Policy Framing Analysis

Abstract

E. E. Schattschneider’s (1957: 937, 1960: 66) aphoristic definition of policy alternatives as the supreme instrument of power in politics continues to challenge research in political science. His work helped to establish the notion that agenda setting structures political choices (see Bachrach and Baratz 1962, 1963; Cobb and Elder 1971; Baumgartner 2001). Yet the majority of the research that followed in his footsteps abandoned Schattschneider’s comprehensive view of politics as a volatile process of choice and focused more narrowly on the early stages of policy making. An analytical perspective designed to guide the systematic investigation of how the definition of policy issues affects subsequent political dynamics did not emerge. Recent advances in the study of political rationality (Simon 1983, 1985, 1987, 1995; Jones 1994a, 1994b) have revitalised political science interest in this theoretical puzzle. Framing arguments were introduced to a wider social science audience especially through the work of cognitive psychologists Tversky and Kahneman (1981, 1986; see also Quattrone and Tversky 1988). Their research addresses the effects of the representation of alternatives on the evocation of interests in the process of decision making. The main argument of this literature is that every decision can be framed in different ways and that choices systematically vary in response to the reframing of the issues.