Publications

Reviewed Articles

Klatt, Nikolina and Blum, Sonja. 2024 “How does the use of evidence in policy narratives change during crises? A comparative study of New York City’s pandemic school shutdowns.” In: Review of Policy Research (Early View), 10.1111/ropr.12589

Abstract Narratives play an essential role in fast-paced policy making that occurs during crises. The COVID-19 pandemic brought numerous disruptions of normality, including school closures, which were intensely debated in narratives by many policy actors. Two shutdowns of New York City’s public school system affected over 1.1 million students. This article investigates how scientific evidence was used in the narratives surrounding the school shutdowns in NYC by analyzing around 160 policy narratives with the Narrative Policy Framework. We ask whether and how the growing certainty of evidence on the new Coronavirus was reflected in the policy narratives in the second compared to the first shutdown. While there is increased use of scientific evidence in the second shutdown stage, this does not reflect an increased evidence base: The evolving use of evidence in policy narratives is mainly reflected in its strategic uses to support a certain policy solution within a blame-avoidance strategy.

Klatt, Nikolina and Böhret, Ines. 2021. “Women’s Rights in Childbirth during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A comparison of WHO guidelines to policies, recommendations, and practices in the US and Germany.” In: Cross-cultural Human Rights Review (3):1–41, 10.52854/cchrr-51

Abstract Women’s rights to respectful care in childbirth are often violated, especially during health emergencies. This article evaluates to which degree policies and recommendations implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic strengthen or violate women’s rights in birth in Germany and the US. Therefore, recommendations and policies on a subnational level in Baden-Wuerttemberg and New York State are compared to the recommendations given by the WHO for a safe and positive childbirth experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article demonstrates that policies approved in New York have the potential to increase the options for birthing women and thus strengthen their rights. In contrast, little evidence was found for subnational policies in Baden-Wuerttemberg that aimed to safeguard women’s rights at birth. This article concludes that women’s rights in birth must be supported at the federal, state, and institutional level to ensure respectful and safe birth experiences, even in times of pandemics.

Work in Progress

The Effect of Judicial Decisions on Policy Narratives

Abstract How do judicial decisions influence political discourse, particularly in areas as contentious as abortion rights? This study investigates how the overturning of Roe v. Wade affected the narrative strategies of U.S. representatives on social media, with a focus on variations by party affiliation and geographic context due to state-level trigger laws. Employing supervised machine learning for text classification and generalized linear mixed models, this research analyzed a dataset of abortion-related tweets from U.S. representatives throughout 2022. The study found a significant shift toward narratives of decline across both major political parties following the overturning, with variations evident around critical events and influenced by state-level trigger laws. These findings contribute to narrative policy analysis and political communication and highlight the strategic use of narratives in response to judicial decisions, the complex connection between political narratives and electoral strategies, and the complex role of geographic and legislative contexts in shaping political discourse.

Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa; Nikolina Klatt, Janice Ngiam and Daniel Ziblatt. What Is Democracy (to You)?

Abstract The term “democracy” can take on a plethora of meanings - in political science as much as in the real world. What “democracy” means to the people often differs drastically. This paper asserts that these diverse understandings represent a crucial, yet previously overlooked, factor in explaining whether individuals harbor concerns about the future of German democracy and, if so, the specific nature of those concerns. We develop a typology of democracy understandings among German voters and demonstrate how these differing perspectives impact individuals’ levels of concern for German democracy. The results underscore the varied democracy understandings among German voters, shedding light on the reasons behind disparate concerns. For instance, a particular understanding of democracy can explain support for far-right ideologies. Beyond revealing diverse perspectives on democracy, the paper makes a methodological contribution by showcasing the importance of open-ended survey questions in unraveling the complexities of individual democracy understandings.