Posted by Anna Rigg
Tutorial 3: Public opinion, Greenwashing and the policy response.
This week’s tutorial we covered 3 areas which our group will record separately
- Rhetoric and Public Opinion – Drawing on Balnaves Chapter 7 – see post from Alex
- Propaganda and Persuasion – Drawing on Balnaves Chapter 7 – see post from Mohammed
- Miller and Rose – a further discussion of key concepts in the Miller and Rose Reading pp 181-191
Part 3 : Miller and Rose (pp.181– 191).
Lastly we examined some key terms from the Miller and Rose article further in an effort to contextualise, broaden understanding and help us with the conceptual framework of the Policy assessment.
Political Rationale and Problematising.
There is a relationship between political rationale and problematising which is explored in Miller and Rose. However first if we define
Rationale: The reason for an action or belief
In Miller and Rose: “Problematic of government may be analyzed, first of all, in terms of their political rationalities, the changing discursive fields within which the exercise of power is conceptualised, the moral justifications for particular ways of exercising power by diverse authorities, notions of the appropriate forms, objects and limits of politics, and conceptions of the proper distribution of such tasks among secular, spiritual, military and familial sectors.” (p. 175)
Problematising:
‘Government is a problematizing activity: it poses the obligations of rulers in terms of the problems they seek to address. The ideals of government are intrinsically linked to the problems around which it circulates, the failings it seeks to rectify, the ills it seeks to cure.” (p. 181)
That is the function of government on one level is to find and identify issues, so that they can position themselves as the institution responsible and capable of determining and applying the solution. The act of problematising becomes their political rationale for doing something, namely enacting policy.
This involves the use of Discourse– being a way of making things thinkable through language around a certain field of study, and/or area of problematisation. Language (including inscription devices – more later) and discourse are tools which drive particular bodies and programmes along.
Therefore, what are some of the steps involved in breaking down how an issue has been problematised?
- Breaking down the issues; how are certain issues viewed and portrayed – the moral political position
- Dialogue/demystification – what issues is this policy talking about
- Who is making the statement
- Why is it being made
- Where does it come from
- Other statements made previous – what is the context, has there been an event or series of events that have contributed to this problemitsation
- Who does this benefit
‘The ideals of government are intrinsically linked to the problems around which it circulates…..have measured the real against the wanting’ (p.181)
Often the governments values, their moral or political position, can be seen in the way that they problematise an issue. The act of defining something as a problem or an issue implies values, moral and political, Our job is to analyse what this position is. Language, Inscription devices and Discourse are often employed to make this position seem normal and just. This can include research around the topic, even while we may agree, it is our job to analyse the Language, Inscription devices and Discourse and uncover any assumptions and value positions and make them explicit where they are just implied.
Further, another inference in this passage is that the process of government has been to create conceptually an ideal world in which these problems don’t exist. This is what we are supposed to strive for. This ideal world is a reflection of their values, political and moral. However, this ideal world is one which is rarely realised however, and very different to the reality we face.
Miller and Rose argue in fact, that the process of government therefore is as much about this failure to realise the ideal as really changing things. After all, if governments actually did fix all the problems, we wouldn’t need them anymore, right?
Programmes of Government : A planned series of events
In Miller and Rose: “The programmatic is the realm of designs put forward by philosophers, political economists, physiocrats and philanthropists, government reports, committees of inquiry, White Papers, proposals and counterproposals by organizations of business, labour, finance, charities and professionals, that seek to configure specific locales and relations in ways thought desirable…” (p. 181)
What this passages is saying is that Programmes Of Government are not just the Policies, but all the concepts or inscription devices involved which help us break down the problem into manageable parts. These programmes ( if we look at the above list, much of this is research driven by a field of study or discourse) are driven along by theories and discourses themselves, as they provide the measures, indices and Jargon which often create and define potential issues. These can be called Inscription Devicies. These together with language used in Policy documents are important to examine in order that we can reveal the values implicit in the policy document.
Inscription devices can be conceived of as “Government has inaugurated a huge labour of enquiry to transform events and phenomena into information: births, illnesses and deaths, marriages and divorces, levels of income and types of diet, forms of employment and want of employment. (p.185)
‘Inscription itself can be a form of action at a distance. Installing a calculative technology in the enterprise, in the hospital, in the school or the family enjoins those within these locales to work out ‘where they are’, calibrate themselves in relation to ‘where they should be’ and devise ways of getting from one state to the other’ (p.187). This means that inscription devices not only imply some sort or norm, but engage us by getting us to compare where we are in comparison and subsequently try to strive for the ideal
Mike pointed to the below passage as a way of demonstrating that theories are Programmes of Government. It also points to the notion that programmes are not discreet packages of knowledge, but are evry much tied up in wider discourse. This is how government engages with and utilises knowledge.
“In a very real sense, ‘the economy’ is brought into being by economic theories themselves, which define and individuate a set of characteristics, laws and processes designated economic rather than, say, political or natural. This enables ‘the economy’ to become something which politicians, academics, industrialists and others think can be governed and managed, evaluated and programmed, in order to increase wealth, profit and the like” (p.182)
Technologies:
Technologies are Strategies and techniques making programs operable. Or more generally as Matt explains, The methods and tools that a society has developed in order to facilitate the solution of its practical problems
In Miller and Rose: “…governmental technologies, the complex of mundane programmes, calculations, techniques, apparatuses, documents and procedures through which authorities seek to embody and give effect to governmental ambitions.” (p. 175)
Technologies are various and include; programs, stats, documents and procedures into place; An example might be the measure of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a nation. See below passage for the ways in which figures can impose a value system or political rationale on what is being measured
“figures transform the domain to which government is applied. In enabling events to be aggregated across space and time, they reveal and construct norms and processes to which evaluations can be attached and upon which interventions can be targeted’ (p.186)
In addition to those 4 key concepts, rationale, problematisation, Programmes and technologies we looked at Powerful actors, Centres, and the absence of faithful relays
Powerful actors (p.184)
‘A powerful actor, agent or institution is one that, in the particular circumstances obtaining at a given moment, is able to successfully enrol and mobilise persons, procedures and artifacts in the pursuit of its goals”. This is useful way of thinking about who are the stakeholders for the policy you are analysing and more importantly which stakeholders have the power to affect what the policy will be, and how it will be monitored.
Centres:
There is a tendancy within government for powerful actors programmes and technologies to create a centre. “A ‘centre’ can only become such through its position within the complex of technologies, agents and agencies that make government possible. But, once established as a centre, a particular locale can ensure that certain resources only flow through and around these technologies and networks, reaching particular agents rather than others, by means of a passage through ‘the centre’. (P .189)
Further- The enactment of legislation is a powerful resource in the creation of centres, to the extent that law translates aspects of a governmental programme into mechanisms that establish, constrain, or empower certain agents or entities and set some of the key terms of their deliberations…. Programmes and strategies formulated at the centre may lead to attempts to establish regulatory or negotiating bodies, and may lead to more or less autonomy being granted to other aspects of the bureaucratic web of government such as Departments of State or Local Authorities.(p.189-190)
Legislation defines who is at the centre, who has the power to enact, enforce or discuss the problem. However the centre does not directly control the action, the entities. This is due to the absence of faithful relays.
Not everyone, policy actors and stakeholders have the same purposes. A legislation or policy is not faithfully relayed, rather it is used or not used as a means of achieving particular stakeholders own purposes. See page 190 for more
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