Tales of the State: Narrative in Contemporary U.S. Politics and Public Policy

(Paperback)

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Description

The relationship between politics and storytelling is one with a well-established lineage, but public policy analysis has only recently begun to develop its own appreciation of the power of narrative to explain everything from political traditions to cyberspace. This unique collection of original essays helps further that project by surveying stories of and about all kinds of American politicsfrom welfare, race, and immigration; to workfare, jobs, and education; to gay rights, national security, and the American Dream in an age of economic globalization.

Reviews

Tales of the State offers interesting examples of the role of the stories, or narratives, in politics and public policy. The collection overall makes important contributions to a more pluralistic approach to policy analysis. The book contributes to its goal, and it is one worthy of more attention from political scientists. * American Political Science Review *
A fascinating, infuriating, eye-opening book. It succeeds in wedding high literary and anthropological theory with the mundane details of presidents' politicking and policy-makers' number crunching. Readers will swing between resistance to thinking of their own perspective as merely a narrative, and sudden awareness of how this framing really does illuminate some puzzling aspects of the American polity. They may not be fully convinced, but they will certainly be better off for wrestling with the issuesthat this book so cleverly raises... -- Jennifer Hochschild, Princeton University, author of Facing Up to the American Dream
Afascinating,infuriating, eye-opening book. It succeeds in wedding high literary and anthropological theory with the mundane details of presidents' politicking and policy-makers' number crunching. Readers will swing between resistance to thinking of their own perspective as "merely" a narrative, and sudden awareness of how this framing really does illuminate some puzzling aspects of the American polity. They may not be fully convinced, but they will certainly be better off for wrestling with the issues that this book so cleverly raises. -- Jennifer Hochschild, Princeton University; author of Facing Up to the American Dream

Author Bio

Sanford F. Schram is visiting professor in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College.

Philip T. Neisser is associate professor of politics at the State University of New York at Potsdam.