Policy Narratives and Policy Processes

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) has influenced a generation of policy scholars with its emphasis on causal drivers, testable hypotheses, and falsification. Until recently, the role of policy narratives has been largely neglected in ACF literature partially because much of that work has operated outside of traditional social science principles, such as falsification. Yet emerging literature under the rubric of Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) demonstrates how the role of policy narratives in policy processes is studied using the same rigorous social science standards initially set forth by Paul A. Sabatier. The NPF identifies theories specifying narrative elements and strategies that are likely useful to ACF researchers as classes of variables that have yet to be integrated. Examining this proposition, we provide seven hypotheses related to critical ACF concepts including advocacy coalitions and policy beliefs, policy learning, public opinion, and strategy. Our goal is to stay within the scientific, theoretical, and methodological tradition of the ACF and show how NPF's empirical, hypotheses, and causal driven work on policy narratives identifies theories applicable to ACF research while also offering an independent framework capable of explaining the policy process through the power of policy narratives. In doing so, we believe both ACF and NPF scholarship can contribute to the advancement of our understanding of the policy process.     

Archaeological Site or Natural Marine Community? Excavation of a Submerged Shell Mound in Ninigret Pond,Rhode Island

ABSTRACT

Submerged shell midden sites and natural shell deposits can have similar characteristics and can be difficult to distinguish archaeologically. We excavated two test units from a large (at least 35 m×70 m) submerged shell mound in Fort Neck Cove in southern Rhode Island to assess whether it was natural or cultural in origin. This mound had been recognized as a potential archaeological feature as early as the 1970s. Excavation, radiocarbon dating, and subsequent laboratory analysis of excavated materials suggest that the mound was a natural oyster reef rather than a submerged archaeological site. No artifacts were found; there was no clear evidence for human modification of any shells; small species that would not have been targeted as food were present; and δ¹³C values of oyster shells from the mound were consistent with freshwater input into their growth environment, suggesting that they grew in an estuarine environment that did not exist prior to the inundation of the ponds. The stratigraphically oldest radiocarbon date we could obtain (430–190 cal BP, 2σ range), from 70 cm below the pond floor, placed deposition of shells at least 3,000 years after the inundation of the pond. The excavation methods that we used and the process of testing, irrespective of whether the feature is cultural, are valuable contributions to the methodological literature on submerged site archaeology and help provide insight for other researchers working to discern natural from cultural shell midden sites.     

Archaeology of a Naval Battlefield: H. L. Hunley and USS Housatonic

The American Civil War shipwrecks H. L. Hunley and USS Housatonic have been the focus of intensive archaeological investigations since the discovery of Hunley in 1995. H. L. Hunley , the world's first successful combat submarine, sank the Union blockader USS Housatonic in 1864, but sank immediately afterwards. In work done prior to the recovery of Hunley in 2000, site-formation processes for both vessels were a primary research focus—a necessary precursor to identifying battlefield behaviour. This paper presents research on the Hunley / Housatonic Naval Engagement Site, where both wrecks are treated as complementary components of a single battlefield site.
© 2006 The Authors     

Human Adaptive Responses to Catastrophic Landscape Disruptions During the Holocene at Numundo,PNG

Prehistoric land use and social activity in West New Britain, PNG, are well documented, although the landscapes – largely shaped by catastrophic volcanic eruptions – in which these took place, and the relationships people had with these landscapes, are poorly understood. We define the evolving landscape at Numundo, from prior to the Witori-Kimbe 2 eruption (W-K2, ca. 3600 BP) to after the Witori-Kimbe 4 eruption (W-K4, ca. 1400 BP), using fossil phytolith and coral evidence at eight archaeological sites to provide environmental evidence of the human responses to periodic catastrophic events. From ca. 5900 to 3600 BP, all the sites were coastal and disturbed. Early disturbance reflected natural forest recovery after W-K1 (ca. 5900 BP), whereas the later landscape was largely shaped by human activity. In contrast, forest regrowth was limited after W-K2 and open environments typical of human activity with a mosaic of regenerating, disturbed and managed vegetation, persisted until W-K3. Environmental recovery from W-K3 and W-K4 (ca. 1700 BP and ca. 1400 BP) differed completely, reflecting severity of the volcanism and the short time between eruptions. The landscape after W-K3 was largely a naturally recovering landscape, in contrast to effective vegetation recovery and significant human exploitation of the landscape – again a mosaic of regenerating, disturbed and managed vegetation – after W-K4. The social history is one in which people evolved increasingly flexible land-use practices, enabling them to re-settle this periodically disrupted landscape, and to take advantage of an increasingly broad range of habitats suitable for cultivation. The human response to this highly dynamic landscape represents a close relationship between social and natural processes, as people became increasingly better at re-settling an unpredictably disrupted landscape; both the social and environmental processes within this landscape become equally influential and instrumental in shaping the effects of the other.     

BLUEBEARD'S FORBIDDEN ROOM: GENDER IMAGES IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S VISUAL AND LITERARY ART

Regionalization tendencies have often been regarded, in academic and political debates, as a serious challenge for Canadian federalism and the national unity of Canada. This article argues that regionalism—and increased regionalization processes in the context of neoliberal globalization tendencies—is not a contradictory force that threatens federalism and national unity, but that it is and has historically been a decisive feature of Canadian civic nationalism from the beginning of the nation-building project. As a consequence, and for better or worse, processes of devolution under the current politico-economic regime will stabilize Canadian national unity rather than undermine it: regionalization can strengthen civic nationalism in Canada by adding a cultural dimension as a vehicle that negotiates between individual citizens, identity groups, and state institutions. Regionalisms—such as Québécois nationalism—are malleable structures of belonging and provide institutional frameworks (e.g., informal constitutions) and forums of dialogue that enrich the political culture of federalism. We conclude that increased regionalization can help to strengthen Canadian (and other forms of) civic nationalism by preventing them from slipping into monistic unitarism.     

Improving the learning processes of Physical Geography through the use of landscape photographs in class

The use of alternative teaching methods to lectures is one of the keys to develop a more participatory and effective education. In the teaching of Geography, greater interaction of students with elements of the landscape through the active use of photography could be one of the ways to achieve this efficiency. This article describes an experiment conducted in 2016 with students of the subject Physical Geography of the Iberian Peninsula. Two different teaching methodologies were applied to two groups of students. The first one was based on dividing the time of each class between participatory comments of landscape photographs and imparting theoretical knowledge through lectures. The second methodology consisted only of lectures, following a more traditional approach. Additionally, some students from the first group actively participated by uploading and tagging their own field pictures to a photographic repository of the University of Seville. The effectiveness of the different activities in each group was assessed through four tests, performed monthly. The results indicate that the use of landscape photographs as a participative teaching resource allows a more efficient learning of theoretical concepts. Therefore, the proposed methodology should be considered by those interested in improving the quality and effectiveness of their teaching of Geography.