Distinctionology the narrative of the Iranian government's policies in the stage of facing Corona crisis based on the narrative analysis the policy.
Subject Areas : Public administration
Mehraban Hadi Peykani
1
*
,
Seyed Ali Hosseini Asl
2
,
Mohammad Reza Yazdani Zazerani
3
1 - Department of Public Administration, Isf.C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
2 - PhD student of Public Administration, Department of Public Administration, Isf.C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Isf.C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
Keywords: Corona pandemic, thematic analysis, policy narrative analysis, public policy,
Abstract :
Distinctionology the narrative of the Iranian government's policies in the stage of facing Corona crisis based on the narrative analysis the policy.
Seyed Ali Hosseini Asl
PhD student of Public Administration, Department of Public Administration, Isf.C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.
Mehraban Hadi Peykani
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration, Isf.C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran (Corresponding Author).
Mohammad Reza Yazdani zazerani
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Isf.C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.
Received: 2025 June 8 | Revised: 2025 July 28 | Accepted: 2025 Augst 1
Abstract:
Context and objective: The coronavirus pandemic was the world's biggest challenge and crisis in 2020. This pandemic caused severe social and economic disruptions globally and in Iran, leading to significant economic and social impacts. These disruptions forced policymakers to narrative different policy stories. The purpose the research is to Distinctionology the narrative of the Iranian government's policies in the stage of facing Corona crisis based on the narrative analysis the policy.
Method: The research, from methodological perspective, is a qualitative narrative analysis and its purpose analytical-descriptive and strategy are thematic analysis. For data analysis, the text of the government policies narrative documents was extracted and recorded in Excel software, and coded using the thematic analysis method at three levels: initial codes, main themes, and sub-themes.Then, the components the narrative of the policies the stage of facing Corona crisis are specified.
Findings: By analyzing the thematic of the data and the narrative label, the distinct narrative of the policies the corona crisis facing stage includes (1-Preventive policy and collective safety, policy change. 2-Quarantine policy, necessity of reducing activities and policy change. 3-Social distancing policy, necessity of continuing limited activities and policy Correction. 4-Conflict of interest policy profiteers, losers and winners of the corona crisis. 5-Anti-sanction policy, diplomacy health and media. 6-Production and knowledge-based economy policy) were identify and the components of the policy narratives distinct and each narrative led to different suggestions and uses.
Conclusion: Government policies in the situation coronavirus crisis can be well explained within the framework of policy narrative and narrative components can be extracted from them.This research, by determining the structural and content dimensions of the narrative policies framework, presents a new conceptual framework that can more comprehensively describe and analyze policy narratives. The research results clearly demonstrate the impact of narratives on the policymaking process.
Keywords: Corona pandemic, thematic analysis, policy narrative analysis, public policy.
Extended Abstract
Distinctionology the narrative of the Iranian government's policies in the stage of facing Corona crisis based on the narrative analysis the policy.
Introduction
Public policy is what the government chooses to do or not to do (Dye, 2013:3).The Narrative Policy Framework(NPF) is a fundamental tool in understanding how policy narratives influence public policy processes. The analysis shows a continuous focus on core theoretical components, indicating the framework's robustness (Kuenzler et al, 2025).
The Covid-19 disease was the most widespread in the 21st century, to the extent that the World Health Organization considered it a threat to the entire world.The existence of this disease in Iran was officially confirmed on February18,2020.In this context, governments, recognizing the importance of the issue, called various policymaking institutions to the decision-making arena. The pressure of public opinion and the multidimensional effects of this phenomenon created the grounds for the formation of various narratives to overcome this crisis (Jaworsky & Qiaoan, 2021). This research proposes a new framework for analyzing policy narratives and analyzes the policies of the Iranian government in the stage of facing the Covid-19 disease using it and examines it as a research problem and necessity and through the aggregation and integration the conducted studies and the narrative documents of government policy, they identified the distinct narratives of Iran's government policy in during crisis stage and specified their structure and content. The general question of the research is: What policy narrative has the policy-maker created and presented to confront the Covid-19 pandemic in Iran, and what is its impact on the policy-making process? The present study attempts to understand the theoretical and practical dimensions of its mission in understanding the effectiveness of government policies, especially in the stage of effective prevention and control of the Corona pandemic, and to explain the extent of its impact in practice on the output of policy-making based on the policy narrative analysis as a problem and importance of the research. The purpose of the research is to identify the distinctive policy narratives of the stage of facing the Corona pandemic, in which the government communicates its policies.
Case Study
This research, as a case study, identifies distinct policy narratives from the stage of confronting the coronavirus pandemic.
Theoretical Framework
To facing at the national or global level, there has been limited research on identifying of political narratives distinct during the Corona crisis. but, the narrative framework of policy consists of two shape and content dimensions. The shape (structure) of the narrative consists of the components of context, character, Plot (events trend), and ethics. The context is the setting in which the policy issue arises. Characters are the actors who play a role in the narrative of policy (Jones et al, 2023). Plot(events trend) is a map of actions that determines the relationships between characters and the context. Ethics also addresses the professional ethical aspects of the proposed policy strategies in the context. The Content dimension of policy narration encompasses the system of beliefs and narrative strategies. The belief system is a collection of values and beliefs that determines the orientation of individuals, groups, coalitions, and societies. Policy strategies also indicate the ways that shape the policy narrative (Shanahan et al, 2018).
This is while the study by (Roedyati et al, 2022) titled “Response to Covid-19: Presidents Rouhani and Raisi’s Narrative on Politics in Iran” through the media; Using discourse analysis, this study attempts to discover the content of the narrative and examine what discourse (narrative) the Iranian government wants to convey to the people. In another study (Askari et al, 2021) conducted a thematic analysis of mental health dimensions affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which showed that the covid-19 pandemic has endangered the mental and physical health of individuals and communities in all countries worldwide.The findings from the interviews were extracted categorized into 7 main themes and 27 sub-themes. and also (Gupta et al, 2021) in a national survey, by examining the construction of a nuclear power plant in India, identified the narrative characters (villain, hero, and victim) and the winning and losing strategies of narratives in public support for nuclear energy in India.
Methodology
This research, from a methodological perspective of qualitative narrative analysis, has an applied orientation, an analytical-descriptive objective, and a case study strategy. This research follows an inductive process and classifies the nature of themes in the text based on the hierarchical theme classification method (King et al, 2004). Data and information for the research were obtained from two different sources from the outbreak of covid-19 until June 2023. Initially, approximately185 documents from the decisions of the two selected sources were summarized into 42 narratives based on the stage of confronting covid-19, and 421 initial conceptual codes were identified and recorded in tables in Excel software.For the analysis of the research data, the themes of government policy narratives were analyzed, and main and sub-themes were identified. Also narrative label was assigned to similar sets of sub-themes, resulting in the identification of 6 narrative distinct.
Discussion and Results
The role of governance and government in epidemic control is to reduce its health, economic, and social costs. However, a policy narrative framework can extract executive applications for policymakers. This research has attempted to cover the theoretical void between the structural and content domains of policy narratives by presenting a new framework for policy narrative, and to examine and analyze the narratives of the Iranian government in confronting the coronavirus with an integrated perspective.
Based on research findings, By analyzing the thematic of the data and the narrative label, the distinct narrative of the policies the corona crisis facing stage includes (1-Preventive policy and collective safety, policy change. 2-Quarantine policy, necessity of reducing activities and policy change. 3-Social distancing policy, necessity of continuing limited activities and policy Correction. 4-Conflict of interest policy profiteers, losers and winners of the corona crisis. 5-Anti-sanction policy, diplomacy health and media. 6-Production and knowledge-based economy policy) were identify and the components of the policy narratives distinct and each narrative led to different suggestions and uses.
Conclusion
This research, by presenting a new and valid method, adds to the scientific literature in the field of policymaking and decision-making, helping researchers and decision-makers to prepare the ground for confronting current and future crises for statesmen and governments in Iran and the world by adopting appropriate decisions. In particular, it can be used as a reliable source for planning and policymaking in the field of crisis management. This research analyzes the impact of Distinctionology the narrative of Iranian government policies during the Covid-19 crisis on the policymaking process, and effectively explains the government's decisions during the pandemic crisis within a policy narrative framework, extracting narrative components from them, and enabling subsequent researchers to conduct a more powerful analysis of policy narratives. Finally, by focusing on narrative coherence, this policy narrative analysis is useful for initiatives by governmental and non-governmental organizations seeking a more coherent framework for their messages.
Contribution of authors
This article is based on the first author's doctoral thesis on the topic the narrative analysis of the policies Confronting with the Corona pandemic in Iran based on the framework of narrative policy analysis, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan).
Ethical approval
All ethical considerations have been met.
Conflict of interest
No conflicts of interest are declared by the authors.
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