Framing the Zone: Political Executives Engaging in a Narrative-Framing Contest During Strategic Decision-making

Storytelling is regarded as an important practice within planning processes. Seminal contributions (Throgmorton, 1992, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 12, pp. 17-31; Flyvbjerg, 1998, Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press) as well as recent research (Jensen, 2007, Planning Theory, 6, pp. 211-236; van Hulst, 2012, Planning Theory, 11, pp. 299-318) demonstrate that there are multiple competing stories about the meaning of any specific plan. This paper contributes to this debate by considering stories as building blocks for a collective action frame in the form of a mutual story. Political executives engage in a framing contest in order to influence such a mutual story. Our case study is based on interpretative analysis of contrasting narratives ands shows how political executives negotiate the meaning of a plan in such a way that the chances of its implementation through funding are optimized.