ยป Once Upon a Time There Was This Policy…
There are three layers of instruction and direction given to public servants: legislation, policy and procedure. Narratives have a long history in legislation, and are often used something like this:
- A journalist writes a human interest story about a member of a class of wronged people. Alternately, a lawyer finds a named plaintiff to represent a class in a class action lawsuit.
- Legislative committees invite non-expert “witnesses” to tell personal narratives (I get the impression that Congressional committees do this more than House of Commons/Legislative Assembly committees but here’s an example).
- Bills get written and passed that are either explicitly eponymous or coined so by journalists (eg: Grant’s Law).
You could say that politicians and journalists are into narratives because those professions are all about image. But policy analysts don’t use narratives, which I think is neglecting a powerful tool. The first significant move in this direction that I know about is the column “Narrative Matters” in the health policy journal Health Affairs. It makes sense that narratives would first be used in “tissue” policy, but I believe that sooner or later there’ll be policy narratives about small businesses, logging licenses and tax law.
The common law is essentially a system for aggregating and standardizing narratives, and look how powerful that is.
Here’s a health narrative I heard just yesterday: “My wife had a miscarriage. After waiting two hours in emergency a nurse asked us for a urine sample. When it came back with blood in it she asked if my wife was having her period. After that I just started yelling at people until they did their fucking jobs.”
“They claim that they operate on a triage system, but I’m pretty sure they think ‘triage’ means ‘first-come, first-served’. I saw a woman with a sprained ankle get help first.”
One thing I’ve learned in all of my dealings with the Canadian government, especially the health care system: If you make your case a problem for the bureaucrats it will get attention. If you stand politely in line they will fuck with you to no end. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and deferring to your [public] servants is a slave morality.
Spouses and parents: You need to yell, smash things, and if necessary get arrested. Anything less won’t move a union nurse from her crossword.
[Ed: The link to the Health Affairs article was busticated so I fixed it.]
Jack
13 May 09 at 10:49 am
Insightful comment about common law, I’m not sure about the rest of it.
Jared
14 May 09 at 2:01 pm