DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: A CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH
2.5. ARGUMENTATIVE DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
(Bulkeley, 2000). Discourse coalitions also provide an explanation as to why an actor may appear to make contradictory statements. Discourse coalitions and storylines are discussed below in the context of Hajer’s (1995) argumentative approach to discourse analysis; and in Chapters Eight and Nine they are applied to the case study as a means of deconstructing the discourse of PFM.
importantly how language is used in discursive interaction to “create new meanings and new identities” (Hajer, 1995:59). Emphasis on discursive interactions forms Hajer’s (1995) point of departure for distinguishing between advocacy and discourse coalitions. He states that his argumentative approach should:
“be distinguished from theories that ground their argument in the idea that actions and perceptions should be understood against a background of deeply held beliefs or belief systems because this would mean that each belief system has its own a priori way of seeing and its own way of arguing things” (Hajer, 1995:59).
In other words, it is not an agent’s fixed beliefs or worldviews that shape actions and perceptions, but rather these are the result of discursive interaction, which serves to create new cognitions and new positionings.
The cultural politics perspective within which Hajer’s (1995) argumentative discourse analysis can be situated investigates which aspects of reality have been presented as ‘problems’ needing resolution and which ones have not. Hajer (1995) emphasises that in reality, coherence around a particular (environmental) problem does not occur. Instead discursive realities are created and a process of cultural politics takes place. Any coherence that is perceived is deemed to be artificial and simply reflect coalescence around a discursive issue. The objective of this approach is to “retell and understand the social construction of environmental problems”
(Sharp, 1999:144), which is achieved by emphasising how various “languages and knowledges have competed against one another in the process of defining the problem and in framing the solution” (Sharp, 1999:144). Actors struggle through an argumentative process to voice their understanding of what the ‘problem’ is and what appropriate solutions exist, to convince others, and then to translate this into policy and action. Similarly, Hajer (1995:53) writes that in viewing environmental politics from this perspective, it “becomes an argumentative struggle in which actors try not only to make others see the problems according to their views but also to seek to position other actors in a specific way”.
From the cultural politics perspective, there is not just one discourse but many operating in competition with each other. One particular discourse may gain ascendance and exert an influence at stages in the policy process. The discourses which contribute to the construction of government policies and practices need to be identified as well as how a particular discourse becomes institutionalised in policies and practices that are considered to result from the discourse competition that has been played out (Sharp, 1999). A policy will have its own
discourse that has been constructed by various actors and becomes more consistent with or illustrative of other prevalent forms of discourse. So, for example, the PFM discourse, as it evolves, may become more consistent with, or illustrative of, a collaborative discourse, an ecological modernisation discourse, or a sustainability discourse. In this way competition between discourses shapes what the PFM discourse becomes. The analysis of cultural politics aims to identify the environmental positions assumed by various actors and sheds light on the tactics and the arguments employed to define, frame and solve environmental problems. In this way the political obscurities, which often result from coalition building, can be clarified.
Hajer (1993), in reflecting on the challenges posed for argumentative analysis, writes that it is necessary in policy analysis to “find ways of combining the analysis of the production of reality with the analysis of the (extradiscursive) social practices from which social constructs emerge and in which the actors that make these statements engage” (Hajer, 1993:45). So argumentative analysis requires attention to social practices, which is why Hajer (1993; 1995;
2003), a proponent of this approach to discourse analysis, presents a methodology and introduces the concept of discourse coalitions as a means of addressing this challenge. This methodology, described in Hajer’s 2003 paper, forms the framework for the analysis of the PFM policy implementation process in this thesis. The methodology takes cognisance of the socially constructed nature of environmental problems, recognising that actors “try to impose their views of reality on others, sometimes through debate and persuasion, but also through manipulation and the exercise of power” (Hajer, 1993:45). Hajer (1993) sees discourses as social constructs that emerge as a way of explaining social situations (for example, why forests are being destroyed by people). These social constructs arise in a particular context (social, political, historic and/or economic), which needs to be understood in order to make sense of the discourse.
The argumentative approach gives the “central role to discoursing subjects but in the context of social structures which enable and constrain their agency” (Hajer, 1995:58). Sharp’s (1999) writing about structure and agency has proved instructive here. She notes that the cultural politics perspective conceptualises individuals as part of a social web through which discourses may/may not be transmitted. In this web, individuals are “structurally influenced by the discourses to which they are exposed, but also exercise some of their own agency [influence]
in the reproduction of discourses” (Sharp, 1999:149). In other words, structures such as social class, race and gender influence the kinds of discourses that agents will come into contact with,
but individuals also exercise choice about what discourses they hear and reproduce based on the choices they make regarding the nature of the structures with which they interact.
In addition to influencing the discourses to which agents are exposed, structures also affect which discourses an agent reproduces. A particular setting may require that particular discourses are reproduced and others are suppressed, based on the norms and values subscribed to by that structure. For example, it may be politically inappropriate for a government department not to toe a particular line. In addition, individuals have the ability to reproduce multiple, often competing, discourses at different times or in different locations and to this end individuals do not own, or are not owned by a discourse, they are rather the vehicle through which particular discourses to which they have been exposed are transmitted (Sharp, 1999).
Within an institution, the policy network process results in agents also having an opportunity to subject the institution to particular discourses. They may influence the wording, policy monitoring devices, decision-making structures, and detail of policy initiatives. Sources of discourses may be international/national/regional guidelines and political parties that compete for influence. Within the context of the PFM policy, it is of interest in this thesis to investigate who the actors are, what discourses they are using within the policy network and also the effect these actors are having on the policy implementation process.