Discursive Agency: (Re‐)Conceptualizing Actors and Practices in the Analysis of Discursive Policymaking

Abstract

Interpretive discourse analysis commonly claims to address the interrelation between actors and discourses. However, the analytical focus of most approaches is on structures (discourses) while much less attention is paid to agency. This paper explicitly addresses discursive agency in two steps. First, we systematically review theoretical and analytical dimensions of agency in existing interpretive discourse analysis approaches. This review reveals a set of shared assumptions; most notably a concept of "trialectic" agency emphasizing the constitution of agency among the individual, the (discursive) structures, and the researcher's interpretation. Second, we propose an analytical heuristic, the Discursive Agency Approach, which is developed on the basis of the review and own empirical data. The proposed approach consists of four elements: (1) policy discourses, (2) political institutions, (3) agents defined via a set of characteristics, and (4) strategic practices. This approach is meant to facilitate a systematic exploration of agency under a discourse perspective, tackling the question of how a policy is constituted through the agency ascribed to its proponents in dynamic discursive processes, and how actors acquire political relevance through discursive means. To enable this goal, we propose distinct research steps and associated methods that link the approach to existing means of analysis.

Divide and conquer—Discursive agency in the politics of illegal logging in the United States

“…Fischer and Forester, 1993;Yanow, 2000;Hajer, 1995Hajer, , 2006Winkel, 2014), which has recently gained prominence in forest policy research (e.g., Arts and Buizer, 2009;Somorin et al, 2012;Van Heeswijk and Turnhout, 2013). Specifically, we apply the Discursive Agency Approach (DAA; for a detailed discussion of the approach see Leipold and Winkel (2015)). The DAA is an analytical heuristic that shares the basic perspective of interpretive policy analysis, which considers policy making to be a continuous struggle over establishing political truths.…”

How Noninstitutionalized Policy Innovation Is Justified: A Rhetorical Perspective

“…172–76; Hajer, , pp. 299–300; Leipold & Winkel, , p. 14; Throgmorton, ; Winton, , p. 159), although they have emphasized that the definition of policy problems is hardly objective, but emerges as a result of social construction. As Fischer and Forester (, pp.…”

“…The discursive agency approach, representing a recent theoretical effort to bring agency back into discursive policymaking, provides novel insights into the production of policy discourse through its conception of “strategic practices” (Leipold & Winkel, , ; Winkel & Leipold, ). Following the two major developers’ interpretation, strategic practices represent a broad concept which refers to “all practices that target the creation (and institutionalization) of a particular political truth about an issue and one's position in relation to it” (Leipold & Winkel, , p. 16). Within their typology of strategic practices, what is particularly relevant to the current work is the notion of “discursive strategies,” which “encompass all language and symbol‐bound activities that aim to create (or prevent the creation of) necessities for (specific) policy intervention” (Leipold & Winkel, , p. 17).…”

“…In a series of empirically oriented analyses focusing on natural resource and environmental policy (e.g., Leipold, Sotirov, Frei, & Winkel, ; Leipold & Winkel, ), multiple discursive strategies were identified, which involved (but were not limited to) developing convincing storylines, delegitimating opponents’ stances, and the divide‐and‐conquer practice. Even though this analytic strategy did not elaborate the element of rhetoric, through its emphasis on discursive strategies, this heuristic implies the value of exploring the role of rhetoric in policy process, which can enable researchers to explore “more agent‐centered ideas of discursive agency” (Leipold & Winkel, , p. 21).…”

“…I argue that a rhetorical perspective provides a legitimate approach toward investigating the role of social agents in building rationales for policy innovation, and therefore, holds much potential for deepening insights into the discursive process through which noninstitutionalized policy ideas are justified and legitimated. Furthermore, extending a rhetorical perspective to policy innovation not only provides a novel lens for viewing this phenomenon per se , but perhaps more importantly, represents an attempt to contribute to a burgeoning literature which explores agent‐centered ideas of discursive policymaking (e.g., Leipold & Winkel, ; Schmidt, ; Winkel & Leipold, ) by bringing rhetoric back into studies of policy processes. As will be elaborated in the section on theoretical foundation, even though discursive approaches to policymaking have acknowledged the role of rhetoric, systematic efforts to incorporate this element into existing frameworks has remained limited (see also Gottweis [] for a similar observation).…”