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Narratives in the area of power. The possibilities and limits of narrative politics

https://doi.org/10.31249/poln/2025.02.01

Abstract

Experience shows that narratives are gradually becoming the main tool for organizing public discourse, gaining substantial significance for all political actors maneuvering in the space of power. This raises a research problem: how do the mechanisms of public promotion of political stories change the communicative environment in the space of power, while fitting into the general political course of the state and influencing the goals of competing actors, thereby transforming society’s reaction to the rivalry of political meanings and values embedded in stories.

One way to solve this problem is to consider the role of narratives in the area of public policy, where the latter is understood as a type of power space that reflects the competition of rival forces and their targeted projects. This perspective, which combines the established interpretations of state policies in the scientific literature with the targeted use of narratives, allows us to clarify the political functionality of this cognitive construct that influences public opinion and political change.

Methodologically, the solution to this problem involves the use of the principles of non-classical and non-classical methodologies with their nomothetic strategies, which make it possible to link the deployment of political narratives with public policy actors, as well as structures and mechanisms of political and administrative regulation. This allows us to correctly use the vocabulary of the targeted use of narratives, describing the relevant actions of structures and institutions through the prism of constructivist, communicative and narrative approaches that reveal the process of assimilation of target invectives by people and taking into account the transversal connections of public and latent actors, administrative and political methods of political design.

About the Author

A. I. Soloviev
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russian Federation

Soloviev Alexander

Moscow



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