Background: ‘Mandate’ is a key site of political framing crucial to extracting benefit from a policy window and navigating public sanction for drug policy change. In studying one policy window in NSW, Australia, we were struck by the multiple uses of the word ‘mandate’ by government and advocates.

Objectives: This paper analysed how mandate was variously deployed in the lead up to and at a significant policy window in NSW (the Drug Summit 2024). We analysed how the political framing of ‘mandate’ shaped what may be expected of a policy making event, and how ‘mandate’ was used in advocacy efforts geared to influence the agenda of the event itself and generate desired outcomes.

Methods: This research used documentary analysis and autoethnographic qualitative methods. Data are drawn from March 2023 – December 2024, and includes the orienting event of the policy window, the drug summit itself.

Results: Three meanings of ‘mandate’ emerged: a policy taken to the election, public support for a policy, and as that which a drug summit could provide. The use of mandate by the government was seen to curtail the possibility for decriminalisation as an outcome of the summit, while also becoming a pressure point for advocates to centralise decriminalisation in discussions moving forward.

Implications: Implicit within policy windows such as drug summits is that they may sanction policy change. 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. Different uses of mandate suggest different actions for researchers and advocates in responding to policy windows.