The malleable logics of mandate: analysing uses of the term mandate in the context of a significant policy window

BACKGROUND: Mandate is a site of political framing crucial to understanding the potential in a policy window. Yet the multiple uses of the word mandate, by government and advocates, suggests a more complex array of meanings and deployments than presumed on the surface. OBJECTIVES: In this paper we sought to analyse how mandate was variously deployed by multiple policy actors in the lead up to and at a significant drug policy window (the 2024 NSW Drug Summit). We aimed to explore its uses and meanings and how these make possible or constrain policy reform. METHODS: Data were drawn from March 2023 to April 2025, and included political documents, media documents, and material from the drug summit itself. We analysed these data using political theories of election mandates and role mandates. RESULTS: As a concept, mandate variously referred to the privileges and responsibilities conferred by election results, the range and meaning of election promises, and the processes of policymaking during a term of government. Mandates were operationalised through their being 'sensed'; defined through pre-election promises that direct, limit, and defer action, and constrain scope; and derived from, variously, votes, collective decision-making, and evidence. At the summit, meanings of election promises were contested: whether the mandate was confined to (merely) holding the summit, or whether the summit could deliver a mandate for future policy reform. IMPLICATIONS: The use of mandate by politicians reveals the conditions that get set around policy change. The use of mandate by advocates suggests that expectations of policy events are different to those of government. Appreciating how mandate is multiply used and comes to have effects opens avenues for maximising the opportunity in policy windows.