Discourse Analysis and Policy Discourse

Nepalese Journal of Development and Rural Studies, 2016

Globally, development is a value loaded concept. It refers to qualitative and quantitative changes through a successive transformation that directly or indirectly improves the livelihood of people. However, the meaning of development has been changed over a period of time in terms of its approaches, strategies and paradigms. In this context, the present paper presents a concept of 'contested development'. It is thus argued that development is contested discourse with a bunch of contradicting claims and counterclaims. It is articulation between power and knowledge which is recycled in terms of the discourse. In the development literature mainly three forms of the discourses, i.e. Mainstream, Alternative and Post development, have been discussed. Basically, Mainstream development deals with the theoretical framework of modernizations and its critics with dependency theory. Alternative development discourse deals with human centric development paradigm with a due focus of micro narratives and Post development discourse deals with the criticism of the development itself. Finally, the paper presents how development has been contested with these contrasting perspectives and being a hot cake in development discourse. Though the paper is not based on own field reflections, the subsequent discussions are drawn by secondary literatures and arguments developed accordingly.

Globalization has strategic as well as structural dimensions, and strategies are inherently discursive in character. I shall focus on the internationally dominant strategy for globalization, 'globalism' (Steger 2005), centrally a strategy for a global economy based upon a 'free market' form of capitalism, but a nodal strategy around which others cluster. I shall look at the continuity-throughchange of globalist strategy with particular regard to development strategy as part of the cluster. I shall approach this issue from a discourse-analytical perspective, focusing upon changes in the discourse of development and its relationship especially to security discourse (Duffield 2001), taking a 'semiotic point of entry' to the main research concern: relations between discourse and non-discursive elements.

From the perspective of archaeological discourse analysis, certain rules can be identified according to which the objects, concepts, subject positions and strategies of development discourse have been formed from the 1950s to the 1970s. Since the ‘crisis of development’ in the 1980s, a number of new concepts have gained prominence in development policy which highlight new aspects: ‘participation’ and ‘ownership’ and ‘sustainable development’ are among the best known. The article argues that this ‘progress’ in the ‘development of development policy’ leads to incoherencies and contradictions, as certain implications of the new concepts are incompatible with some rules of formation which constitute the discourse.

Harvard Development papers, 1998

Designing policies and administering programs take place take place in widely varying settings, or “domains”. Linkages are imperfect, at best; and often contain weaknesses and fault points. These weaknesses apply within developing countries, within institutions in the aid community, and within universities. This paper sets out to characterize five such domains: (1) the policy design domain (in which broad visions for growth, social, political, or cultural direction are developed); (2) the macro economic management domain (usually represented by the ministries of finance and economy); (3) the sectoral domain (education, health, agriculture etc.); (4) the issue domain (environment, poverty, private sector, gender etc.); and (5) the community/enterprise domain (NGOs, businesses, local administration, project actors etc. Varying perspectives are illustrated through the use of fictional characters, half from developing countries, half from the “development professions”. The point is that development requires all these different perspectives to operate in parallel fashion rather than in competition. This will require all sides to make a more concerted effort to bridge the practical and conceptual barriers and hence achieve better understanding and more solid results.

African Journal of Rhetoric, vol. 3, pp 156-195, 2011

The paper explores the rationale of the Global Forum on Migration and Development that was launched by Kofi Annan in 2006 as UN Secretary General, as an informal inter-governmental discussion space. It identifies the claims in Annan's speech to the High-Level Dialogue that he convened in New York: that international migration must be managed; that to proceed beyond the present entrenched disagreements and mistrust requires constructive structured communication; that the Global Forum can provide this and is a feasible way forward, unlike the alternatives; and that through processes of mutual education and mutual acceptance the Forum can be fruitful. Implied are notions of building trust and community amongst migration policymakers. Second, the paper monitors how the hypotheses had fared by the time of the second Forum conference, in 2008, by discourse analysis of its concluding report. The Manila meeting's declaration of a "focus on the person" came to mean a focus on the migration policymakers and managers and the processes of their intended mutual education and team-building. To clarify this strategy and its mindset and assumptions, the paper uses a series of tools for discourse analysis that are more widely useful in migration policy debate. They include the standard tools of examination of metaphor, of silences, of allocation of roles, and of choice of frames that structure attention; and in addition a tabular form of text analysis that facilitates and organises the use of such tools, and provides the basis for an analysis of argumentative structure and overall rhetorical direction.

2013

My presentation is limited to discuss one specific aspect of the discourse on sustainable development, namely the features of its science-policy interface, focusing on Germany. That I do in three steps: 1. A short introduction of key terms and conditions of social discourse 2. Summary of general characteristics and development of the sustainable development discourse 3. Resuming properties and underlying reasons of the science-policy interface of the discourses on sustainable development A discourse can be defined as "an ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorisations that are produced, reproduced, and transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to physical and social realities" In scientific discourse analysis it is common to distinguish between frames, story lines and a discourse-specific interpretation repertoire. Frames refer to how an issue is defined or problematized. The interpretation repertoire focuses on underlying basic assumptions of a discourse. Story lines refer to the internal linkage of these basic assumptions (Keller et al. 2006, 2010). Different parallel discourses take place simultaneously in modern societies. They can be found in various socio-functional systems including science, politics, or the media. Depending on their corresponding discourse profiles and dynamics, discourses may mutually influence each other (Weingart et al. 2002). Discourse participants compete over the enforcement of specific problem interpretations and lastly struggle for discourse hegemony. The unfolding discourse dynamics in particular depend on (1) the resonance ability of the frames presented among the discourse participants, (2) the plausibility of story lines presented, (3) the possibility to link frames and story lines with prevailing meta narratives which are culturally rooted world views and narratives, (4) the communicability of interpretation repertoires used, (5) the cognitive acceptability of arguments, i.e. their actual trustworthiness, (6) the credibility of the actors presenting the arguments, and (7) the positional acceptability of the contents and goals mediated in discourse, i.e. how far they reinforce or threaten personal/institutional positions (Conrad 2012, Hajer 1995). If and how specific social discourses are adopted and get effective depends on various factors: (1) the (changeable) social relevance of the discourse theme, (2) the pattern of interest of the actors organizing the discourse, (3) the (subsystem-specific) communicative connectiveness of the discourse, and (4) its resonance ability in other social subsystems. This, in turn, is strongly determined by the framings and story lines shaping the discourse.

2000

In this article we build on critiques of the use of discoursetheory in the anthropology of development to argue that deconstructionism can only become politically engaged when it is used to demonstrate the fluidity and heterogeneity of discourses within development as well as the power relations which they inevitably involve. Rather than presenting ‘development’ as invariably top-down, hegemonic and static, the challenge for anthropology is to show how political activism from both within and outside the institutions and networks which produce development discourses can help problematise and overturn dominant paradigms. Whilst this may sound overly optimistic (if not politically naive), we suggest than anything other simply replicates outmoded models of dependency, albeit in a more fashionable language. Using as an example the new British government’s recent White Paper on international development, we argue that just as development discourses are contested and negotiated from within, they can, and do, change.

2016

The manner in which people have been talking and writing about 'development' and the rules according to which they have done so have evolved over time. Development Discourse and Global History uses the archaeological and genea logical methods of Michel Foucault to trace the origins of development discourse back to late colonialism and notes the significant discontinuities that led to the establishment of a new discourse and its accompanying industry. This book goes on to describe the contestations, appropriations and transformations of the con cept. It shows how some of the trends in development discourse since the crisis of the 1980s-the emphasis on participation and ownership, sustainable devel opment and free markets-are incompatible with the original rules and thus lead to serious contradictions. The Eurocentric, authoritarian and depoliticiz ing elements in development discourse are uncovered, whilst still recognizing its progressive appropriations. The author concludes by analysing the old and new features of development discourse which can be found in the debate on Sustain able Development Goals and discussing the contribution of discourse analysis to development studies. This book is aimed at researchers and students in development studies, global history and discourse analysis as well as an interdisciplinary audience from inter national relations, political science, sociology, geography, anthropology, language and literary studies.