Exercising Discursive Power: The Institutional Context of Policy Deliberation

Abstract

The discursive turn in policy analysis brings the notion of discourse as policy practice, to the forefront in the study of power in the policy process. In fact, its epistemological and methodological critique against traditional ways of understanding political institutions and processes has helped uncover several layers of power relationships that have been previously neglected. As a consequence, policy researchers have engaged in identifying and making explicit particular value-based discourses, which underpin interaction between and within political elites, public managers, experts and different notions of the public. It is yet unclear to what extent the agenda of 'good governance, social inclusion and empowerment' has actually widened or transformed the political space for citizens and their participation in the policy sphere. This panel attempts to bring together studies of discursive interaction in formal or informal institutional settings where a variety of political actors engage in the process to resolve policy conflicts. We encourage submission of papers that highlight the nature of power exercised within such arenas, the means used by actors to exercise their power or highlight their lack of it, the values represented by particular discourses employed in such conflicts and how coalitions within such settings arise, in a theoretically and methodologically informed manner.

Title	Details
Citizen Participation, Campaign Strategies and Discourse-Coalitions: Noise Pollution at Heathrow Airport and the HACAN Clear Skies Campaign	View Paper Details
Scientific Argumentation and Social Compromises : The Difficulty of Codifying Occupational Diseases in France	View Paper Details
Institutionalising Policy Discourse, Narratives, Stories on Forests and Trees within United Nations Policy Deliberations: The Convention Myth	View Paper Details
Citizens, Experts and the Discursive Space of Land-Use in Newark, New Jersey	View Paper Details