The effect of policy narratives on policy elite versus public preferences for hydraulic fracturing regulation

Abstract Central to the growing policy debate surrounding climate change is the role of fossil fuels in the energy sector. Chief among these issues is the role of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has drawn controversy for its negative externalities while also allowing the extraction of a new range of oil and gas reserves. This research applies the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), combined with grid‐group cultural theory (CT), to examine the similarities and differences in the ways in which the general public and policy elites' policy preferences are shaped by culturally nuanced fracking narratives. In doing so, we employ a unique online survey experiment using a sample of the general public ( n = 1149) and local policy elites ( n = 1110), where our experimental subjects are assigned to one of four groups: a control group which receives a standard list of facts regarding fracking, and three treatment groups, each of which receives an egalitarian, individualist, and hierarch fracking policy narrative, respectively. We utilize causal mediation analysis to comparatively examine effects of these narrative treatments on fracking policy preferences. We find that policy elites and the general public are influenced by narrative elements in different ways, suggesting how a potential gap in policy preferences could form even if the general public and policy elites are exposed to the same policy narratives. This has implications for fracking regulation policy processes as well as other environmental and energy policy domains.