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How Do Local Government Chief Executives Engage with Policy Dilemmas?

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Narrative Policy Analysis

Part of the book series: Understanding Governance ((TRG))

Abstract

Our empirical study contributes to interest in how policymaking is enacted and performed in context. We apply insights of a decentred approach to policymaking in exploring the storytelling and narrative practices of local government chief executives. Local government is a setting filled with narratives that offer competing accounts of the past, the present and the future. We examine how chief executives shape narratives and use stories as part of pursuing influence within this complex policymaking arena. One challenge that a decentred approach poses is how to examine the webs that connect different situated actors in an otherwise confusing and puzzlingly diffuse network. We argue that stories and narrative practices offer an important focus for scholarly inquiry.

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Orr, K., Bennett, M. (2018). How Do Local Government Chief Executives Engage with Policy Dilemmas?. In: Rhodes, R. (eds) Narrative Policy Analysis. Understanding Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76635-5_9

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