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Understanding the policy process
and landscape through
discourse analysis
Joe Mockshell & Regina Birner
CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) Workshop:
Approaches and Methods for Policy Process Research
November 18-20, 2013, Washington DC, USA
Agricultural policy context
• Why do African governments adopt their policies?
• Focus on incentive systems
– Bates (1981): Government’s incentive to stay in power
– Van de Walle (2001): Neo-patrimonial state
– Jayne et al. (2002): Incentive dilemma – role of donors
– Olper & Raimondi (2010): Role of regime types
– Swinnen (1994 ) Political support function
• Role of ideologies and values – more recent
– Dutt and Mitra (2010): Role of political ideology
• Research gap & study objective
– Empirical research on role of policy beliefs is missing
– Identify prevailing agricultural policy beliefs
• Case study of Ghana and Uganda
2
Discourse analysis approach
• Discourses through
– Texts (Fairclough 1995; van Dijk 1998), Frames (Shöne & Rein 1994), Story-lines (Hajer 2006)
• Study followed Hajer’s approach of discourse analysis
– Identifies story-lines and metaphors in discourses
– Expressed through language use
• Discourse coalition
– Ensemble of story-lines and actors that utter the story
– Actors that share common story-lines in their discourses
• Policy actors have (van Dijk 1998):
– Positive self-representation of their beliefs
– Negative representation of others beliefs
3
Discourse analysis approach
• In-depth interviews
– Broad initial questions (Roe 1994)
• Challenges affecting the agricultural sector
• Policy instruments to address challenges
• Quantitative approach
– Principal Component Analysis (PCA) & Cluster Analysis
• Novelty of the study
– Application of quantitative analysis to
• identify policy themes and
• discourse coalitions from discourses
4
Research method: sampling
Stakeholder organizations Ghana Uganda
Government agencies (Agriculture policy unit, extension & finance)
7 7
Academic (Agriculture, Agricultural Economics & Political science)
3 4
Think tanks (Research) 1 2
Donor agencies & IFIa 5 6
Non-governmental Organization 4 4
Political party representatives & Parliamentarians 5 4
Interest groups (Civil society Organization) 3 2
Farmers (small & large scale) 2 3
Traditional authorities 1 -
Local government 2 2
Total (67 in-depth interviews) 33 34
aInternational Financial Institutions 5
Data analysis
• In the field
– Memo-writing to identify themes
– ‘Study your emerging data’ (Charmaz 2006)
– ‘Completeness’ & ‘dissimilarity’ (Blee & Taylor 2002)
– Additional actors to be involved and new questions
• After the field work: analysis with Nvivo
– Upload of documents
– Transcription of recorded interviews
– Notes of non-recorded interviews
– Coding of texts
– Identification of metaphors and story-lines
– Inclusion of additional texts (government programs,
donor strategies)
6
Analysis: Nodes & Codes
• Total of 60 transcripts
• Identification of 17
policy themes from
coding
• Binary value to each
policy theme
• 1=Yes if the theme
appeared in the policy
discourses of a
particular respondent
without prompting &
0=No if otherwise)
7
NVivo screenshot
Policy themes (PCA results)
8
Ghana Uganda
Policy themes Eigenvalues Policy themes Eigenvalues
Input subsidy & appropriate
technology 5.49
Market price support &
storage 5.82
Quality of agricultural input 2.42
Appropriate technology 2.16
Low agricultural
productivity
1.80
Quality of agricultural
input 1.76
Market price support &
storage
1.46
Inadequate land
policies 1.34
Youth involvement in
agriculture 1.31
Input subsidy & low
agric. Productivity 1.13
Rainfall dependent
farming & crop insurance
1.04
Discourse coalition (Cluster analysis)
Policy stakeholder organizations
Ghana Uganda
Domestic
coalition
Donor
coalition
Domestic
coalition
Donor
coalition
Government agencies
(agricultural policy unit,
extension & finance)
7 0 6 0
Academic (agricultural
economics, political science) 0 3 2 2
Think tank (research) 0 1 2 0
International finance Institutions/
Donor organizations 0 5 0 6
Non-governmental organizations 3 2 3 1
Political party representatives
and parliamentarians 5 0 4 0
Interest groups 3 0 2 0
Local governments 1 0 2 0
Total 19 11 21 9
9
Summary of some key discourses
10
Domestic policy coalition
Public sector centered
Donor-led coalition
Private sector centered
Framing of the main problem
Farmers do not have access to inputs
Institutions are not available, poor implementation, capacity
Views on input subsidies Important to transform agriculture
Subsidies not sustainable, kill private sector initiatives
Views on appropriate technology (mechanization)
Important to modernize agriculture to attract the youth
Should be achieved by the private sector
Self-image
Capable of understanding domestic problems and determining the best policy option for the local economy
Capable of bringing external experience and superior knowledge to provide evidence based policy options
Other-image They come with policies that create dependency
They lack capacity, they do not have any figures to show
Policy beliefs about mechanization
The youth prefers jobs outside
agriculture, which offer “better
jobs than the drudgery that the
youth go to face when they go
into farming, because farming
in Ghana is still largely
dependent on hoe & cutlasses,
so it is a lot of drudgery
involved, so it is not attractive.”
(Member of Ghana Parliament)
“the tractors have a political
image, because they are
big, when they say we have
brought in tractors, when
they say we have brought
in 1000 tractors, you can
make a big political
statement of it.”
(Development consultant)
Domestic coalition beliefs Donor coalition beliefs
• Two worlds in agricultural policy making
• Pay attention to role of policy beliefs in agricultural policy making
11
Thank you
Transform
qualitative
data
Policy
beliefs &
discourse
coalition
PCA &
cluster
analysis
In-depth
Interviews
Policy
themes
coding
of
transcripts
12
Appendix 1: Ghana
PCA: Policy themes, (Pattern Matrix)
Policy themes
Input
subsidy &
appropriate
technology
Quality
of agric.
input
Low agric.
productivity
Market
price
support &
storage
Youth
involveme
nt in
agriculture
Rainfall
dependent
farming &
crop
insurance
Appropriate technology 0.88 0.00 -0.23 -0.17 -0.14 0.15
Inadequate access to credit 0.78 0.01 0.30 0.17 0.04 0.13
Fertiliser subsidy 0.69 -0.14 -0.06 0.24 -0.11 -0.19
Agric. mechanisation 0.51 0.00 0.01 0.21 -0.49 -0.14
Rainfall dependent agric. 0.39 -0.46 -0.20 0.16 -0.07 -0.31
Public extension 0.35 0.04 -0.07 0.72 0.16 0.14
Counterfeit inputs -0.07 0.86 -0.04 -0.13 -0.16 0.01
Quality standards 0.15 0.76 0.03 0.30 0.23 -0.20
Hoe and cutlass farming 0.06 0.39 0.04 0.27 -0.68 -0.17
Irrigation facilities 0.27 -0.37 0.33 0.38 -0.06 -0.17
Low agric. Productivity -0.07 -0.01 -0.89 0.26 0.16 0.10
Private extension -0.17 0.00 0.87 0.06 0.10 0.21
Lack of storage facility -0.07 0.00 -0.02 0.86 -0.20 -0.18
Market price support -0.06 0.01 -0.13 0.86 -0.10 0.10
Youth in agric. policy 0.19 -0.12 0.06 -0.06 -0.79 -0.02
Inadequate land policies -0.19 -0.21 -0.01 0.27 -0.58 0.58
Crop insurance 0.23 -0.04 0.09 -0.01 0.11 0.89
Eigenvalues 5.49 2.42 1.80 1.46 1.31 1.04
13
Appendix 2: Uganda
PCA: Policy themes, (Pattern Matrix)
Policy themes Market
price
support &
storage
Appropriate
technology
Quality of
agric.
input
Inadequate
land
policies
Input subsidy
& low
agricultural
productivity
Quality standards 0.86 -0.20 -0.02 0.08 -0.04
Lack of storage facility 0.80 0.07 -0.08 0.02 0.03
Hoe and cutlass farming 0.59 0.54 -0.13 -0.28 0.14
Market price support 0.50 0.36 -0.09 0.03 -0.19
Youth in agriculture policy 0.45 -0.08 0.25 -0.33 -0.36
Public extension 0.39 0.10 -0.06 0.29 -0.60
Rainfall dependent agric. 0.07 0.90 0.02 0.07 -0.04
Irrigation facilities -0.05 0.88 0.06 -0.06 0.13
Fertiliser subsidy -0.15 0.57 0.19 0.10 -0.45
Counterfeit inputs 0.06 0.42 -0.54 0.40 0.02
Agricultural mechanisation 0.21 0.40 -0.04 -0.31 -0.46
Private extension -0.16 0.30 0.84 0.09 -0.10
Crop insurance 0.08 -0.05 0.65 0.19 0.53
Inadequate land policies -0.05 0.05 -0.10 -0.87 0.01
Appropriate technology 0.26 -0.15 0.22 0.08 -0.77
Low agricultural productivity -0.11 -0.05 -0.06 -0.10 -0.71
Inadequate access to credit 0.24 0.28 -0.18 -0.02 -0.64
Eigenvalues 5.82 2.16 1.76 1.34 1.13
14