Democracy in a time of misery: from spectacular tragedy to deliberative action

Abstract

take the form of several other forms of ideational power, like frames and paradigms. Miller later lays out a distinction between narratives and stories, with little clear demarcation separating the two. This problem points to a larger issue within this approach: speaking past the mainstream of policy studies. While the philosophical gap between the Narrative Politics approach, which Miller bases in alethic relativism (123), and positivist approaches to policy studies is wide, engaging more with certain concepts rather than throwing them out with the bathwater could lead the two approaches to speak to one another more readily. For example, it is unclear how the concept of ‘cultural evolution’ is a significant improvement from related concepts like policy change or policy learning. Miller concludes the book with an examination of the value of the Narrative Politics approach and a discussion of the ultimate role of the scholar curator. The stated goals of the approach, to catalog competing truth claims and better understand the other, are laudable and important. Now, more than ever, we should be making concerted efforts to better understand the motivations and meanings behind narratives that we may find distasteful and make efforts to engage with those with whom we disagree. But should scholars not seek to do more than catalog competing narratives? Without a firm basis for making truth claims of our own, how can we speak back to the narratives of oppressive forces? Is the curator not ultimately as detached from their subject as the scientist is from hers? Ultimately, Narrative Politics in Public Policy is a thought-provoking and compelling addition to the literature on the politics of storytelling, and the evolution of cannabis policy in the United States. The Narrative Politics approach has the capacity to contribute to our knowledge of various other policy fields, and I hope that other scholars will take up the approach and develop it.