Power and policy analysis

Power between the tie and t-shirt

Challenging the Crisis, Brussels, 7 July 2014

Dr. Momodou Sallah and Dr. Celina Del Felice

Objetives Introduce power analysis tools

AlthusserThompson’s PCS modelFreireBerger and LuckmannGaventa’s power cube

Explain how these tools can be applied with case studies

Apply the tools to your own context

Understanding power

Decisional power: interestsDiscursive power: ideas,

words, identities and norms

Inseparability of interests, identities and norms

Seduced by the defective logic: challenging the construction of normality

Althusser (1971) Repressive State Apparatus and the Ideological State Apparatuses

Berger and Luckmann (1967) construction of Social Reality

Freire “defective logic”Thompson’s PCS

Althusser (1971)Repressive State

Apparatus (e.g.Police, Administration, Army)

Ideological State Apparatus (e.g. Media, Education and religious outlets)

Organised vs diverseHegemony through ISA

Berger and Luckmann (1967) Construction of Social Reality

“The world of everyday life is not only taken for granted as reality by the ordinary members of society in the subjectively meaningful conduct of their lives.  It is a world that originates in their thoughts and actions, and is maintained as real by these.” (p 33)

““The thing we know about our world and how it The thing we know about our world and how it works are not things out there in the world that works are not things out there in the world that we merely observe. Rather they were constructed we merely observe. Rather they were constructed by human meaning makingby human meaning making”” (Rogers, 1989:26) (Rogers, 1989:26)

7

Paulo Freire and the Banking Concept of Education

Banking vs. Problem posing Liberation vs. domestification Education is political in nature Intransitive, semi transitive and critical

transitivity “One of the gravest obstacles to the

achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorb those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings consciousness” (Freire 1971:33)

Education is Neutral? “There is no such thing as a neutral educational

process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes ‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (Shaull in Freire 1972:16)

Thompson (2003) PCS modelPCSG (DMU YCD 2013)

Gaventa’s power cube

European ParliamentBrussels, 28 January 2009

Clarion Hotel (VII Round of Negotiations EU-CA Association AgreementTegucigalpa, 31 March 2009

Invited spaces – created spaces

What is the power of citizen activism?

… contributes to shape the normative contents of global politics.

(What is perceived as right and wrong?)

Also economic normative contents?

Nelson and Dorsey (2007). EJIR 13 (2): 187-216 (new rights advocacy)

Gold and Morin (2010). EJIR 16(4): 563–587 (right to health and intellectural property rights

Actions and the EPAs Campaign

Actions in Europe and Central America

Strategies of transnational activism

Coordinated actions: “North” & “South”

“Concentrated” interests with material capabilities (bussiness associations, trade unions) and “diffuse” interests, groups advocating for general societal well-being (environmental and development orgs)

Mix of approaches to activism (“insider” and “outsider” strategies)

Picture: http://www.waronwant.org/images/stories/trade_justice/trade_justice_homepage.jpg (Accessed 28 November 2011)

Power in discourseW

ays of ac

ting

Global markets integration

Created spaces

Challenges to markets integration

Ways of representing economic reality

Invited spaces

Affecting the EU

Surprise… Responding…

The response of the EU

EPAs

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Year

Nr.

do

cs

Total EC documents on EPAs

Technical/legal

Speeches/ Presentations

Briefing papers/updates/ reports

Press releases/ off icialcommunications

Adas

02468

101214

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Year

Nr.

do

cs

Total EC documents onEU-CA agreement

Technical/legal

Speeches/Presentations

Briefingpapers/updates/ reports

Press releases/ off icialcommunications

Events-related

What explains the power of these campaigns?

Resources to mobilise – and sustain advocacy over time

Type of networks: N-S, interests and ideas

Mix of strategies: protests and dialogue

Discursive capacity: Links to and reinforcement of (some) Southern governments positions

Now it’s your turn

What resources to mobilise do you have?

What approaches to activism can you use? Prefer to use? What spaces can you use?

What networks and coalitions can you build? Who are all the stakeholders?

What are your ideas? How do they relate to the ideas of others?