Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
arrangements in structuring discourses, forming routine understandings
where complex research is often reduced to visual reproduction or catchy
one-liners that ignore uncertainty and entail signii cant loss of meaning.
Routine forms of discourse therefore express a continuous power relation-
ship that is particularly ef ective in that it avoids confrontation. The use of
the term 'sustainable development' in contemporary British public policy
arguably provides an example of this.
To shape policy, a new discourse must both dominate public discussion
and policy rhetoric and penetrate the routines of policy practice through
institutionalization within laws, regulations and routines (Hajer, 1993;
Nossif , 1998; Healey, 1999). In terms of policy change then, promoting a
new story-line is a dii cult task involving dismantling previous story-lines
and confronting the interests of those who were able to achieve promi-
nence for their claims and viewpoint originally (Rydin, 1999). Discourse
analysis from Hajer's perspective is a method to shed light on the social
and cognitive basis of the way in which policy problems are constructed
(Hajer, 1995), with analysis focused on the socio-cognitive processes in
which discourse coalitions are established. He puts emphasis on the con-
stitutive role of discourse in political processes, but assigns a central role
to discoursing subjects, although in the context of a duality of structure.
Social action is seen as stemming from human agency, however, social
structures of various sorts both enable and constrain their agency. It is
therefore possible for agents to accomplish policy change through discur-
sive interaction within the context of these structures, but this inherently
requires deconstructing the discursive hegemony that existing dominant
political interests have achieved.
Dryzek
John Dryzek is well known as a normative political theorist. He has sought
to apply Habermas's concept of communicative rationality and delibera-
tive democracy to the specii c issue of the environment (Dryzek, 2000),
a development that has been welcomed as a major advance in political
theory. Here, though, the focus is on his work in analysing environmental
discourse. In this work he explicitly counters the Foucauldian approach
and instead adopts a more agency-centred model. Dryzek sees discourse
and power as interconnected in all kinds of ways, whereas Foucault would
deny such a distinction between power and discourse as discourse
is
the
operation of power (Dryzek, 1997). Furthermore, Dryzek sees constraints
on the power of discourse, as powerful actors may override developments
at the discursive level by ignoring them in terms of policy. Alternatively,
discourses may be absorbed to suit the interests of a i rm or government
(ecological modernization springs to mind). Another constraint may arise
