Moralization in policy narratives: an overlooked narrative strategy?

The use of moral values has been neglected in literature on the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) so far. Although the NPF conceptualizes the ‘moral of the story’ as one of the key elements of policy narratives, this concept relates to the policy solution promoted by the policy narrative and not to moral values. Surprisingly, literature on the NPF has not yet conceptualized to what extent moral values are built into policy narratives to mobilize for (or against) policy measures and whether moralization is used as a narrative strategy. Moralization means creating a direct link between a policy solution and a moral value. Consequently, the moral value justifies the policy solution. No further justification is necessary, as not supporting the policy solution would be immoral. Thus, there is an incentive that moralization is used in policy narratives to mobilize for or against certain policy solutions. In this contribution, we conceptualize the role of moral values and moralization in the NPF by building on linguistic studies. We further elaborate on how moralization is used in policy narratives and why the use of moralization practices in policy narratives might differ. While we primarily aim to make a conceptual contribution to the NPF, we also provide empirical examples by looking at policy narratives in the climate change debate in Germany from a meso-level perspective.