Of heroes and villains – How coalitions shape their narratives and what the public conservation debate is actually about?

Policy narrative analyses provide important insight to understand mechanisms and dynamic of policy change but also to explore how narratives shape or bind coalitions in a policy subsystem. The overall aim of our analysis was to check what are the dominant narratives about nature conservation manifested in public debate and who generates them. We applied a Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) that allowed for a systematic analysis of narratives generated in public debate on conservation in Poland. We collected and analyzed over 1200 sources of policy narratives published in the most popular nationwide newspapers in Poland between 2004 and 2020.

Our results illustrate that the public discussion on conservation is focused on policy actors and their actions and beliefs rather than on scientific evidence. While wild nature itself is barely discussed, it is often positioned as an important, active actor in generated narratives. We identified two main coalitions that present different beliefs on nature and human role in natural systems maintenance. Both mutualists coalition and the coalition of traditionalists describe themselves as heroes, knowing the right solutions for conservation challenges, and their opponents as villains - impeding the effective conservation actions.

The study illustrates the applicability of the NPF to explore beliefs and values expressed in policy narratives. The results highlight a polarization of conservation debate in a country in transition.