On Developing a Transdisciplinary Framework for Analysing ‘Orders of Discourse’ of Neoliberal Rule

Critical discourse analysis routinely draws on dialogue with social theory in order to strengthen the explanatory power of its close textual analysis. There are clear analytical strengths born of this interdisciplinary dialogue. However, there can also be a lack of clarity over how to operationalise, with real data, some of the key analytical concepts (like ‘discourse practice(s)’ and ‘order(s) of discourse’) which CDA has developed to achieve its core aim of bridging close textual analysis and macro level social critique. The paper attempts to address this by examining the potential of a transdisciplinary framework which operationalises Lemke’s governmentality-framed critique of neoliberalism (Lemke, 2012) through the text analytical categories of critical discourse analysis developed by Fairclough (2003). The framework was developed to trace the increasing influence, over the last decade, of behavioural economics in UK health policy. By analyzing orders of discourse, it was possible to show the role of social policy in producing neoliberal governance practices and shaping the kinds of resilient, self-disciplinary subjectivities they require. In practice, this involved multimodal analysis of the genres, discourses, and styles through which this policy is configured, conceptualizing these respectively in terms of the ongoing negotiation of state boundaries; of dominant political rationalities; and of political subjectivities.