The questioning theory of policy practice: outline of an integrated analytical framework

Abstract

Policy analysis is distinctive in its concern with problems and practice. However, the ‘problem-solving’ presupposition of rational policy analysis is inadequate, as is the conception of practice. The challenge for policy theory is to retain the problem orientation while rethinking it to include insights about the problematization of governance and the practice of policy work. This article aims to do this through an original application of an innovative theory of questioning that articulates a constructivist logic of question and answer. It operates through distinguishing between two types of answers, strong and weak repressions of questions. Policy work is practical questioning by individuals that distinguishes between what is problematic and what is not. Policy practice involves both the repression of questions through practice and the explication of questions through reflection. This takes a different form across different domains of questioning, each of which contributes to the practical logic of policy practitioners. The various questioning domains involve their own legitimation questions, forces acting to repress or explicate questions, and three general Rhetorical forms of questions expressed as ethos, logos and pathos. This logic synthesizes Rhetoric with the problem orientation, indicating how values, problems and emotions are involved in each questioning domain. It thus integrates a range of governance and policy theories within a single conceptual framework.

Keywords:

• policy practice
• problem orientation
• problematology
• rhetoric
• questioning

Notes

1. I use the capitalized term ‘Rhetoric’ to refer to Meyer's (2008) general theory of rhetoric. This refers to the definitional aspect of the theory that construes communication as the negotiation of distance between individuals in regard to a given question (2008, p. 21). I use ‘rhetoric’ and ‘argumentation’ to refer to distinctive logical properties within this larger theory of reasoning and communication.

2. Other authors describe policy as ‘dramaturgy’ (Dillon 1976, Hajer 2005) or as ‘performance’ (Hajer 2006) in which reality is constructed equally through actions as the ideas which inform them. For a reply to Wagenaar's critique of their conception of practice, see Bevir and Rhodes (2012).

3. The most established and comprehensive social science perspective on the theory of practice is that of Bourdieu (1977, 1998), which underpins the ideas on practice in this article.

4. See, for example, Campbell (2007, p. 193) on the idea that ‘policy habitus expresses the basic policy standpoint (and preference) of an (organisational) actor, structuring the field of policy action possibilities’.

5. The theory in this section is based on the philosophy of Meyer (1995, 1996, 2000a, 2000b).

6. For Meyer, ‘emotions’ are sensations which situate people in duration, whereas ‘passion’ is what takes possession of, and mobilizes, the mind (2000a, p. 220).

7. For a very thorough and innovative perspective on the governance of problems, see Hoppe (2010).

8. There is also the question of the legitimacy of the nation state which underpins the legitimation of governments; however I do not deal with this question here.

9. See the broad field of the sociology of work and occupations; Grint (1998).