A Post-Structural Feminist Approach to Critical Frame Analysis

Politics and gender scholars increasingly use critical frame analysis (CFA) to analyze gender equality+ policies. Yet, as its founders acknowledge, CFA is not adequately developed in the existing literature. I argue that CFA also lacks a post-structural edge. Drawing on examples from three policy controversies involving culture and women’s rights, this paper explains how empirical scholars can systematically use CFA to analyze policy narratives through a post-structuralist lens. I begin by explaining how scholars can apply CFA to a wide range of public policy debates. Next, I discuss how deepening the connections between CFA, critical discourse analysis, and narrative analysis can uncover the reasoning and rhetoric of competing policy positions. I then draw on Carol Bacchi’s WPR approach to enhance the critical bite of CFA. Finally, I tether CFA to situational analysis, which is informed by Strauss’s grounded theory, Foucault’s discourse analysis, and Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomes and assemblages. The result is a methodology that produces trustworthy, empirically rich findings about public policy debates that are fully integrated with post-structural critique.