This Research Brief was written as part of ANZSOG’s The Bridge research translation project and summarises a piece of academic research relevant to the public sector.
An article in the Policy Studies Journal examines the role of characters as a core element of a public policy story. Characters such as victims, villains and heroes not only serve descriptive functions, but they are also used to shape the relationship between policy problems and policy solutions. The article introduces the role of the loser – someone who is not directly involved in the policy problem but is adversely affected by the policy solution. Policy losers have a unique position of power. They can mobilise people who might otherwise be uninterested or disengaged, turning the tides of policy debates and engagement.
Introducing the Narrative Policy Framework
The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is a theoretical framework which helps to understand how policy narratives impact the public policy process. Characters are central to the NPF and are defined as entities “who act or are acted upon”.
NFP characters are typically categorised into common roles that appear in narratives, such as:
heroes who strive to resolve a policy problem by proposing a policy solution.
villains who inflict harm or are blamed for causing policy problems.
victims who suffer from or are harmed by the policy problem.
In policy narratives, characters connect policy problems to policy solutions. For example, in a story about diversity in higher education, a villain (such as university leaders who deliberately maintain exclusionary admissions practices) does more than receive blame for causing a problem. It can legitimise calls for affirmative action policies. In the same story, a victim (like underrepresented minority students) not only elicits sympathy but can also bolster support for expanding access and strengthening diversity and equity initiatives.
In this way, characters humanise abstract policy issues and problems by embedding them within lived experiences and moral stakes. Characters animate issues in a way that allows people to draw links between problems and policy solutions. Policy makers can craft narratives around problems, using characters to justify and legitimise their preferred interventions.
Understanding the role of the loser
The article introduces the role of the loser, arguing that it has not been formally identified as a distinct character in a policy narrative. The policy loser is someone who finds themselves on the losing side of a policy conflict. Losers may have positional power to turn the tide of policy conflict by redefining the conflict's dimensions to their advantage. As such, they can engage previously uninvolved and uninterested citizens in the process. Research has shown that potential losses tend to generate more engagement than potential gain and loser characters may then be more effective at mobilising than beneficiaries.
Losers appear as a byproduct of policy conflict or as part of the distributional consequences of policy solutions. In this way, losers have always been viewed as being around or outside of a policy narrative, not necessarily within the narrative itself. In conceptualising the role of the loser, the article argues that the loser plays a distinct role in policy narratives. It differs significantly from that of the victim. While victims are typically used to illustrate the harm caused by a policy problem and justify the need for intervention, losers are harmed by the policy solution itself.
Losers can push a policy issue back on the agenda, generating renewed debate and conflict. They challenge the legitimacy of a policy solution and this differentiates them from victims, who reinforce the necessity of a solution and operate within the problem definition arena.
Focusing on the loser character can assist policy makers defend or reshape policy debates. It leads to questions such as:
How do narratives featuring losers differ from those centred on victims?
Does the presence of a loser increase mobilisation or heighten risks?
Are losers framed as deserving or undeserving, and what are the implications of that framing?
The bottom line
Characters play a key role in policy narratives. They do more than populate a story. They actively connect problems to solutions, signal responsibility and harm and provide an arc that shapes the scope and direction of policy debate.
The traditional ‘hero–victim–villain’ dynamic has been recognised as central to defining a problem, calling for action or proposing a solution. Introducing the loser character expands the NFP’s capacity to capture the full range of roles by including those who bear the costs of a policy solution. This is especially important when examining issues that emerge later in the policy process such as when a solution has been proposed, decided or implemented. It allows for a fuller analysis of policy solutions by identifying those who carry their costs.
Want to read more?
Narrating the loser: Theorizing the role of characters within the Narrative Policy Framework - Rachel McGovern, Hilda Broqvist, and Crystal Soderman, Policy Studies Journal, February 2026