‘softening up’ prospective adherents. When the cup is filled, it only takes a small drop more to make the cup run over. This argument corresponds with complexity perspectives on change, indicating that small and seemingly irrelevant or unimportant changes can have large effects in relation to one another (Morgan, 1986). Change may then seem radical, but is in fact the result of gradual and step-by-step change.
In the context of storytelling processes and conditions that enable stories to become sticky, it is important to note the following: 1) events or circumstances were incorporated into storytelling as triggers or opportunities, when such events and circumstances were important and relevant to targeted supporters (for example the crisis fund) and 2) successful initiatives tried out novelties, proposals, and stories all the time and searched actively for various conversational settings in which these could be discussed. For both efforts, initiatives required much patience and had to continuously scan the environment for relevant events and opportunities. They created favourable circumstances to a certain extent. Although issues and events can arise unexpectedly, sometimes perceived as coincidence or luck, there is often a planned part (see also Van Woerkum et al., 2011).
6.5 Connectors: people who make things happen
The general argument in policy agenda-setting research, at least in the multiple streams model (Kingdon, 2003) and the punctuated equilibrium model (Jones
& Baumgartner, 2005), is that, although institutions and focusing events make things possible, people make things happen (Zahariadis, 2007; Huitema &
Meijerink, 2010). The point made is that the importance of structure and institutions in policy change is tempered considerably by individuals, timing, and context. What people do, how they prepare change by ‘selling’ alternative proposals, and how they influence (policy) frames through their interactions is what matters. In the Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case, we found that individual agents, who we labelled ‘connectors’ (after Gladwell, 2000; Shirky, 2008), connected ambitions, storylines, people, resources, events, and contexts.
These connecting activities enabled the emergence, strengthening, spreading, adapting, and fitting of stories in the following ways.
Connecting qualities
First, the case study findings point to connectors who had key positions in networks and could therefore connect different networks and groups. Examples in the Heuvelland case were the leading entrepreneurs who used their informal executive networks effectively. They bridged the entrepreneurial network and the relevant policy networks. In the Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case, we found that connectors also included engaged citizens who spread and shared knowledge
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with many others and thus made ideas spread rapidly through a wider network.
Meeting and knowing many others, preferably in relevant sub-networks and groups, proved to influence the mobilization of attention.
Second, individual agents also operated as connectors when they were considered a credible storyteller by other people or when they were able to mobilize credible storytellers3. In Gouda-Krimpenerwaard, we identified a number of credible storytellers who had status or were considered experts in the field and therefore were able to persuade influential actors in their network. However, storyteller credibility was not exclusive to people who were considered to be authorities. Sometimes, storytellers had a good claim to a hearing because they were considered genuine and credible on the basis of their cultural background and knowledge about the place or region. The Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case provides the example of the Veenvaren initiator who was considered as a credible conversation partner by crucial political actors in the Krimpenerwaard, because he belonged to the community of Krimpenerwaardians and contributed valuable local knowledge. In this way, the Veenvaren initiative established a fruitful connection between civic initiatives in the city of Gouda and decision makers in the Krimpenerwaard. In Heuvelland, people assigned with authority were credible storytellers. This worked out positively for the Regional Branding initiative. For the New Markets initiative, it was a delimiting factor as the experts themselves were not part of the select club of individuals who were considered to have authority. Here, they would have needed other connectors that did have the right cultural background and position and that could reinforce the story and pass it on. Apparently, sometimes credibility entailed the attributed authority of people, sometimes expertise mattered, or cultural background, or local knowledge. On this basis, we can conclude that a storyteller’s credibility is a social construct, i.e. it depends on what is considered important by his or her conversation partners in particular situations.
A third connecting quality is being able to empathize and listen to stories of conversation partners. In Gouda-Krimpenerwaard, we see that even regular citizens, who were not part of a powerful managerial network, could still operate as connectors. They managed to align frames by empathizing and listening, that is, they tried to understand the other’s perspective. People who could empathize with, and listen carefully to, potential supporters were crucial connectors. Moreover, key players were those connectors who liked to share information and knowledge to help other people; and by being very knowledgeable about different contexts they could bridge different networks and reach other connectors whose connecting qualities lay more in ‘selling’ and
‘networking’ the story.
3 Benford & Snow (2000) use the term ‘credible frame articulators’, see also Chapter 2.
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A fourth connecting quality is being attentive to events, circumstances, and contexts that provide the opportunity to connect and align stories and people. For example, the group of entrepreneurs in the Regional Branding initiative built an informal network and provided a suitable context for informal conversations. They seized political opportunities and tried to create the right context. The same happened in the Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case, in which initiatives continually searched for contexts to promote their messages and tell their story. Waiting, searching, and creating the right (conversational) context required a great deal of knowledge and sensitivity about various contexts as well as patience and perseverance. Successful connectors knew how to ‘nudge’
contexts, or in other words, they knew how to signal, use, and create contexts to a certain extent. Thus, connectors were critical agents in the construction of a sticky story, or conversely they could weaken a competing story.
No single heroes
The case studies demonstrated that change could not be traced to single heroes or leaders of change. As one of the respondents in the Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case said, ‘success had many fathers’. Connectors become connectors only in relation to other people also performing as connectors and in relation to specific issues. This conclusion is supported by arguments put forward in Shirky’s work (2008). His central argument is that messages and stories are most effectively and efficiently passed on in network structures in which small, highly connected groups are linked to other small connected groups in a loose connection. See Figure 6.1. Connectors refer to the highly connected people that hold social networks together and enable robust connectedness in a wider network. Note that, in the figure, the connectivity of the smaller clusters in the network does not depend on one person, but multiple persons.
As long as a couple of people in each small group know a couple of people in other groups, you get the advantages of tight connection at the small scale and loose connection at the large scale. (Shirky, 2008, p. 216)
According to Shirky (2008, p. 225), connectors bring to the network the ‘bridging capital’ required to establish connections in the network that enable messages to spread, similar to our previous discussions about frame alignment processes.
Shirky’s model of the small world network and the importance of connectors says a great deal about innovative potentials within the network but does not elucidate the circumstances and processes through which connections are actually established. Our findings show that this depends on the actions and interactions of the connectors involved and the discursive contexts in which connections are deemed relevant. In our approach to connectors, we refer to social contact and the framing and reframing efforts of people in conversations.
Our interpretation of the connector concept adds an emphasis on discursive abilities to the notion of mathematical connectedness.
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Figure 6.1: Connectors in a network (Shirky, 2008, p. 217)
The connector concept is a relational concept involving the communicative process in which people connect to other people, stories, and frames, and relevant events and context. The concept tells us that people who take the lead in a group initiative cannot by themselves succeed in spreading a message and achieving goals. Any group initiative requires multiple connectors who link up a wider network. Connectors are not only leaders or initiators, but also group members who know how to establish connections with relevant other groups and make stories spread.
Policy entrepreneurs and discursive power
In relation to the concept of policy entrepreneurs, addressed in Chapter 2, we can make a few observations. First, our findings about the various strategies deployed by issue proponents to promote particular stories reflect many elements of studies about policy entrepreneurs and their strategies (cf. Huitema
& Meijerink, 2010; Mintrom, 1997). Such strategies include the development and ‘selling’ of new ideas, building coalitions and networking, recognizing and exploiting windows of opportunity, and recognizing, creating, and exploiting multiple venues for getting attention. The main idea is that successful policy entrepreneurs are skilled at coupling, which means attaching problems to solutions and finding politicians receptive to their ideas.
Second, Kingdon (2003) and Zahariadis (2007) emphasize that entrepreneurs who have better access to policymakers and more resources (especially time) are more likely to have success. We have demonstrated that, although such aspects are important, ultimately it is what people do and communicate that matters.
The critical factor that enables a story to spread and become sticky is how people
‘sell’ and connect ideas and stories through careful learning about the frames
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and perspectives of targeted supporters and how they establish connections in the wider network (not only politicians). The concept of connectors, that is, our interpretation of the concept, emphasizes the discursive qualities that affect agenda setting: credibility, empathy, and listening, framing and reframing stories, and establishing connections between various relevant groups in the network. Of course, it helps when there is access, and when time and other resources can be invested facilitating on-going storytelling and fitting stories to existing policy stories, but what happens in interactions and how people come to a shared understanding is what makes the change, not resources or access in themselves. If stories get no response, do not touch a chord, then there is no attention and no support. We argue that successful policy entrepreneurship requires connectors: people who can connect stories, people, and events.
Citizens and business entrepreneurs
The question may be raised of whether it matters whether initiatives are essentially driven by business entrepreneurs (Heuvelland case) or by citizens (Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case) with respect to goal achievement and agenda change. This is essentially a question about power, in policy agenda-setting research operationalized as ‘access’, ‘resources’, and ‘manipulation’ (e.g.
Zahariadis, 2007). Do business entrepreneurs have more power than citizens and are they therefore more likely to be successful policy entrepreneurs?
On the basis of our analysis, we are inclined to say that this is not the case.
Business entrepreneurs had more financial resources and access through their connectedness in executive networks. However, we have demonstrated that resources and access were only one aspect of how stories became sticky and how issues got prioritized. The way ambitions were framed into attractive stories and how the story was fitted and resemiotized to establish connections with potential supporters was maybe even more important. ‘Network power’
can also come about through collective meaning construction (cf. Booher &
Innes, 2002). We have demonstrated with the Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case that citizens can effectively mobilize discursive power as well, without having many resources at their disposal or without access to decision-making arenas. How people in networks establish a flow of ideas and stories through conversations is what matters most. In other words, whether business entrepreneurs are more powerful agenda setters than residents depends entirely on the context and how they manage to bring about a spreading of a story in the wider network by connecting to relevant other people.
Context matters, connectors come and go
One final observation about connectors should be addressed. We concluded from the Gouda-Krimpenerwaard case that the connector label is not exclusive to a particular person but depends on context, i.e. time, place, situation, and the stories being promoted or competing. Persons performed as connectors at certain junctures, whereas at other junctures other persons had this task.
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Individual people performed as connectors at different times depending on the specific context and the qualities needed at the time. Therefore, we use the term connector to emphasize the communicative connections established by people in continuously changing webs of relations. We did not aim to locate particular individuals who performed as change agents. Change could not be attributed to a few people who merit the label of change agent or leaders of change.
Change knew many ‘fathers’. Moreover, connectors were always dependent on the interactions in the wider network of which they were part, so all they could do was ‘nudge’ contexts.
6.6 Conclusion
From the case study findings, we conclude that agendas are influenced by people essentially through the interactional framing of ambitions into sticky stories, and the incorporation of smaller and bigger events into those stories.
Stories do not become sticky as result of their properties or by coincidence through focusing events; rather they are made sticky by people through their conversations with one another. This entails slow processes of continuous resemiotization and frame alignment in order to frame and ‘story’ issues into targeted audiences’ latitude of acceptance. On the part of proposal promoters, this requires attentive listening to, and empathizing with, what is said and brought forward by potential supporters, i.e. attentive navigation of their self-referential frames. Thus, storytelling is not about transmitting stories, but about careful listening, empathizing, sharing, and aligning. Storytelling that enables the mobilization of political and policy attention is not so much persuasive (cf.
Throgmorton, 1996; Sandercock, 2003) as connective (cf. Baker, 2010).
Three conditions have been identified that facilitate the process of stories becoming sticky: catalytic conversations, incorporation of smaller and bigger events, and people who perform as connectors of groups, stories, and events.
In the next chapter, these three conditions and their interplay are further developed into a model that elucidates the process of stories becoming sticky.