A Thai livestock-policy case study argues that narratives assigning roles to traders, cattle and affected groups shaped problem definitions and policy legitimacy. During the pandemic, some roles reversed and instruments shifted from control toward support.
Key findings
- The dominant narrative initially cast illegal cross-border traders and low-grade cattle as villains and legal traders of high-grade Western cattle as heroes. The pandemic reversed some roles, alongside a shift from command-and-control instruments toward supportive care for newly framed heroes and victims.
Why this matters globally
The study bridges policy design and policy narratives, showing why instrument analysis should examine embedded normative and emotional assumptions.
Thai researcher contribution
Researchers from Chiang Mai and Chulalongkorn universities used a Thai case to develop an argument relevant to international policy scholarship.
Limitations to consider
This is one interpretive case. The abstract does not detail the corpus, coding or reliability checks, limiting reproducibility and immediate generalization.