Week 6- Critical Policy Analysis Flashcards
1
Q
Summarise the ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ approach
A
- Suggests that if you look at a specific policy, you can see that it understands the ‘problem’ to be a specific sort of ‘problem’
- Policies therefore constitute ‘problems’
- Hence, rather than reacting to ‘problems’, govts are active in the creation of policy problems
2
Q
Outline what is entailed in the following question: what is the ‘problem’ represented to be in a specific policy?
A
- Clarifying exercise
- All policies are problematising activities and contain implicit problem representations
- This way of thinking challenges tendency to describe policy makers as ‘problem solvers’, as if ‘problems’ sit outside the policy process, waiting to be addressed and ‘fixed’
- Recommends ‘working backwards’ from concrete proposals to reveal what is represented to the ‘problem’ within those proposals
- Policies are often complex, combining a range of proposals. There might be more than one problem representation within them. The different kinds of representations in any one policy may conflict and even contradict each other
- The task of identifying problem representations, therefore needs to be recognised as a challenging one
- One way to simplify the task is to see how funds are targeted within a proposal . Assists in identifying dominant problem representations
3
Q
Outline what is entailed in the following question: what are the presuppositions or assumptions underlying this representation of the ‘problem’?
A
- Once problem is identified, must think about the understanding that underpins identified problem representations. What is assumed, taken for granted or not questioned?
- Presuppositions refers to background ‘knowledge’ that is taken for granted. Includes epistemological and ontological assumptions. Through examining presuppositions, we can identify the conceptual premises that underpin specific problem representations
- Analysis does not elicit assumptions or beliefs held by policy makers, but the assumptions that lodge within problem representations
- The goal is to identify and analyse the conceptual logics that underpin specific problem representations
- Identifying deep seated cultural premises and their values within problem representations is the primary goal
4
Q
Define conceptual logic
A
Refers to the meanings that must be in place for a particular problem representation to cohere or make sense
5
Q
Define governmental or political rationalities
A
Patterns or ‘styles of problematisation’ in the way in which ‘problems’ are thought about
6
Q
Define rationality
A
Refers to the kind of thinking that lies behind, or the rationales for, particular styles of governing
- Current dominant style of problematisation creates individuals as primarily responsible for their lives
7
Q
Define binaries and their effect
A
- Assumes an A/not A relationship
- What is on one side of the binary is considered to be excluded from the other side
- As such, a hierarchy is implied, one side is privileged, considered to be more important or valued than the other side
- Simplify complex relationships, and as such, we need to watch where they appear in policies and how they function to shape the understanding of the issue
- The goal is to reveal the operation of conceptual logics that may act to constrain or limit our understanding of an issue
8
Q
Define discourse
A
Systems
9
Q
Define categories and their effect
A
- Concepts that play a central role in how governing takes place
- The creation of people categories (e.g. ‘students’ or ‘the homeless’) has significant effects for the ways in which governing takes place, and for how people come to think about themselves and about others
10
Q
Outline what is entailed in the following question: how has this representation of the ‘problem’ come about?
A
- Objectives: to reflect specific developments and decisions (the non-discursive practices) that contribute to the formation of identified problem representations and to recognise that competing problem representations and to recognise that competing problem representations exist over both time and across space
- Done through ‘genealogy’- begins analysis in the present and ask how we got here from there
- Must follow the ‘history’ of a current problem representation and upset any assumptions about the ‘natural’ evolution of the problem
- By identifying specific points in time when key decisions were made, taking an issue in a particular direction, we can see that the problem representation under scrutiny is contingent and hence susceptible to change
- Genealogy therefore has a destabilising effect on problem representations that are often taken for granted
- Also provides insights into the power relations that affect the success of some problem representations and the defeat of others
- Purpose is to highlight the conditions that allow a particular problem representation to take shape and to assume dominance
- When we see statistics as part of, or as a defence for a particular policy, we need to ask- why these statistics and not others? Who gets counted? How do they get counted? How does their counting feed into the specific policy and its implied problem representation?
- Case management approach presents unemployment as an individual problem. “Making people write things down is itself a kind of government of them, urging them to think about and note certain aspects of their activities according to certain norms”.
- When we see stat
11
Q
Outline what is entailed in the following question: what is left unproblematic in this problem representation? Where are the silences? Can the ‘problem’ be thought about differently?
A
- Consider limits in the underlying problem representations? Ask what fails to be problematised?
- Argument is not simply that there is another way to think about the issue, but that specific policies are constrained by the ways in which they represent the ‘problem’
- Objective is to raise for reflection and consideration issues and perspectives that are silenced in identified problem representations
- As binaries simplify complex experiences, it is possible to indicate when this simplification distorts or misrepresents certain issues
- This kind of analysis usefully draws attention to tensions and contradictions in problem representations, highlighting limitations or inadequacies
- As genealogies draw attention to competing problem representations, they assist in the task of identifying silences in those problem representations that gain institutional endorsement
- Cross cultural comparisons can also help us to realise that certain ways of thinking about ‘problems’ reflect specific institutional and cultural contexts and hence, problem representations are contingent
12
Q
Outline what is entailed in the following question: what effects are produced by this representation of the problem?
A
- Allows us to continue critical analysis
- Starts from presumption that some problem representations create difficulties (forms of harm) for members of some social groups more so than for members of other groups
- Difficulties do not form a standard and predictable pattern
- Three interconnected, overlapping kinds of effects that need to be weighed up”
1. Discursive effects- effects which follow from the limits imposed on what can be thought and said
2. Subjectification effects- the ways in which subjects and subjectivities are constituted in discourse
3. Lived effects- the impact on life and death - Goal is to identify the effects of specific problem representations so that they can be critically assessed
13
Q
Outline discursive effects
A
- If some options for social intervention are closed off by the way in which a ‘problem’ is represented, it can have devastating effects for certain people
- Identified problem representations and the discourses which frame them make it difficult to think differently, limiting the kinds of social analysis that can be produced
14
Q
Outline subjectification effects
A
- The idea is that we become subjects of a particular kind partly through the ways in which policies set up social relationships and our place within them
- Discourses make certain subject positions available
- When such a position is assumed, a person tends to make sense of the social world from this standpoint, all while being subjected to the full range of discourses constituting this position
- Hence, who we are- how we feel about ourselves and others- as at least to an extent an effect of the subject positions made available in public politics
- Dividing practices- the way in which the problem representations within policies often set groups of people in opposition to each other e.g. versus
15
Q
What are the effects of subjectification?
A
- Representations of the ‘problem’ usually have built in implications about who is responsible for the problem
- The subject is either divided inside themself or divided from others. This process objectivises them
