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Understanding Policy Change as a Discursive Problem

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Zittoun

    (LET - Laboratoire d'économie des transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

In understanding policy change, classical approaches generally treat public policy as an object which can be studied directly and whose change can be measured objectively. In this article, we will show how this objectification process involves difficult to surmount epistemological problem because objectification, in the classical approaches, involves the researcher in the use of normative analytical techniques which usually distort the object, i.e. public policy, beyond recognition. To avoid such a distortion, it is proposed that analysts should focus not on an "objective" notion of change, but on a "subjective", "discursive" one; on the way participants define policy and identify change in the construction and de-construction of "policy statements". Not yet well developed and still relatively heterogeneous, discursive approaches to policy analysis attempt to reintegrate the subject, in this case the participant, into the heart of the analysis of policy dynamics. Their idea is not to separate the subject and the object, i.e. the actors and the policy, but to consider discourse as an ontological link between both. The question of change as such does not disappear but is recomposed. The production of a discourse of both change and its causes is considered as a fundamental activity for actors trying to influence other actors in order to transform public policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Zittoun, 2009. "Understanding Policy Change as a Discursive Problem," Post-Print halshs-01021551, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01021551
    DOI: 10.1080/13876980802648235
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Cristina Temenos, 2024. "FROM BUDAPEST TO BRUSSELS: Discursive and Material Failure in Mobile Policy," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 523-538, May.
    2. Pohle, Julia, 2016. "Multistakeholder governance processes as production sites: enhanced cooperation "in the making"," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 5(3), pages 1-19.
    3. Bisschops, Saskia & Beunen, Raoul & Hollemans, Daniël, 2023. "Institutionalizing ideas about citizens’ initiatives in planning: Emerging discrepancies between rhetoric and assurance," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    4. Pohle, Julia, 2016. "Multistakeholder governance processes as production sites: enhanced cooperation "in the making"," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 5(3), pages 1-19.
    5. Niedziałkowski, Krzysztof & Beunen, Raoul, 2019. "The risky business of planning reform – The evolution of local spatial planning in Poland," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 11-20.

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