Space for stories: legislative narratives and the establishment of the US Space Force

In June 2018, President Trump directed the development of a sixth branch of the US Armed Forces—the Space Force—whose primary mission is to enhance the space operations of the USA and its allies. In this paper, we utilize the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to examine legislative meso-level narratives surrounding the advocacy for and in opposition to the establishment of a US Space Force. After reviewing the literature on the NPF and US space-defense policy, we conduct a content analysis to discern the policy narratives within congressional testimonies encompassing the development of the Space Force. Included in this content analysis is a unique contribution to the NPF literature’s conceptualization of plot. Leveraging these data, we describe and analyze the policy narratives produced by Republicans and Democrats. Our main findings highlight significant partisan differences in the construction of narratives on the US Space Force, including contrasting viewpoints on the role of the Space Force, the setting of space as a domain of war, and military cooperation with commercial and international groups. We conclude with a discussion of the substantive implications of our findings, including the potential impacts of partisan narratives on the future role of the Space Force. Finally, we propose a new route to improve reliability in the study of NPF plots using a two-dimensional orientation to plot : policy outcome and time.