face communication may be more effective in spurring action. Conducting a postevent target audience study in the city of Tacloban, the authors tested the relative effectiveness of narrative-based versus technical message designs on residents who chose not to evacuate during the typhoon. Results show increased effectiveness of the narrati...
As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from ext... more As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from extreme weather events. On 8 November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck the province of Leyte, Philippines, with casualties numbering in the thousands, largely because of the ensuing storm surge that swept the coastal communities. This study investigates the role and dynamics of risk communication in these events, specifically examining the organizational processing of text within a complex institutional milieu. The authors show how the risk communication process failed to convey meaningful information about the predicted storm surge, transmitting and retransmitting the same routine text instead of communicating authentic messages in earnest. The key insight is that, rather than focus solely on the verbatim transmission of a scripted text, risk communication needs to employ various modes of translation and feedback signals across organizational and institutional boundaries. Adaptation will requir...
As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from ext... more As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from extreme weather events. On 8 November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck the province of Leyte, Philippines, with casualties numbering in the thousands, largely because of the ensuing storm surge that swept the coastal communities. This study investigates the role and dynamics of risk communication in these events, specifically examining the organizational processing of text within a complex institutional milieu. The authors show how the risk communication process failed to convey meaningful information about the predicted storm surge, transmitting and retransmitting the same routine text instead of communicating authentic messages in earnest. The key insight is that, rather than focus solely on the verbatim transmission of a scripted text, risk communication needs to employ various modes of translation and feedback signals across organizational and institutional boundaries. Adaptation will requir...
As extreme weather events seemingly increase in frequency and magnitude, we are accumulating evid... more As extreme weather events seemingly increase in frequency and magnitude, we are accumulating evidence about how the intersection of circumstances creates vulnerability. The specter of elderly residents in Brooklyn, New York, trapped in their apartments for days due to flooding from the storm surge brought by Hurricane Sandy, provides us a troubling lesson. As vulnerability emerges from the confluence of multiple factors, changing social, natural, and other factors combine to create unimagined problems. Hong Kong is a case in point. The city has seen much of its new development occurring on reclaimed coastal land. At the same time, there has been a significant demographic shift as the city’s elderly population has been its fastest growing demographic. The social transition also means more elderly persons living alone. All of these produce conditions that render the population increasingly vulnerable to coastal flooding. Yet, there is not enough systematic effort, in major cities, at ...
Since Hardin first formulated the tragedy of the commons, researchers have described various ways... more Since Hardin first formulated the tragedy of the commons, researchers have described various ways that commons problems are solved, all based on the model of individual rationality. Invariably, these institutional solutions involve creating some system of property rights. We formulate an alternative model, one not founded on property rights but on decision-making around socalled vector payoffs. The model is formalized and an existence proof provided. The new model is shown to be effective in explaining some anomalous results (e.g., unanticipated cooperation) in the experimental games literature that run counter to the rational model. We then use the case of the buffalo commons to illustrate how the new model affords alternative explanations for examples like the rise and fall of the buffalo herds in the Great Plains. We find the vector payoff model to complement, though not displace, that of individual rationality.
Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 2010
There is a pressing need to more deeply understand how incompatible land-use patterns intersect w... more There is a pressing need to more deeply understand how incompatible land-use patterns intersect with place attachment and experiences of environmental injustice. While environmental policy is strongly influenced by the classic, probabilistic model of environmental risk, the present research instead aims to develop notions of environmental impact that more closely reflect the lived experience of community residents. This entails employing a phenomenological stance toward the analysis of environmental impacts, as well as research methods that seek to uncover the narratives and cognitive representations that residents actually employ. In our exploration of these issues in the town of Val Verde, California, we discover how a nearby landfill encroaches on the everyday lives of the residents in ways that go beyond the classic model of risk. For example, rather than employing a positivist measure of environmental hazard, residents experience the landfill viscerally and emotionally in terms...
Narrative is the stuff of community. The Power of Narrative embarks on a quest to understand how ... more Narrative is the stuff of community. The Power of Narrative embarks on a quest to understand how narrative works in taking an inchoate group of individuals and turning it into a powerful social movement. To understand the force of narrative, the authors examine the particular phenomenon of climate skepticism. Somehow, the narrative of climate skepticism has been able to forge a movement and stake a challenge to the hegemony of the larger community of scientists on what is ostensibly a matter of science. The book asks: How is this achieved? What is the narrative of climate skepticism, and how has it evolved over time and diffused from place to place? Is it possible that this narrative shares with other issue narratives an underlying genetic code of sorts, a story that is more fundamental than all of these? How has the climate skeptical narrative contended with its other, which is the narrative-network of climate change science, and forged its own social movement? The outcome of this ...
Abstract While the goals of sustainability and resilience look to the health and function of the ... more Abstract While the goals of sustainability and resilience look to the health and function of the system, a new criterion, relationality, focuses relationship and the degree of connectedness, social and otherwise, among persons (and even nonhuman others). It is founded upon an ethic of care that posits that no one is left alone, and that society must place a primary focus on the most vulnerable. This is particularly relevant when considering how cities are beginning to deal with increasingly frequent and severe weather events due to climate change. The idea of relationality is contrasted with the social and political isolation that exacerbates the effects of extreme events on the most vulnerable. The article ends with a discussion around how we might envision and craft the relational city and how this ideal responds to the challenge of climate change and extreme weather.
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2002
The search for equitable solutions to the siting of noxious facilities has long been an unresolve... more The search for equitable solutions to the siting of noxious facilities has long been an unresolved problem, theoretically and politically. Common prescriptions often involve compensating host communities. In this article, we address the case when compensation ...
Chapter 6 shows how in constructing, with some success, a challenge to the narrative of climate c... more Chapter 6 shows how in constructing, with some success, a challenge to the narrative of climate change science, the skeptical narrative has increasingly taken on features of ideology. A similar phenomenon may also be happening among the ranks of climate change advocates, with the response to skeptics taking on elements of ideological talk. Reactions to a prominent climate skeptic are examined in the chapter, along with characteristics of climate scientists’ responses to the skeptics. The chapter asks if this a pattern of negative feedback, with ideological discourse on one side eliciting a similarly ideological counter-reaction from the other, and suggests that if this is so, it does not bode well for the idea that constructive engagement of contending publics is still possible. Any way out of this impasse will require an openness on the part of the climate scientific majority to the interests and concerns of a skeptical public. Most fundamentally, the chapter shows, there is someth...
Policy is ostensibly crafted upon an overarching notion of rationality, in the form of rules, rol... more Policy is ostensibly crafted upon an overarching notion of rationality, in the form of rules, roles and designs. However, sometimes policy deviates from formal templates and seems to be guided by a different governing ethic. Rather than categorising these as policy anomalies, we can understand them as the workings of what we will refer to as a relational model of policy. The relational model describes how policy outcomes emerge from the working and reworking of relationships among policy actors. We define relationality and develop its use in policy research. While the relational can be depicted as an alternative model for policy (e.g., Confucian versus Weberian), it is more accurate to understand it as a system that complements conventional policy regimes. To illustrate the concept, we examine examples from policymaking in China. We end with a discussion of how relationality should be a general condition that should be applicable to many, if not all, policy situations.
It is reasonable to assume that more effective communication of climate science might be the reme... more It is reasonable to assume that more effective communication of climate science might be the remedy for widespread climate skepticism. However, narrative analysis of climate-skeptical discourse suggests it can be otherwise. Taking the United States as a case in point, we argue how at least some forms of climate skepticism are founded upon an ideological narrative that (for its adherents) is prior to, or more fundamental than, the issue of climate. In other words, skepticism may not always (or even usually) be fundamentally about climate to begin with. This more basic, universal, ideological construct at the root of climate skepticism encompasses social status, race and ethnicity, class, culture, and other social conditions. If climate-skeptical discourse in the United States is commonly built upon a genetic metanarrative that is really about social fracture, it may be resilient to scientific argument. It is quite possible that responding to climate skepticism will require addressing...
Abstract. Compelling stories are essential to policies, and as policies face challenges the stori... more Abstract. Compelling stories are essential to policies, and as policies face challenges the stories change. This chapter discusses three distinct but intertwined themes: (i) policy as meta-narrative, (ii) policy as narration, and (iii) policy as narrative-networks. First, policymakers (and other actors) construct general stories that serve to capture and convey a policy initiative in a coherent, repeatable plot. But much of policy also emerges from the interpretive actions of street-level and other actors who actively narrate a policy into existence (possibly changing the script in the process). And, lastly, policy also takes the form of active communities, which we refer to as narrative-networks, which coalesce around a policy initiative and further its realization. These communities can challenge dominant policy narratives. We illustrate these ideas with the example of drug enforcement in the USA, using contrasting narratives from the Reagan and Obama eras to dramatize the importance of narratives in the policy process. Keywords: narrative-networks, policy narratives, narrative analysis, resistance networks
There is growing evidence that the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events may be incre... more There is growing evidence that the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events may be increasing in conjunction with climate change. This means that many communities will encounter phenomena, such as extreme storm surge events, never before experienced by local residents. The tragic effects of Typhoon Haiyan on the city of Tacloban, Philippines, in November 2013 were attributed, in part, to the inability of routine technical bulletins to communicate the unprecedented nature of the predicted storm surge. In response, the authors construct a relational model of risk communication that suggests that narrative messages that simulate direct face-to-face communication may be more effective in spurring action. Conducting a postevent target audience study in the city of Tacloban, the authors tested the relative effectiveness of narrative-based versus technical message designs on residents who chose not to evacuate during the typhoon. Results show increased effectiveness of the narrati...
As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from ext... more As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from extreme weather events. On 8 November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck the province of Leyte, Philippines, with casualties numbering in the thousands, largely because of the ensuing storm surge that swept the coastal communities. This study investigates the role and dynamics of risk communication in these events, specifically examining the organizational processing of text within a complex institutional milieu. The authors show how the risk communication process failed to convey meaningful information about the predicted storm surge, transmitting and retransmitting the same routine text instead of communicating authentic messages in earnest. The key insight is that, rather than focus solely on the verbatim transmission of a scripted text, risk communication needs to employ various modes of translation and feedback signals across organizational and institutional boundaries. Adaptation will requir...
As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from ext... more As the world’s urban poor increase in numbers, they become acutely vulnerable to hazards from extreme weather events. On 8 November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck the province of Leyte, Philippines, with casualties numbering in the thousands, largely because of the ensuing storm surge that swept the coastal communities. This study investigates the role and dynamics of risk communication in these events, specifically examining the organizational processing of text within a complex institutional milieu. The authors show how the risk communication process failed to convey meaningful information about the predicted storm surge, transmitting and retransmitting the same routine text instead of communicating authentic messages in earnest. The key insight is that, rather than focus solely on the verbatim transmission of a scripted text, risk communication needs to employ various modes of translation and feedback signals across organizational and institutional boundaries. Adaptation will requir...
As extreme weather events seemingly increase in frequency and magnitude, we are accumulating evid... more As extreme weather events seemingly increase in frequency and magnitude, we are accumulating evidence about how the intersection of circumstances creates vulnerability. The specter of elderly residents in Brooklyn, New York, trapped in their apartments for days due to flooding from the storm surge brought by Hurricane Sandy, provides us a troubling lesson. As vulnerability emerges from the confluence of multiple factors, changing social, natural, and other factors combine to create unimagined problems. Hong Kong is a case in point. The city has seen much of its new development occurring on reclaimed coastal land. At the same time, there has been a significant demographic shift as the city’s elderly population has been its fastest growing demographic. The social transition also means more elderly persons living alone. All of these produce conditions that render the population increasingly vulnerable to coastal flooding. Yet, there is not enough systematic effort, in major cities, at ...
Since Hardin first formulated the tragedy of the commons, researchers have described various ways... more Since Hardin first formulated the tragedy of the commons, researchers have described various ways that commons problems are solved, all based on the model of individual rationality. Invariably, these institutional solutions involve creating some system of property rights. We formulate an alternative model, one not founded on property rights but on decision-making around socalled vector payoffs. The model is formalized and an existence proof provided. The new model is shown to be effective in explaining some anomalous results (e.g., unanticipated cooperation) in the experimental games literature that run counter to the rational model. We then use the case of the buffalo commons to illustrate how the new model affords alternative explanations for examples like the rise and fall of the buffalo herds in the Great Plains. We find the vector payoff model to complement, though not displace, that of individual rationality.
Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 2010
There is a pressing need to more deeply understand how incompatible land-use patterns intersect w... more There is a pressing need to more deeply understand how incompatible land-use patterns intersect with place attachment and experiences of environmental injustice. While environmental policy is strongly influenced by the classic, probabilistic model of environmental risk, the present research instead aims to develop notions of environmental impact that more closely reflect the lived experience of community residents. This entails employing a phenomenological stance toward the analysis of environmental impacts, as well as research methods that seek to uncover the narratives and cognitive representations that residents actually employ. In our exploration of these issues in the town of Val Verde, California, we discover how a nearby landfill encroaches on the everyday lives of the residents in ways that go beyond the classic model of risk. For example, rather than employing a positivist measure of environmental hazard, residents experience the landfill viscerally and emotionally in terms...
Narrative is the stuff of community. The Power of Narrative embarks on a quest to understand how ... more Narrative is the stuff of community. The Power of Narrative embarks on a quest to understand how narrative works in taking an inchoate group of individuals and turning it into a powerful social movement. To understand the force of narrative, the authors examine the particular phenomenon of climate skepticism. Somehow, the narrative of climate skepticism has been able to forge a movement and stake a challenge to the hegemony of the larger community of scientists on what is ostensibly a matter of science. The book asks: How is this achieved? What is the narrative of climate skepticism, and how has it evolved over time and diffused from place to place? Is it possible that this narrative shares with other issue narratives an underlying genetic code of sorts, a story that is more fundamental than all of these? How has the climate skeptical narrative contended with its other, which is the narrative-network of climate change science, and forged its own social movement? The outcome of this ...
Abstract While the goals of sustainability and resilience look to the health and function of the ... more Abstract While the goals of sustainability and resilience look to the health and function of the system, a new criterion, relationality, focuses relationship and the degree of connectedness, social and otherwise, among persons (and even nonhuman others). It is founded upon an ethic of care that posits that no one is left alone, and that society must place a primary focus on the most vulnerable. This is particularly relevant when considering how cities are beginning to deal with increasingly frequent and severe weather events due to climate change. The idea of relationality is contrasted with the social and political isolation that exacerbates the effects of extreme events on the most vulnerable. The article ends with a discussion around how we might envision and craft the relational city and how this ideal responds to the challenge of climate change and extreme weather.
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2002
The search for equitable solutions to the siting of noxious facilities has long been an unresolve... more The search for equitable solutions to the siting of noxious facilities has long been an unresolved problem, theoretically and politically. Common prescriptions often involve compensating host communities. In this article, we address the case when compensation ...
Chapter 6 shows how in constructing, with some success, a challenge to the narrative of climate c... more Chapter 6 shows how in constructing, with some success, a challenge to the narrative of climate change science, the skeptical narrative has increasingly taken on features of ideology. A similar phenomenon may also be happening among the ranks of climate change advocates, with the response to skeptics taking on elements of ideological talk. Reactions to a prominent climate skeptic are examined in the chapter, along with characteristics of climate scientists’ responses to the skeptics. The chapter asks if this a pattern of negative feedback, with ideological discourse on one side eliciting a similarly ideological counter-reaction from the other, and suggests that if this is so, it does not bode well for the idea that constructive engagement of contending publics is still possible. Any way out of this impasse will require an openness on the part of the climate scientific majority to the interests and concerns of a skeptical public. Most fundamentally, the chapter shows, there is someth...
Policy is ostensibly crafted upon an overarching notion of rationality, in the form of rules, rol... more Policy is ostensibly crafted upon an overarching notion of rationality, in the form of rules, roles and designs. However, sometimes policy deviates from formal templates and seems to be guided by a different governing ethic. Rather than categorising these as policy anomalies, we can understand them as the workings of what we will refer to as a relational model of policy. The relational model describes how policy outcomes emerge from the working and reworking of relationships among policy actors. We define relationality and develop its use in policy research. While the relational can be depicted as an alternative model for policy (e.g., Confucian versus Weberian), it is more accurate to understand it as a system that complements conventional policy regimes. To illustrate the concept, we examine examples from policymaking in China. We end with a discussion of how relationality should be a general condition that should be applicable to many, if not all, policy situations.
It is reasonable to assume that more effective communication of climate science might be the reme... more It is reasonable to assume that more effective communication of climate science might be the remedy for widespread climate skepticism. However, narrative analysis of climate-skeptical discourse suggests it can be otherwise. Taking the United States as a case in point, we argue how at least some forms of climate skepticism are founded upon an ideological narrative that (for its adherents) is prior to, or more fundamental than, the issue of climate. In other words, skepticism may not always (or even usually) be fundamentally about climate to begin with. This more basic, universal, ideological construct at the root of climate skepticism encompasses social status, race and ethnicity, class, culture, and other social conditions. If climate-skeptical discourse in the United States is commonly built upon a genetic metanarrative that is really about social fracture, it may be resilient to scientific argument. It is quite possible that responding to climate skepticism will require addressing...
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Papers by Raul Lejano