Constructing Hegemony in Global Politics. A Discourse–Theoretical Approach to Policy Analysis

Abstract

The article proposes a discourse–theoretical approach to policy analysis that explores how political relations are changed through and within a strategic and interest-led process with a focus on conflictual struggles that attempt to establish, change, or consolidate specific interests and meanings as universalities. It suggests a conceptualization of hegemonic projects and discusses their relation to the common good. After elaborating on the term discourse formation as a middle-range concept and a more concrete approach to hegemony, the article suggests various clusters of (discursive) strategies to facilitate the evaluation of hegemonic processes within a policy field. Lastly, it introduces vectors of hegemony, proposing an analytical grid as a framework to facilitate reflection on hegemony. European austerity policies are examined to illustrate how some logics and strategies work to strengthen a specific governance approach to the eurozone crisis.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Marieke de Goede, Jacob Torfing, Kees van der Pijl, and Loren Samlowski for their very helpful comments. I am also grateful for the inspiring and detailed feedback of the anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1 I draw on the theoretical concepts developed mainly by Laclau. Apart from the joint publications (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, 1990, 2001), works by Mouffe are not taken into account here

2 See, however, Griggs and Howarth (2007); Glynos, Klimecki, and Willmott (2015).

3 The term operationalization is used here in a broad sense to describe the process of developing middle-range concepts from abstract ontological categories in order to enable and facilitate the application of these categories in empirical analysis.

4 Although there is a large amount of excellent literature in which the theory of hegemony and discourse is applied, when it comes to operationalizing the concepts, especially where policy analysis is concerned, almost all such studies remain highly abstract (e.g., Glynos & Howarth, 2007; Howarth & Torfing, 2005; Howarth, Norval, & Stavrakakis, 2000; Norval, 2007; Stavrakakis, 2007).

5 A common good always has a universal connotation. Otherwise it would not be common.

6 Space does not permit a detailed discussion here of the many misunderstandings which have arisen over the extra-discursive meaning of objects. As Laclau and Mouffe have already argued: “The fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothing to do with whether there is a world external to thought…. What is denied is not that…objects exist externally to thought, but the rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves [meaningfully] as objects outside any discursive condition of emergence” (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 108). The main and most tenacious mistake is the tendency to confuse linguistics with semantics, and mistake the right claim, that there is meaning outside the realm of language, for the wrong claim, that meanings exist outside of discourses. In poststructuralist theory, discourses constitute the very terrain in which objects, events, subjects, identities, numbers, and the like are accorded meaning.

7 Laclau uses the terms master signifier and empty signifier synonymously (Laclau, 2005, p. 217; Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. xi). In the following, I prefer the term master signifier, because the concept of the empty signifier often leads to confusion when it is assumed that the empty signifier would be meaningless. What is implied, however, is that the signifier has been tendentially emptied from its particularity so as to be able to acquire universal significance.

8 The concepts interests and strategies do not necessarily imply a rationalist and utilitarian subject (see also Laclau, 1990b; Laclau & Zac, 1994).

9 I stress the term analytically here, because from an analytical viewpoint, it does not matter whether the hegemonic project is constructed purposefully, or whether various policies can be coherently grouped as forming a hegemonic project without necessarily assuming conscious participation in the project on the part of (all) actors involved.

10 There are no causal explanations for the prevalence of certain master signifiers. Rather, it is a task for policy analysis to specify the concrete reasons and the spatiotemporal discourse constellations that have led to the construction and enforcement of certain master signifiers.

11 To be sure, the unemployment rate is not an extra-discursive condition. On the contrary, the meaning, definition, and counting of unemployment and the calculations as well as statistics portraying the unemployment rate are fully situated within the discursive realm.

12 For example, by demands for a second round of debt relief schemes for Greece, to which the Eurogroup agreed in 2012. The plan should have been implemented in 2014. However, the decision to do so has meanwhile been postponed by the Eurogroup until 2018 (Stournaras, 2016).

13 It should be noted in this connection, however, that public opinion polls themselves are instruments of power. In addition, it is very difficult to register passive consent. There may be a considerable number of subaltern subjects that “cannot speak” (Spivak, 1988).

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Joscha Wullweber

Joscha Wullweber is an assistant professor in Political Science in the Department of Globalisation and Politics at the University of Kassel, Germany. His most recent publications include contributions to the journals Critical Policy Studies and New Political Economy and to the Encyclopedia of Political Thought.