PEDU 6209
Policy Studies in Education
Topic 5
Perspectives in Policy Studies: Discursive-Critical Perspective
A. Argumentative and Persuasive Turns in Policy Studies
1. Public policy as argumentative and persuasive practices
a. Redefining the nature of public policy: “As politicians know too well
but social scientists too often forget, public policy is made of
language. Whether in written or oral form, argument is central in all
stages of the policy process.” (Majone, 1989, p.1)
b. Redefining the role of the policy analysts: “In a system of
government by discussion, analysis - even professional analysis has less to do with formal techniques of problem solving than with
process of argument. The job of analysts consists in large part of
producing evidence and arguments to be used in the course of
public debate. Its crucial argumentative aspect is what distinguishes
policy analysis from the academic social science on the one hand,
and from problem-solving methodologies such as operations
research on the other. … They must persuade if they are to be
taken seriously in the forums of public deliberation. Thus, analysts,
like lawyers, politicians, and others who make a fundamental use of
use of language, will always be involved in all the technical
problems of language, including rhetorical problems. (Majone, 1989,
p. 7)
2. Public policy as practice of persuasion
1. Redefining the nature of public policy: “All our talk of ‘making’ public
policy, of ‘choosing’ and ‘deciding’, loses track of the home truth …
that politics and policy making is mostly a matter of persuasion.
Decide, choose, legislate as they will, policy makers must carry
people with them, if their determinations are to have the full force of
policy. …To make policy in a way that makes it stick, policy makers
cannot merely issue edicts. They need to persuade the people who
must follow their edicts if those are to become general public
practice.” (Goodin et al., 2006, p. 5)
2. Redefining the core of the discipline: “Not only is the practice of
pulic policy making largely a matter of persuasion. So is the
discipline of studying public policy making aptly described as itself
being a ‘persuasion’. It is a mood more than a science, a loosely
organized body of percepts and positions rather than a tightly
integrated body of systemic knowledge, more art and craft and
genuine ‘science’.” (ibid)
B. Discursive Perspective in Policy Studies
1. Locating the level of study for policy discourse
a. The concept of discourse has become popular in social sciences in
past decades. As the concept being used by various disciplines in
social sciences, the meanings of the concept have become
heterogeneous if not chaotic.
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b. At conversation level, the concept of discourse can refers to speech
act, language use, or parole. For example in classroom discourse
study, discourse is taken as speech act and speech exchange
between teachers and students in the classroom context.
c. At institution level, discourse can refers to cognitive, regulative and
normative rules governing the circulation and practice of ideas,
concepts, categories and representations of social meanings within
a social institutional domain. For examples, in medical institution,
discourse may take the form of a certification issued by a doctor to
a patient indicating the health condition of the latter and the whole
institutional configuration making this certification effective; and in
educational institution, discourse may take the form of a certificate
issued by government to a student certifying passing of an
examination of the latter and the whole institutional configuration
making this certification effective.
d. At socio-cultural system level, discourse can refers to the
dominance or hegemony governing the circulation and/or practice of
ideas, concepts, categories and representations of social meanings
in a society. For example, the discourses of neo-liberal capitalism or
socialism in economy system; discourse of liberal democracy or
proletarian dictatorship in political system; etc.
2. The conception of discourse in public policy
a. Frank Fischer defines “Discourse …is an ensemble of ideas and
concepts that give social meaning to social and physical relations.”
(2003, p. 90)
b. David Howarth defines Discourse refers “to historically specific
systems of meaning which form the identities of subjects and
objects.” (2002, quoted in Fischer, 2003, p. 73
c. Maarten Hajer defines discourse as “a specific ensemble of ideas,
concepts, and categories that are produced, reproduced, and
transformed to give meaning to physical and social relations.” (1995,
quoted in Fischer, 2003, p. 73
e. Taken together these conceptions of discourse, policy discourse
can then be characterized as a historically specific ensemble of
ideas, concepts and categories which gives meaning to physical
and social relations and forms identities of subjects and objects
within a particular policy domain and/or around a specific policy
issue. For example, the neo-liberalism in public policy; the
“Washington consensus” in fiscal policy; the welfare state or the
workfare state in welfare policy; comprehensive- egalitarianism or
quasi-market discourse in education policy.
C. Michel Foucault’s Theory of Discourse
1. Conception of Statement
a. The statement – the constituent unit of a discourse
“The statement is not the same kind of unit as the sentence, the
proposition, or the speech act…The statements is not …a structure
(i.e. a group of relations between variable elements...); it is a
function of existence that properly belong to signs and on the basis
of which one may then decide, through analysis or intuition, whether
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or not they ‘make sense’, according to what rule they follow one
another or are juxtaposed, of what they are the sign, and what sort
of act is carried out by their formulation (oral or written).” (Foucault,
1972, p. 86-87)
b. Accordingly policy statement can then be defined as a specification
or even a prescription (in oral or written format) circulating in a
particular public policy domain. It defines the “conditions of
existence” the objects in the specific public policy domain are
qualified to obtain. For examples, policy statements identify the
insane person, the infected patient, the welfare dependent, the
convicted criminal, the university dropout or graduate, the
EMI-capable, the benchmarked English teacher; and they also
stipulate the institutional treatments to be imposed on them.
2. Conception of discourse
a. A discourse “is the totality of all effective statements (whether
spoken or written). ... Description of discourse is in opposition to the
history of thought. There…a system of thought can be reconstituted
only on the basis of a definite discursive totality. …The analysis of
thought is always allegorical in relation to the discourse that it
employs. Its question is unfailingly: what is being said in what was
said? …what is this specific existence that emerges from what is
said and nowhere else?” (Foucault, 1972, p. 27-28)
“We can now give a full meaning to the definition of
‘discourse’. …We shall call discourse a group of statements in so
far as they belong to the same discursive formation. …It is made up
of a limited number of statements for which a group of conditions of
existence can be defined.” (p. 117)
b. Hence, a policy discourse is a totality and unity of effective policy
statements within a public policy domain in specific historical,
cultural, and socio-economic contexts. For example, the
quasi-market discourse on education reforms implemented by
capitalist states in developed countries in the last decade of the
20th century can be construed as a totality of effective policy
statements which stipulate the underlying principles as well as the
operational mechanism of the schooling system in these countries.
3. Foucault’s Theory of Discursive Formation
Foucault differentiates the formation of a discourse into four interrelated
parts.
a. The Formation of Object:
ii. Mapping the surface of the emergence of the object
ii. Describing the authorities of delimitation
iii. Analyzing the grids of specification
b. The Formation of Enunciative Modality
i. Identifying who is speaking, who is accorded the right to use this
sort of language, who is qualified to do so.
ii. Describing the institutional sites from which the discourse is
made and form which the discourse derives its legitimate source
and point of application
iii. Analyzing the position of the subject, in which s/he occupies in
relation to the various domains and groups of objects
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c. The Formation of Concepts: the formation of the organization of the
field of statements where they appeared and circulated
i. Identifying the forms of succession, e.g.
- Orderings of enunciative series
- Types of dependence of the statement
- Rhetorical schemata according to which groups of statements
may be combined
ii. Identifying the forms of coexistence
- Field of presence
- Field of concomitance
- Field of memory
iii. Identifying the procedures of intervention that may be
legitimately applied to statements, e.g. technique of rewriting ,
method of transcribing, mode of translating, means of
transferring, method of systematizing
d. The Formation of Strategies or theoretical and thematic choice
i. Determining the points of diffraction of discourse
- Point of incompatibility
- Point of equivalence
- Point of systematization
ii. Analyzing the economy of the discursive constellation
iii. Analyzing the other authority, e.g. functional to fields of
non-discursive practice, observing the rules and processes of
appropriation of discourse
5. Foucault’s Theory of Power/Knowledge and Discourse
a. The relation between discourse and power:
“Discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power…
Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it.” (Foucault,
1978, 101, my italic)
b. The concept of power/knowledge
i. “It is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together”
(Foucault, 1978, p. 100) and constitute what Foucault
conceptualized the power/knowledge.
ii. “We should admit … that power and knowledge directly imply one
another; that there is no power relation without the correlative
constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does
not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.
These power/knowledge relations are to be analyzed, therefore,
not on the basis of a subject of knowledge who is or is not free in
relation to the power system, but, on the contrary, the subject who
knows, the objects to be known and the modalities of knowledge
must be regarded as so many effects of these fundamental
implications of power/knowledge and their historical
transformations. In short, it is not the activities of the subject of
knowledge that produces a corpus of knowledge, useful or
resistant to power, but power/knowledge, the processes and
struggles that traverse it and of which it is made up, that
determines the forms and possible domains of knowledge.
(Foucault, 1977, p. 28)
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D. Critical Discourse Analysis
1. Assumptions of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA): As a research
approach, CDA has assigned numbers of particular features to the
understanding of discourse
a. Discourse as social practice: Discourse is no longer construed as
individual language use in forms of text or talk, but as social
practices which implies
i. Representation and/or expression of meaning and value
ii. Acts upon the world
iii. Acts upon social relations between human beings
b. Constitutive nature of discourse: Construed as social practice,
discourse therefore takes on a constitutive nature. In other words,
human beings use discourse to construct the worlds or realities
around them. This constitutive nature of discourse may manifest in
at least three aspects
i. Ideational construction: “Discourse contributes to the
construction of system of knowledge and belief.” (Fairclough,
1992, p. 64) For example, discourse of science contributes to
the construction of the material world around us so are
discourse of myths or religion.
ii. Relational construction: “Discourse help construct social
relationship between people.” (ibid) For example, liberaldemocratic discourse derived from the Enlightenment
contributes to the constitution of the political realities of modern
societies.
iii. Identity construction: Discourse contributes to the construction of
social subjects, self and social identity. For example, the identity
of citizenship is constructed through the liberal-democratic
discourse in the past three centuries in human societies.
c. Dialectic relationship between discourse and the social structure
“It is important that the relationship between discourse and social
structure should be seen dialectically if we are to avoid the pitfalls of
overemphasizing on the one hand the social determination of
discourse, and on the other hand the construction of the social in
discourse.” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 65) In other words, the dialectic
perspective in the relation between discourse and social structure
takes both social determination and social construction into to
consideration and assumes them to be in a interactive and
mediating relation.
d. Discourse is historical: CDA takes discourse as concrete social
practice in particular historical and socio-cultural contexts. Hence,
analysis of contexts, where the discourse takes place, is an
essential part of CDA.
e. Ideological effect of discourse: The core question CDA attempts to
explore how discourse serves as means to legitimatize and
reproduce prevailing power relations and the ideological effects
formed in different forms of social dominations, such as class, race
and gender. Hence, to wage critique on inequalities in power
relations and social distortions and biases in ideological
configurations is what makes CDA “critical”.
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2. Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework of CDA
a. Three-dimensional analytical framework of CDA (Figure 1)
i. Text analysis: This dimension of discourse analysis includes
- Analyses of text
- Analysis of textuality
- Analysis of intertextuality
ii. Discourse analysis: It covers analysis of the process of
production, distribution and consumption of a discourse. In other
words, it basically correspond Foucault’s conception of
discursive formation.
iii. Ideology analysis: This aspect of discourse analysis aims to
reveal the ideological effect embedded and/or constituted in a
particular discursive practice. By ideological effect of a discourse,
it refers to effect of a discourse in legitimating and reproducing
prevailing inequalities in power relations and social distortions
and biases in social-cultural practice.
Furthermore, as an ideological effect of a discourse has
achieved the cognitive status of “taken for granted” or “common
sense” among participants of a discourse, then it has constituted,
what Gramsci conceptualizes, hegemony. Hegemony is “an
ideological complex” (Gramsci, 1971; quoted in Fairclough, 1992,
p. 92), which constitutes “leadership as well as domination
across the economic, political, cultural and ideological domains
of a society.” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 92)
b. The mediating function of discursive practices between textual
practices and social-cultural practices.
“Critical discourse analysis is very much about making connections
between social and cultural structures and processes on the one
hand, and properties of text on the other.” (Fairclough and Wodak,
1997, p. 277) Critical discourse analysts have construed the
dimension of discursive practice as the mediator between the two.
They have characterized the connection to be mediating in nature.
In other words, the connection is neither direct nor deterministic but
in the form of dialectic and interactive.
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Figure 1
Analytical Framework of Critical Discourse Analysis
E. Policy Studies as Social Critiques
1. Conception of social critique and critical social science
a. According to Jurgen Habermas, a prominent figure of Critical
Theory in Germany, the primary concern of critical social scientists
and social critiques in general is to refute the assumption of
empirical-positivistic social researcher that social regularities
revealed in social researches are given facts comparable to those
natural facts discovered in natural science. Accordingly, they must
reflect on the legitimation foundation, which the prevailing social
regularities are built upon. More specially, they have to go beyond
the status quo and try hard to reveal the possible
"power-hypostatized" social relations and "ideologically-frozen"
social discourses at work. (1971, P. 310)
b. Applying these ideas to policy studies, critical policy studies can
then be construed as attempts to unmask the possible
i. distorted social relations hypostatized in specific public policies,
which are bias in favor of the dominants and/or against the
dominated, and
ii. distorted social discourses frozen in particular policy arenas, that
ideologues of the advantageous have forged in order to mystify
and/or rationalize the prevailing biases against the
disadvantaged.
c. As a result, the objective of critical social science, including critical
policy studies, is to emancipate
i. the disadvantageous and dominated from distorted and biased
social relations instituted in prevailing social arrangements;
ii. the articulations and voices of the disadvantageous and
dominated, which have been silenced in the ideologies forged by
the ideologues of the dominants.
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2. Aspects of criticality in policy studies
a. Critique on policy issues and frames: Critical policy researchers can
set out to reflect on the way a policy issue is formulated and framed
by the dominant policy discourse of the state. And see if there are
any relational and ideological distortions embedded in a particular
formulation of policy issue.
b. Critique on policy stances of specific parties: Critical policy
researchers can reflect on the possible relational distortion
embedded in the discursive process of a particular policy arena.
That is, they can assess the chances and capacities that different
interest parties possess in articulating their concerns and in
redressing their grievances. Furthermore, critical policy studies can
also reflect on the ideological distortions found in the arguments
formulated and proclaimed by different parties concerned.
c. Critique on policy context: The third aspect of criticality in policy
studies is to reflect on the macro socio-historical context and/or
meso institutional context, form which a particular policy issue is
originated. More specifically, it can assess whether there is any
relational and ideological distortions embedded in these context,
which give rise to the policy issue at point.
d. Critique on policy practice: The final aspect of criticality in policy
studies is to reflect on the possibilities of transformation and
emancipation that a policy practice can bring about in rectifying the
relational and ideological distortions embedded in a policy
phenomenon.
F. Education Policy in Critical Discourse Perspective: Discursive Analysis of
Lifelong Learning Education Reform in HKSAR
1. In search of discursive object of HKSAR education reform
a. In terms of policy document
b. In terms of temporal demarcation
c. In terms of discursive theme: Lifelong learning?
2. Analysis of the Enunciative Modality in HKSAR education reform
a. Speakers and the their positions and/authority to speak
b. Languages used in discourse
c. The institutional sites within which the discourse takes place
3. Understanding the discursive concept of HKSAR education reform
a. Understanding the formation of discursive concept in academic
discourse: Two versions of lifelong long education reforms
i. Lifelong learning education reform for economic rationalism
ii. Lifelong learning education reform for social inclusion and
political empowerment
b. Understanding the formation of discursive concept in global policy
context
i. Conceptual and methodological qualifications
ii. Empirical comparisons
c. Understanding the formation of discursive concept in HKSAR: In
paradigmatic comparative perspective
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4. Analysis of the discursive strategies of HKSAR education reform
a. Points of equivalence and systematization: The construction of the
quasi-market mechanism
b. Points of incompatibility
c. Economy of discursive constellation of public policy of HKSAR
Government
5. Analysis of the ideological and hegemonic practice of the discourse of
HKSAR education reform
a. Discursive domination / hegemony of market system and
bureaucratic- administrative system over education system
b. Distortions and bias against communicative-communal discourse in
education
c. Distortion and bias against critical-emancipatory discourse in
education
d. Suppression and bias against the discourse of the education
profession
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