The Meaning and Measure of Policy Metaphors
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3603369 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Schlesinger (0000-0002-7142-8667, Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights), Richard R Lau (0000-0002-5412-8777, Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 94 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 611-626 |
| Publication date | 2000-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2585834 |
| OpenAlex | W2326559044 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 57 |
| References cited | 58 |
The apparent ability of the American public to form coherent assessments of policy options-while being largely ignorant of political institutions, actors, and ideology-remains a persistent puzzle for political science. We develop a theory of political decision making that helps resolve this puzzle. We postulate that both the public and political elites comprehend complex policies in part through "reasoning by policy metaphor," which involves comparisons between proposed alternative policies and more readily understood social institutions. Using data from 169 intensive interviews, we test claims about metaphorical reasoning for a particularly complex policy domain: health care reform. We demonstrate that our hypothesized policy metaphors are coherent to both elites and the general public, including the least sophisticated members of the public. We further show that elites and the public share a common understanding of the relevant policy metaphors, that metaphorical reasoning differs from other forms of analogic reasoning, and that metaphorical cognition is distinct from ideological orientation
Biology and political orientation · Economics · Epistemology · Ideology · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Metaphor · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Public policy · Sociology · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Law · Public Policy and Administration Research · Social Media and Politics
Emotions in Late Modernity
Health and Social Justice
Emotions in Late Modernity
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Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics
Obesity Metaphors
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How Linguistic Metaphor Scaffolds Reasoning
The Politics of Public Health Policy
Policy Feedback and Public Opinion
Anti-Latine bias and drug-induced homicide law support
Envisioning Complex Futures
Public Deliberation about Gene Editing in the Wild
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Taking Evolution Seriously, or Metaphorically? A Review of Interactions between Historical Institutionalism and Darwinian Evolutionary Theory
Monster metaphors in media coverage of the 2016 U.S. presidential contest
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Analysing use of evidence in public policymaking processes
Bringing FPA Back Home
Valenced Metaphors in Strategic Communication
The Role and Impact of the Multiple-Streams Approach in Comparative Policy Analysis
The Food Chain Reforged
Metaphor as a mechanism of global climate change governance
The use and misuse of metaphors in e-government studies
Narrating Sustainability in C anadian Health Care Reform Discourse
Contagion and control
Historical Analogies and Public Support for Foreign Policy Action
The Variable Persuasiveness of Political Rhetoric
Reform, Rescue, or Run Out of Money
Framing responsibilities for climate change in Chinese and American newspapers
Constitutive metaphors and legislator reasoning
Gender, Political Rhetoric, and Moral Metaphors in State of the City Addresses
Making Sense of Issues Through Media Frames
Gender Gap or Gender Gaps? New Perspectives on Support for Government Action and Policies
Mobilizing Voters with Aggressive Metaphors
Violent Rhetoric in Protracted Group Conflicts
The Case for Metaphor in Political Reasoning and Cognition
Policy Frames, Metaphorical Reasoning, and Support for Public Policies
Strong Candidate, Nurturant Candidate
Toll Booths on the Information Superhighway? Policy Metaphors in the Case of Net Neutrality
Toward Conflict or Compromise? How Violent Metaphors Polarize Partisan Issue Attitudes
Fueling the Fire
The Gender Gap in Ideology
Issue Framing and Engagement
Understanding “Power Talk
Streams and stages
The Political Environment and Citizen Competence
Are Policy Analogies Persuasive? The Household Budget Analogy and Public Support for Austerity
Analogical Framing
Does grand theory shape officials’ speech
Prayers of the people
The role of metaphor in the corporate political strategies of health harming industries
Three metaphors for sustainability in the Anthropocene
How Experiments Help Campaigns Persuade Voters
(Un?)Healthy Politics
The Righteous Use of Violence
Judgment under Uncertainty
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
Analogies at War
The Rational Public
The Myth of Mental Illness
Quadratic Assignment as a General Data Analysis Strategy
Rights talk
Is Anyone Responsible?
Perception and Misperception in International Politics
Liberal and conservative approaches to justice
Reasoning and Choice
Conscience and Convenience
Of ants and grasshoppers
Where Is the Schema? Going Beyond the “S” Word in Political Psychology
Rights Talk
Strong Democracy
The Symbolic Uses of Politics
Analogies at War
Frame Reflection
What's Fair
Thinking in time
The Social Transformation of American Medicine
Democracy's discontent
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
Processing the News
What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters
Human Inference
Metaphor
Subliminal Politics
The Uses of Metaphor and Analogy
Ideological Thinking Among Mass Publics and Political Elites
Historical Analogies and the Cognitive Dimension of Domestic Policymaking
Metaphors and Foreign Policy Decision Making
How People Organize the Political World
Employment and Health Benefits
The Incorporation of Causal Perceptions into Models of Elite Belief Systems
Moral Politics
| Unique citing works | 57 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,28 |
| Citation span | 2001 - 2026 (26) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 55 |