Flexible framing: Analysing innovative austerity talk from a cultural perspective

Abstract

This article examines how local policy elites conceptualize and communicate potential innovations to overcome the fiscal crisis. Four austerity frames based on cultural theory are developed: an individualist, hierarchist, egalitarian and fatalist frame. Two expectations are tested by tracing frame usage in austerity speeches by the leadership in Birmingham, Cologne and Rotterdam. First, the modest contribution of the individualist frame in NPM-sceptic Cologne is confirmed, but no evidence is found of individualist dominance in NPM-minded Birmingham. Second, it is shown that leaders in Birmingham and Rotterdam combine elements of multiple frames so as to create a new promising narrative which opens up routes towards innovation. The importance of “frame flexibility” is stressed to deal with the complexities of coping with the fiscal crisis in ways that are logical (given available views) and innovative (exploring alternative views), and highlight the importance of further developing understandings of such (municipal) coping.