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Policy as Discourse: Whatdoes it mean? Where doesit get us?Carol Bacchi

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Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2000

Policy as Discourse: what does it mean? where does it get us?

CAROL BACCHI, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

The concept ‘discourse’ has become ubiquitous in contemporary social and politicaltheory. However, it is not always clear what different authors mean when they use theterm. Moreover, it seems that at times the term ‘discourse’ carries very differentmeanings. This paper examines the uses of ‘discourse’ among a group of scholars whohave taken to describing policy as discourse, either directly (see, for example, Ball, 1990,1993; Watts, 1993/1994; Phillips, 1996; Torgerson, 1996; Goodwin, 1996; Bacchi, 1999)or by implication (Beilharz, 1987; Jenson, 1988; Yeatman, 1990; Shapiro, 1992). MichaelMcCann (1994, p. 6) refers to a related body of literature which describes law asdiscourse. I intend to investigate what these theorists hope to accomplish through theinvocation of ‘discourse’ and how their particular purposes affect the meaning ofthe term. I also intend to draw attention to a few lacunae in the uses of ‘discourse’ bythis group, which, to my view, need addressing if the term is to serve the purposes theydesire.

Meanings of Discourse

The approach I take to discourse in this paper is part of a more general approach Idevelop to the political uses of concepts and categories which I call ‘category politics’(Bacchi, 1996). This approach builds on an understanding of language elaboratedusefully by Tanesini (1994). According to Tanesini, we need to become aware of the factthat concepts are not descriptive of anything, but that they are ‘proposals about how weought to proceed from here’. The purpose of concepts or categories is ‘to in� uence theevolution of ongoing practices’. Hence, they can be de� ned to certain purposes andrede� ned to other purposes. As Tanesini says, paraphrasing Wittgenstein, ‘to make aclaim about the meaning of a certain word is to make a claim about how the word oughtto be used, it is not to describe how the word is used’. Along similar lines, Derek Edwards(1991, pp. 516–518) describes categorization as social practice, and language as ‘primar-ily a medium for the accomplishment of social actions’. Because of this he advises startingnot with ‘abstracted category content ’ but with ‘situated usage’ (1991, p. 520).

While I wish to use Tanesini and Edwards to emphasize the active marshalling ofdiscourses for political purposes, I would want to qualify this with a reminder that no onestands outside discourse. This raises an important question about the extent to whichsubjects are either ‘discourse users’ or are constituted in discourse (Burr, 1995, chapters

ISSN 0159-6306 (print)/ISSN 1469-3739 (online)/00/010045-13 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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7, 8, 9), a question where I detect some ambivalence among some policy-as-discoursetheorists (see section on ‘Theoretical Lacune’ below). With this proviso, I want toinvestigate brie� y the meaning of discourse produced by an emphasis on the ‘situatedusage’ of the term.

Paul Bove (1990, p. 53) helps here with his insistance that it is inconsistent to searchfor a ‘correct’ de� nition of discourse. In his view, to attempt to provide a de� nitionwould ‘contradict the logic of the structure of thought in which the term “discourse” nowhas a newly powerful critical function’. I would support his argument with the claim thatwe cannot provide de� nitions of discourse because the whole idea of discourse is thatde� nitions play an important part in delineating ‘knowledge’. Because de� nitions havethese effects, they require scrutiny, not replication. With Bove (1990, p. 51), I will bearguing that ‘key terms are � nally more important for their place within intellectualpractices, than they are for what they may be said to “mean” in the abstract’.

Moving from this general perspective on language, I would suggest that policy-as-discourse theorists de� ne ‘discourse’ in ways that accomplish goals they/we deemworthwhile. In the main, policy analysts who describe policy-as-discourse have at somelevel an agenda for change. They tend to be political progressives, loosely positioned onthe left of the political spectrum. They de� ne discourse then in ways that identify whatthey see to be the constraints on change, while attempting to maintain space for a kindof activism. Their primary purpose in invoking discourse is to draw attention to themeaning making which goes on in legal and policy debates. The goal is to illustrate thatchange is dif� cult, not only because reform efforts are opposed, but because the ways inwhich issues get represented have a number of effects that limit the impact of reformgestures. The argument is that issues get represented in ways that mystify power relationsand often create individuals responsible for their own ‘failures’, drawing attention awayfrom the structures that create unequal outcomes. The focus on ‘the ways issues getrepresented’ produces a focus on language and on ‘discourse’, meaning the conceptualframeworks available to describe social processes.

I am suggesting then that policy-as-discourse theorists develop an understanding ofdiscourse which suits their political purpose. This argument may also help explainthe varieties of uses of discourse available in contemporary social and political theory.Ania Loomba (1998, p. 96) shows, for example, that another meaning of discourse,which emphasizes text rather than context, is common among those located in literarystudies. Raymond Michalowski ’s (1993, pp. 378–389) identi� cation of two branches ofdeconstruction assists in sorting out these different uses of discourse. Michalowskiassociates one tradition, literary deconstruction, with Barthes (1967) and Jameson(1972). This tradition places ‘meaning-making in the hands of the “readers” ratherthan “writers” ’. The second, social deconstruction, associated with Bakhtin (1968),Foucault (1970, 1975, 1977, 1980) and Bataille (1985), ‘approaches society less as ananalog to the literary text and more as an integrated patterning of ritual performances’.It is this latter tradition that dominates among policy-as-discourse theorists (Codd, 1988,pp. 240–242).

Literary deconstruction tends to see everything as text, whereas social deconstruction-ists—among whom I would include policy-as-discourse analysts—emphasize the pro-cesses involved in the creation of text. Because literary deconstruction places‘meaning-making in the hands of the “readers’ rather than “writers” ’, social analysisinformed by literary deconstruction ‘represents a radical return of the subject to socialinquiry’. By contrast, according to Michalowski (1993, p. 383, ‘[T]hroughout analysesin� uenced by social deconstruction there are rumours of power. Sociey is more than an

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Policy as discourse 47

accumulation of private, subjective meanings. Meanings are bound to historical condi-tions. ’

This distinction between literary and social deconstructionist provides a starting placeto re� ect upon the varieties of social theory often contained under the broad rubric‘postmodernism’. Pauline Rosenau (1992, pp. 15–16) usefully distinguishes between‘af� rmative’ and ‘skeptical’ postmodernists. In her view skeptical postmodernists(Michalowski ’s literary deconstructionists) represent the ‘dark side of post-modernism, thepost-modernism of despair, the post-modernism that speaks of the immediacy of death,the demise of the subject [compare with the radical return of the subject above], the endof the author, the impossibility of truth, and the abrogation of the Order of Representa-tion’. Rosenau characterizes their view of modernity as one of ‘radical, unsurpassableuncertainty’ in which ‘no social or political “project” is worthy of commitment’. Her‘af� rmatives’, Michalowski ’s social deconstructionists, are also critical of modernity butremain ‘open to positive political action (struggle and resistance)’ and do not shy awayfrom ‘af� rming an ethic, making normative choices, and striving to build issue-speci� cpolitical coalitions’.

Theorists who describe policy as discourse line up closer to Rosenau’s af� rmatives thanto her skeptics, and hence on the side of social rather than literary deconstruction,though some continue to re� ect upon the possibilities of combining the two approaches(Ball, 1993). The attraction I see between policy-as-discourse analysts and af� rmativepostmodernism, using Rosenau’s terminology, is a consequence of their political purpose,their commitment to an agenda for change. Skeptical postmodernists, by contrast,according to Rosenau (1992, p. 5), dismiss policy recommendations.

Rosenau provides an insight into the connection between af� rmative postmodernismand the emphasis on the social processes involved in the production of text/discourse. Inher view, literary deconstruction—considering the text in absolute isolation—produces apolitics of despair, possibly because it makes it impossible to identify an enemy and hencea political project. On the other side, social deconstructionists become ‘af� rmatives’because they are willing to identify sources of power and to propose projects to challengethem. In direct contrast, interestingly, for Michalowski, social deconstruction produces apolitics of despair, probably because he sees in the identi� cation of power blocs that needto be overthrown a kind of determinism, a rendering helpless of the individual againstthese power blocs. We have here very different understandings of agency, and differentemphases that need to be teased out.

Policy-as-discourse analysts, I would suggest, are primarily interested in identifying thereasons progressive change has proved so dif� cult to accomplish. Hence, they tend toemphasize the contraints imposed by discourses, through meaning construction. In theprocess, the power to contest discursive constructions goes undertheorized. In some ofthe writing I detect an underlying tension in understandings of discourse, a tension Icharacterize as one between an emphasis on the uses of discourse, and an emphasis onthe effects of discourse. Before examining this tension, I will illustrate the way in whichdiscourse has found a place in policy analysis.

Policy as Discourse: the construction of policy problems

Policy-as-discourse analysts have found discourse useful, as I note above, in identifyingthe reasons progressive change has proved so dif� cult to achieve. This is due, in theirview, not simply because opponents of change quash attempts at reform but becauseissues get represented in ways that subvert progressive intent. This point is made through

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48 C. Bacchi

drawing attention to the ways in which ‘social problems’ or policy problems get ‘created’in discourse.

The premise behind a policy-as-discourse approach is that it is inappropriate tosee governments as responding to ‘problems’ that exist ‘out there’ in the community.Rather ‘problems’ are ‘created’ or ‘given shape’ in the very policy proposals that areoffered as ‘responses’. Rob Watts (1993/1994, pp. 116–118) elaborates most clearly thesource of the turn to discourse in policy analysis in his rejection of the ‘deep-seatedassumption found in both social liberal and radical readings of the modern state thatin state policy intervention there was/is a discovery process which uncovers/ed “real”social problems as a prelude to state policy interventions’. Insightfully he points outthat this exercise ‘deploys categories in such a way as to ignore the possibility thatthe “discovery” of problems requires the discursive constitution and abstraction of categoriesof social practice’ (my emphasis). In Ness Goodwin’s (1996, p. 67) words, a policy-as-discourse approach ‘frames policy not as a response to existing conditions andproblems, but more as a discourse in which both problems and solutions are created’.Hence, the focus for policy-as-discourse theorists is not ‘problems’, which are often thepresumed starting place for policy analysis, but problematizations (see Kritzman, 1988,p. 257).

Murray Edelman (1988) was one of the � rst to draw together a focus on discourse andpolicy problems. Edelman (1988, p. 12) acknowledges his debt to Foucault, describingFoucault’s analysis of madness, crime and sexuality as ‘tracing changes in discourse thatconstitute problems’. In this view, problems ‘are rarely solved, except in the sense thatthey are occasionally purged from common discourse or discussed in changed legal,social or political terms as though they were different problems’. For Edelman (1988,p. 16), the recognition of the discursive construction of policy problems produces thisde� nition of policy: ‘[A] “policy” then is a set of shifting, diverse, and contradictoryresponses to a spectrum of political interests. ’

The emphasis in policy-as-discourse analyses is upon the ways in which language, andmore broadly discourse, sets limits upon what can be said. As one example, Stephen Ball(1990, p. 23) brings a study of discourse to his interpretation of education policy underThatcher in Britain, noting ‘the way in which these emergent discourses were con-structed to de� ne the � eld, articulate the positions and thus subtly set limits to thepossibilities of education policy’. Ball also acknowledges Foucault, appealing to hisde� nition of discourse in Discipline and Punish: discourses are ‘practices that systematicallyform the objects of which they speak; they do not identify objects, they constitute themand in the practice of doing so conceal their own invention’ (Foucault, 1977, in Ball,1990, p. 17). Discourse in these accounts is meant to capture the ways in which bodiesof knowledge, interpretive schema, conceptual schema and signs de� ne the terrain inways that complicate attempts at change.

In traditional approaches, policy is ‘what governments do’. Some policy analysts (seePal, 1992; Burt, 1995) have been willing to accede that what governments refuse to docan be as important as action. But in these accounts we are still encouraged to re� ectupon only that which is addressed in political debate. In other words, it has to bedeliberate refusal to act which we consider. Policy-as-discourse approaches, by contrast,encourage deeper re� ection on the contours of a particular policy discussion, the shapeassigned a particular ‘problem’.

In many cases, it is argued, it is not a matter of ‘governments’ deliberately refusing to‘act’ but of talking about a ‘problem’ as if ‘acting’ is simply inappropriate or not an issue.Watts (1993/1994, p. 119) elaborates ‘the duality of the relationship between “reality”

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Policy as discourse 49

and discourse’. In one sense, he tells us, ‘problems or issues only come to be that waywhen they have become part of a discourse’. At the same time, this opens up ‘thepossibility of continuing debate and contest about what it is that is being de� ned as aproblem worthy of the interest of the state or of becoming the object of state policy’. Tothis I would add the importance of turning an eye to those conditions deemed unworthyof this interest. This is where the idea of policy as discursive activity comes into its own,because it promotes consideration of the ways in which the terms of a discourse limitwhat can be talked about. Such an approach is markedly different from analyses that askwhy and how some issues make it to the political agenda, while others do not (see, forexample, Kingdom, 1995; Cobb & Elder, 1983; Bachrach & Baratz, 1963). Its startingpoint is a close analysis of items that do make the political agenda to see how theconstruction or representation of those issues limits what is talked about as possible ordesirable, or as impossible or undesirable.

In a forthcoming book (Bacchi, 1999) I elaborate the traditions of policy analysis—comprehensive rationalism and political rationalism (see Dudley & Vidovich, 1995,pp. 16–18)—against which policy-as-discourse analysts are reacting. Comprehensiverationalists, like Herbert Simon (1961) and Marshall Dimock (1958, in Braybrooke &Lindblom, 1963, p. 38) have a � rm belief that administrators need to guide policy andto smooth out, if not over, the protests of citizens. In this position, problems are easilyidenti� able in something called the ‘decision space’, and administrators have only to actto the best of their abilities to resolve these problems. By contrast, political rationalists,like Charles Lindblom (1980), David Dery (1984) and Aaron Wildavsky (1979), arehighly critical of comprehensive rationalism. They see themselves as defenders of thecitizenry against bureaucracy, and recommend political structures that increase input bycitizens into the decision-making process. They highlight the way in which ‘solutions’necessarily � ow from the kinds of problem de� nitions that are produced, and hence theyemphasize the politics behind problem de� nition. Despite this sensitivity, they continueto assume that policy analysts stand outside this process and can identify and monitor theimpact of their values. Moreover, their focus is pragmatic, ‘unashamedly applied’, to useDavid Dery’s (1984, p. 38) phrase. In their view, the task of policy analysts is to � nd ‘aproblem about which something can and ought to be done. In a word, the solution ispart of de� ning the problem’ (Wildavsky, 1979, p. 3). The task, according to Wildavsky(1979, p. 3), is ‘not to compile a list of all unful� lled human needs (or even the shorterlist of those which deserve ful� llment), but to connect what might be wanted with whatcan be provided’.

For policy-as-discourse theorists, by contrast, no social actor stands outside the processas either technical adviser or policy planner. Moreover, there is an implied imperativeto consider the impact of policy design on ‘unful� lled human needs’ (compareWildavsky, 1979, p. 3). A model that suggests that ‘(P)olicy analysis … is an activitycreating problems that can be solved’ (Wildavsky, 1979, p. 17) is considered narrow andimplicitly complicit in maintaining the social status quo. For example, Michael Shapiro(1992, p. 99) re� ects upon the framing of the ‘problem’ of ‘traf� c congestion’ as a wayof illustrating the effects of ‘the typical passive grammar of decision makers “faced withproblems”, rather than, for example, a more politically astute version that would inquireinto the way public policy thinking tends to remain within certain narrow modes ofproblematization’. He describes ‘traf� c congestion’ as a middle-class problem, whichalready accepts the ‘segregation, housing, and shaping of the labor force that has arisenfrom the structures of real estate speculation, work-force creation, city planning, and soon’.

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The point here is to recognize the non-innocence of how ‘problems’ get framed withinpolicy proposals, how the frames will affect what can be thought about and how thisaffects possibilities for action. Marie Danziger (1995, p. 438) draws attention to this verypoint with a lovely example from Neil Postman’s (1992) Technopoly. Postman relates thestory of two priests who were having dif� culty deciding about the appropriateness of acertain behaviour and wrote to the Pope for a de� nitive answer:

One priest asks, ‘Is it permissable to smoke while praying’, and was told thatit is not, since prayer should be the focus of one’s whole attention. The otherpriest asks, ‘Is it permissable to pray while smoking’, and was told that it is,since it is always appropriate to pray.

Postman’s point, as Danziger says, is ‘that the form of a question may block us fromseeing solutions to problems that become visible through a different question’ (Postman,1992, p. 126).

To take a more serious example, consider Michael Shapiro’s (1992) analysis ofan Australian government investigation to discover why Aborigines seemed to have ahigh infant mortality rate. The report’s conclusion blamed the ‘semi-nomadic life ofsome of the aborigines’. Here the problem is represented to be the Aborigines’ wayof life and the solution, by implication, was for them to change their lifestyle. Considerby contrast a suggestion that the medical system adjust its delivery facilities to keepup with aboriginal migration. Here the problem becomes the mode of delivery ofthe medical system and this is what must change. It is apparent that one of theseoptions is more expensive than the other and this might explain the framing of theproblem in the way it appeared. The point is to recognize that this might indeed bethe case whereas the language of the report made the conclusion reached seemself-evident. The politics of funding was hidden in this language. The purpose of apolicy-as-discourse approach is to bring such silences in problematizations out into theopen for discussion.

Such revelations are deemed to be an important part of a political process ofchallenge. That is, while policy-as-discourse analysts are intent upon revealing the waysin which discursive constructions of problems make change dif� cult, they tend to believethat exposing these constructions is a useful political exercise. This is because it marksa � rst step in demysti� cation. While discourse limits what can be said, therefore, thereremains a place in these accounts for discursive reconstruction. There is an insistencethat social actors can make a difference to the ways in which problems are constituted.This move is accomplished by insisting that discourses are plural and contradictory.Typically, Watts (1993/1994, p. 123, footnote 63) criticizes work that displays ‘little senseof change or embeddedness in history and relatively little evidence of the real work ofactors in revising and amending and using discourses, and little sense of the contestbetween discourses’.

Some recent policy studies recognize the role of values and competing interests in theshape of policy and policy evaluation. Many have moved on from the model of policymaking as rational decision making and planning (see above). The study by Dalton et al.(1996, p. 16), for example, explicitly elaborates a counter-model, which sees policy as‘strategic and political process’. A policy-as-discourse approach agrees that policy is‘strategic and political process’. However, it sees the battles not simply at the level ofwanting or resisting a particular policy initiative, but at the level of constituting the shapeof the issues to be considered.

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Policy as discourse 51

Theoretical Lacunae: power, ideology, subjectivity

Within the social deconstructionist, and hence policy-as-discourse position, there aresome ambivalences or theoretical lacunae that need addressing. As mentioned above, insome of the writing I detect an underlying tension in understandings of discourse, atension I characterize as one between an emphasis on the uses of discourse, and anemphasis on the effects of discourse. A focus on the uses of discourse produces anemphasis on the agentic marshalling of discourses, including concepts and categories, forpolitical purposes (see Tanesini and Edwards above). Theorists who talk about rhetorictend to emphasize the uses of discourse. A focus on effects produces an emphasis ondiscursive location and the constraints this imposes on our political analyses. StephenBall’s (1993) article ‘What is Policy?’ makes it clear, for example, that to him ‘policy asdiscourse’ emphasizes the constraints imposed by discourse, while an analysis of ‘policyas text’ places more control in the hands of the readers. His ambivalence about how tocombine the two approaches points to a need to clarify the relationship betweendiscourse and subjectivity.

In this section, I want to illustrate where this tension between the uses and effects ofdiscourse causes problems for some policy-as-discourse theorists. According to Purvis andHunt (1993, p. 486), the lacunae I identify here form part of a wider gap in theorizingon discourse: ‘[O]ne aspect of discourse that has received insuf� cient attention is therelation between the conditions of their production and the manner of their deployment.’To put my argument brie� y, I would suggest that in policy-as-discourse theory both theeffects and uses of discourse are described, but that these tend to be applied selectively.That is, there is a tendency to emphasize the effects upon those who are considered tobe lacking power, and an equal tendency to insist that discourses can be used but bythose ‘holding’ power. I think this tendency, which appears in the continued use of termslike ‘ideology’, suggests that policy-as-discourse theorists are still wedded to aspects ofcritical theory which need to be discussed.

Pauline Rosenau (1992, p. 36, footnote 12) offers these insights into what was at stakein Foucault ’s decision to retheorize ‘discourse’. She points out that Foucault wished tocriticize Derrida for attributing too much autonomy to language and for missing thehistorical and political implications of the text. Hence he produced an understanding ofdiscourse which ‘emphasized the relationship of the text to power and to the many forcesthat in� uence its production and its � nal form’. Terry Threadgold (1988, p. 50) usefullydescribes the Foucauldian problematic as twofold—what the subject is able to say, andwhat the subject is permitted to say.

Theorists who describe policy as discourse generally employ this dual problematic.Stephen Ball (1990, pp. 17–18) describes discourses as ‘about what can be said, andthought, but also about who can speak, when, where and with what authority’. Thisnecessarily draws attention to both the power of discourse to delimit topics of analysis(e.g. effects) and the power to make discourse (e.g. uses). On the power of discourse, Ballcontends, ‘discourses construct certain possibilities for thought. They order and combinewords in particular ways and exclude or displace other combinations.’ On the power tomake discourse, he (1990, p. 18) explains, ‘[M]eanings thus arise not from language, butfrom institutional practices, from power relations, from social position. Words andconcepts change their meaning and their effects as they are deployed within differentdiscourse.’ James Codd (1988, pp. 240–242) develops a similar position. He contrasts theidealist and materialist views of language, in which the latter recognizes that ‘words,whether in speech-acts or texts, do more than simply name things or ideas that already

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52 C. Bacchi

exist’. Rather, he calls for a conception of ‘how the use of language can produce realsocial effects’. In this materialist theory of language, discourse embodies ‘both the formalsystem of signs and the social practices which govern their use’. In this interpretation,discourse ‘refers not only to the meaning of language but also to the real effects oflanguage-use, to the materiality of language’.

In policy-as-discourse analysis, there is a tendency to concentrate on the ability ofsome groups rather than others to make discourse, and on some groups rather thanothers as effected or constituted in discourse. To put the point brie� y, those who aredeemed to ‘hold’ power are portrayed as the ones making discourse, whereas those whoare seen as ‘lacking’ power are described as constituted in discourse. For those ‘with’power, policy-as-discourse theorists tend to suggest an agentic marshalling of discourse,along the lines of Tanesini and Edwards (see above). For example, Edelman (1988, p. 36)describes the ‘construction of problems’ as ‘as much a way of knowing and a way ofacting strategically as a form of description’. The use of the term ‘strategically’ is at thevery least suggestive of intentionality. Watts’ suggestion (1993/1994, p. 108) that thediscovery/response model of traditional policy analysis neglects the multifarious ways inwhich governments and other groups, such as the medical profession, shape ourunderstandings of social life again produce certain groups, those with ‘power’, as‘shapers’ of discourse. Susan Phillips (1996, p. 256) states explicitly that ‘(F)or policystudies, however, it is important that discourse as meaning be linked with a subject as thesupplier of that meaning and that language and text be understood in relation to theactions of these subjects.’ This supports my earlier contention that policy-as-discourseanalysts by default favour an understanding of discourse which allows for agenticproduction of discourse, and which implies the use of discourse by dominant groups intheir efforts to remain dominant. There is an attempt, however, to refuse conspiracytheories. Stephen Ball (1990, p. 155), for example, refers to the ‘purposive actions ofindividuals’ while insisting (1990, p. 155) that the discursive process ‘cannot simply bereduced to the intentions and ambitions of a few key actors’. Attempts to smooth overany tension here tend to use the language of discursive and extra-discursive factors. Thisis meant to direct attention to the ‘social-institutional context’ in which discourse islocated (see Fraser, 1995, p. 287; Bove, 1990, p. 57).

A balance then is struck among policy-as-discourse analysts. Discourses are describedas conceptual schema attached to speci� c historical, institutional and cultural contexts,making it clear that no agent is completely free to construct or reconstruct them (seeBosso, 1994, p. 189). At the same time, recognizing the institutional location of discoursesdraws attention to the differential power of some actors in their production. Thesetheorists are crucially concerned with discussing who ‘produces’ discourse, who controlsthe ‘enunciative position’ (Maroney, 1992, p. 239). Discourses then are not the directproduct of intentional manipulation by a few key political actors, but neither are theytranshistorical structures operating outside of human intervention.

While this balance seems to work at one level, it leaves undiscussed the meaning ofpower implied in this kind of analysis. Michalowski identi� es the ‘rumours of power’operating in social deconstruction (see above). There is a tendency among somepolicy-as-discourse analysts to assume some of the old connotations of ‘power over’ whichreside in critical theory. They tend to use language that talks about domination andimplies a group or groups that are dominant (see for example Fegan, 1996, p. 78). Watts(1993/1994, p. 118) directs attention to ‘the special role of the intellectually andprofessionally trained, whether in state employment or in civil society, who are impli-cated in processes of what can be called “constitutive abstraction” ’. Here he is

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Policy as discourse 53

attempting to identify the actors engaged in the role of meaning making, speci� cally inthe realm of policy and policy problems. For Jane Jenson (1997, p. 294), ‘[T]hisunderstanding of representation implies that a power relationship is at the root of allpolitical discourse. ’ Jenson is explicit that for her the important point is that ‘[A]ll actorsdo not exercise the same power over meaning systems.’

This particular concern is re� ected in the continuing use of the term ‘ideology’ bymany policy-as-discourse theorists, despite the fact that Foucault explicitly rejected theusefulness of the notion (Loomba, 1998, p. 34; McLeod, 1993, p. 113). Vivian Burr(1995, chapter 5) explains that there are at least four meanings of ideology operating incontemporary social analysis, and that the old Marxian notion of ideology as falseconsciousness is generally rejected by contemporary theorists. Still, at some level, therecontinues to be slippage around some of these issues. Those who continue to use the term‘ideology’ seem to want to be able to identify an enemy, a focus of attack, the ideologues.Trevor Purvis and Alan Hunt (1993, p. 476) make this point more subtly: ‘(I)deology thusimplies the existence of some link between “interests” and “forms of consciousness”.’Interests, or power blocs, operate as sometimes unnamed actors in policy-as-discourseanalyses.

On the other side, in some authors there is a tendency to see discourses as expressionsof values, values picked up by the by through what can only be described as processesof socialization. In Jane Jenson (1988, p. 156), for example, discourses are assumptions,or at least this is all we can conclude given Jenson’s insistance on the role of discoursein delimiting policy and the comment: ‘(P)olicy-makers’ assumptions—along with thoseof other signi� cant political actors—set limits on the alternatives considered feasible forpolicy implementation. ’ Similarly, Mary Hawkesworth (1988, p. 82) focuses on thein� uence of ‘presuppostions’ in the shaping of policy debates and policy. These, we aretold, are ‘acquired through a process of indirect learning inseparable from immersionand socialization to a particular culture’.

Vivian Burr (1995, chapter 1) points to the inconsistency in positing a sociallyconstructed world while attributing decision making to the ‘attitudes’ people ‘hold’. Herpoint here is that this kind of explanation accepts an essentialist view of human beingsas ‘value holders’. To contrast with this view, she (1995, p. 116) offers the idea of‘interpretive repertoires’, developed by Potter and Wetherell (1987). These accountsreturn the emphasis to the volition of discourse users, where ‘values’ are not necessarily‘held’ in some internal sense but may be invoked or appealed to in order to produceparticular effects. I offer an example from my own work to illustrate these twoapproaches. Whereas Hawkesworth sees the debate about af� rmative action as due to acon� ict between deeply embedded, competing conceptions of the individual, ‘atomisticindividuality’ and ‘socialized individuality’, I (Bacchi, 1996) highlight the way in whichpolitical actors, including theorists, offer competing conceptions of the individual todefend their interpretation of af� rmative action. What is missing from accounts likeHawkesworth’s is an awareness that indeed some people pro� t from the visions of realitythey offer, that they have good reasons to defend their views of reality, and good reasonsto oppose contending positions. I try to capture this aspect of the uses of discourse in mynotion of category politics, which refers to the deployment of categories for politicalpurposes.

The suggestion that policy actors simply implement policies that align with values theyhave absorbed through socialization has another problem. As a number of poststructural-ists (McLeod, 1993, p. 112; Thorne, 1993, p. 107; Davies, 1994, p. 76) have pointed out,it creates individuals as the helpless ‘objects’ of processes of socialization. For these

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reasons, Bronwyn Davies (1994, p. 76) insists on the need to distinguish between ‘thehumanist concept of socialisation’ and ‘the poststructuralist concept of subjecti� cation’.The challenge is ‘to the humanist vision of one who essentially is, rather than beingpositioned as one who can or cannot speak in this way or that’. So, subjects arepositioned in relation to multiple and contradictory discourses, opening up a space forchange. Jenson and Hawkesworth would doubtless agree with this analysis, but their useof the language of ‘socialization’ and ‘assumptions’ tends to produce subjects who can beexpected to speak in only one way.

Moreover, Jenson and Hawkesworth direct their attention only to the meaning ofdiscourse among those who are seen as decision makers. I detect a distinct undertheroz-ing among these and some other policy-as-discourse analysts of the meaning and uses ofdiscourse among those at the receiving end of decisions. For those at this end theemphasis rather is upon how they are constituted in discourse. Above, it was mentionedthat Foucault describes discourses as practices. Most theorists who describe policy asdiscourse accept this focus and direct attention to the material effects of discourses (seeFrazer & Lacey, 1993, p. 179). We have already discussed the emphasis on the ways inwhich discourses place constraints on what can be said. Relatedly, policy-as-discourseanalysts are interested in the way in which groups are assigned positions and value withinpolicy discourses, as ‘needy’ (Fraser, 1989), for example, or as ‘disadvantaged’ (Eveline,1994; Bacchi, 1996). Gillian Fulcher (1989) examines the way in which the ‘disabled’ areconstituted as the ‘problem’ in policy on disability. The argument here is that thesepositionings leave the power to de� ne ‘need’ and ‘disadvantage’ in those designing thepolicy. They can also disempower groups who are thus ‘created’ as supplicants. Thereis a need to be wary here about how this emphasis on the discursive positioning ofoutgroups produces them as disempowered in ways reminiscent of strong socializationtheory (Bacchi, 1990, p. 236). The only ones getting to ‘use’ ‘discourse’ in this approach,it appears, are those ‘holding’ power.

In the desire to insist upon recognizing the ‘lived effects’ of discourse, possibilities forchallenge and change go undertheorized. The parameters of this problem are illustratedin a debate between Foucault and authors more concerned about the material effects ofdiscourse. In Foucault and some adaptations of him (see Marcus, 1992), once weacknowledge that the way we think about things is delimited by socially constructedmeanings, the way forward appears to be simply to challenge those meanings. Regardingrape, Foucault insists that its power resides in the discursive construction of sexuality asintegral to personhood, and that therefore we need to encourage women to challenge thismeaning, to think about rape as like shoving ‘a � st in someone’s mouth’ (quoted inChange, 1977, in Plaza, 1980, p. 31). Foucault’s attempt to challenge the constructednature of sexuality produces the decision, on his part, to deny the sexual character ofrape.

This particular interpretation of the way forward seems to allow subjects to stepoutside their discursive positioning to challenge discourses. Policy-as-discourse theoriststend, by contrast, to insist upon the ‘lived effects’ of discourse (Bordo, 1993; Frazer &Lacey, 1993). Monique Plaza (1980, p. 36) develops this position, insisting that ‘we mustcon� rm that rape is sexual, to the extent that it refers to social sexing, to the socialdifferentiation of the sexes’. Whereas Foucault offers a purely discursive response, Plazaemphasizes the relevance of nondiscursive factors, such as the social location of womenand men. In her view, for the woman raped, the experience is not equivalent to havinga � st shoved in her mouth. Her feelings will re� ect the ‘lived effects’ of discourse and itis sadly inadequate to suggest that she simply start to ‘think differently’ about sexuality.

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There are real bodies and real people living the effects of discursive conventions, and itis essential to attend to the harms they experience. Again, this kind of explanationemphasizes the constraints upon possible responses.

The point of this discussion is to suggest that policy-as-discourse analysts need toconsider explicitly their claims about discourse and its effects. The tendency to identifyonly some groups as able ‘users’ of discourse needs to be reconsidered. So too theemphasis on the discursive positioning of outgroups produces these groups as disempow-ered in ways that work against the political agendas of policy-as-discourse theorists. Weneed then to strike a balance between the constitutive effects, including the lived effectsof discourse (see Davies, 1994; Bordo, 1993), and a recognition that discourses can beused to effect (see Tanesini, 1994).

Conclusion

I began this paper with the proposal that ‘discourse’, like any term, can have manymeanings. Any imposition of de� nition is related to a range of factors. I emphasize theconnection between de� nition and political project. The point is that there is no singleor correct de� nition of discourse; we de� ne it to suit our purposes, though this usuallyhappens without conscious intent. What we have uncovered in contending positions ondiscourse, its origins and its impact, is not just a matter of confusion or even intellectualdisagreement. There are political stakes in the contending positions. In order tounderstand disagreements over the word, I � nd it useful to uncover, to the best of ourability, the political projects they represent.

I have suggested that policy-as-discourse scholars have an often unstated commitmentto political projects that challenge current ‘relations of domination’ (see Thompson,1984). Consequently, for them, discourses are powerful; they provide meanings that assistparticular groups to maintain positions of in� uence; but they are not an overarchingstructure operating outside of history. People use discourses in these accounts; some‘shape’ discourses that help maintain their positions of authority and in� uence; othersintervene and contest representations that uphold the power relations they want tochallenge. The invocation of the term ‘discourse’ is, � rst and foremost, an expression ofthe desire to say something about how dif� cult it is to accomplish progressive socialchange. At the same time, a reluctant optimism about the possibility of change producesa de� nition of discourse which emphasizes contradiction and multiplicity, in order tocreate the space for challenge.

In the last section of the paper, I suggested that policy-as-discourse analysts need tospend more time theorizing the ‘space for challenge’. I � nd an overemphasis on theconstraints imposed by discourse/s and a tendency to concentrate upon some groups,those described as ‘having’ power, as the makers and users of discourse. My argumentis that discourse will not adequately serve the strategic purposes of policy-as-discoursetheorists as an analytical tool until this overemphasis is corrected. To this end I wouldsuggest pursuing further the lines of investigation opened up by Ball’s (1993) descriptionof policy as discourse and policy as text, keeping open the ‘fertile tensions’ betweentheoretical perspectives (Mallon, 1994, p. 1515, in Loomba, 1998, p. 253).

Correspondence: Carol Bacchi, Politics Department, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SouthAustralia 5005, Australia. Email: cbacchi@arts.adelaide.edu.au

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