DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: A CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH
2.4. ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS AND DISCOURSE
2.4.2. The discursive arena: policy networks
through discursive practices, and in which particular interpretations of reality or frames are constructed, negotiated and resisted.
in a policy process as well as the variations in power, access and resources. Secondly, it is of interest to investigate what kind of policy network best describes the PFM policy process.
A policy community is a close-knit policy network that is centred in one government department (such as DWAF) where the policy-making process is strongly institutionalised;
where members have similar values, worldviews and resources; and where they have a tendency to agree upon which specific problems validate a policy response and how this response should be structured (Bulkeley, 2000). As Marsh and Rhodes (1992, cited in Bulkeley, 2000:731) note, “a policy network, or more particularly, a policy community constrains the policy agenda and shapes policy outcomes”. A policy community may be a government department or institution. Where this is the case, the policy network “structure[s]
participation in the policy process and the policy issues that are seen as legitimate” (Bulkeley, 2000:731). Policy-making is tightly controlled because there is no influence from outside sources. The outcome of a policy process would therefore be in keeping with an institutional agenda, as well as the worldviews and values of actors within the network.
An issue network on the other hand is a weakly institutionalised policy network where there is broader access to the policy process; where more than one government department is involved and where there is less consensus on the issues at hand and how they should be resolved (Bulkeley, 2000). An example of an issue network in the context of PFM could be a policy network that comprises actors from DWAF, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), the Department of Land Affairs (DLA), research agencies, donor agencies and various conservation orientated bodies. Issue networks tend to be an uncommon phenomenon but exist when “there is no threat to the interests of either an economic/producer group or a professional group” (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992a, cited in Bulkeley, 2000:729).
Marsh and Rhodes note that these types of policy networks should not be seen as mutually exclusive. They could exist as a tiered policy network (see Figure 2.1 below), which is a combination of these two types.
Figure 2.1 below illustrates a tiered policy network. This type of policy network comprises a coherent core (which is the policy community) and also a fluid periphery (an issue network). In essence it is a policy network that distinguishes between those members that have the resources and influences and are therefore able to exert power over the policy process, and those members who do not and whose contributions therefore may or may not be incorporated
into the policy process. This situation is likely to be more prevalent because, as O’Riordan and Jordan (1996:76) comment in relation to climate change politics, “different policy communities manoeuvre within a much wider issue network and the government is forced to co-ordinate policy across a wide range of departments and interest groups”.
Figure 2.1. Policy communities and discourse coalitions within an issue network, a tiered policy network (Bulkeley, 2000:737).
The tiered policy network therefore reflects the influence that actors at various levels (whether international, regional or local) can have on the policy process (O’Riordan and Jordan, 1996).
These actors would comprise the issue network and would be able to interact with the more powerful actors in the policy community. Conceptualising South African policy processes as occurring within a tiered policy network is instructive because it reflects the South African government’s commitment to democracy and the recognition that policy-making should not be completely dominated by national decision-making bodies but should solicit participation and input from actors at all levels. It may also explain why the contributions of particular institutions, departments, agencies or interest groups may be taken more seriously than others and therefore why certain discourses may dominate over others in a policy process such as PFM.
Issue network Discourse/
Advocacy Coalitions Policy Community
Coherent boundary (interest or beliefs) Fluid boundary
Coalitions within the policy network are also illustrated in Figure 2.1. With reference to the work of Marsh and Rhodes, Bulkeley (2000:734) suggests “consensus about a policy problem within a network is not the product of once off negotiations but of a continuing process of re- negotiation which can be characterised as coalition-building”. The formation of coalitions within a policy network is seen as a critical part of the policy process. Bulkeley (2000) discusses two models of coalition formation, namely Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier’s (1994, in Bulkeley, 2000) advocacy coalitions and Hajer’s discourse coalitions (Hajer, 1995). The fundamental difference between the two approaches is that within an advocacy coalition actors share similar/core beliefs or worldviews, which maintain the boundary between that and other coalitions (Bulkeley, 2000; Hajer, 1995). Within a discourse coalition on the other hand, actors are not bound within one particular coalition by their core beliefs but can shift between coalitions, thus advocating “different positions depending on the context in which the argument is situated” (Bulkeley, 2000:733). Therefore, for example, advocates of a pro-forest coalition might also be part of a pro-PFM coalition. This might not be possible if the coalition were based on shared beliefs or worldviews, but because discourse coalitions are based on
“shared terms and concepts” (Hajer, 1996:247), which create a shared orientation about the policy problem (such as saving the forests and meeting people’s needs), actors with different beliefs and values can coalesce to resolve the problem.
Figure 2.1 also shows the attachment of a policy community to a coalition. In this way Bulkeley (2000) shows that a dominant decision-making body could align itself with a coalition. For example, if DWAF is the policy community, it could be aligned to the pro-PFM discourse coalition. Therefore, even though within DWAF there may be people with different worldviews and interests (for example a forest scientist may have a different worldview or interest in working for DWAF to a person involved in community forestry), they would all use similar terms and expressions (the terms of environmental discourse) to explain what the problem is and why PFM is needed. In this way the environmental problem is socially constructed through the PFM discourse.
In understanding how the PFM policy is implemented in the southern Cape indigenous state forests, an awareness of tiered policy networks and discourse coalitions is important because these concepts enable an investigation into why particular understandings of the environmental problem are constructed, how these understandings are constructed, how PFM is promoted as the policy solution, and how outcomes of the policy implementation process are expressed
(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.