Taking the pulse of reform: what can a multi-channel analysis of media and parliamentary speeches tell us about public acceptability?

Abstract

Gauging the extent of public acceptability of reforms is an important concern for policymakers. Timely insights into public perceptions can illuminate how reforms are received and how attitudes evolve over time. In this study, we build on the OECD’s Public Acceptability Tool, a framework encompassing four key dimensions of reform acceptability— Economic , Fairness , Behavioural , and Process —to evaluate the public acceptability of policy reforms. We take the 2023 French pension reform as a relevant case study, using online media articles and parliamentary speeches as indicators of discourse surrounding the reform. Using word embeddings, we classify these texts according to the four dimensions and apply matrix factorisation topic algorithms to uncover the latent themes within each. Our analysis shows that the Process dimension dominated media coverage during the discussion and legislative phases of the reform, consistent with previous literature on pension reforms. In contrast, no particular dimension was predominant in parliamentary speeches, suggesting a mismatch between policy and public debates. Finally, we identify the main topics driving public discussion within each dimension, highlighting notable differences between media narratives and parliamentary discourse that offer further insight into the dynamics of public acceptability.