Poststructuralism, Citizenship and Social Policy

Ian Barns, Janice Dudley, Patricia Harris, Alan Petersen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781134739653
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Poststructuralism, Citizenship and Social Policy shows how poststructuralist ideas can be usefully applied in the areas of welfare, health, education and science and technology policy, making particular reference to the theme of citizenship.
The impact of poststructuralism on thinking in the social sciences and humanities over the last decade has been profound. However, to date, there has been little systematic analysis of the implications of poststructuralism for the critical analysis of social policy.
Poststructuralism, Citizenship and Social Policy will provide essential reading for students and researchers working in the areas of welfare studies, the sociology of health and medicine, political studies, social work, social administration and education.

Chapter 1
Introduction: themes, context and
perspectives

Ian Barns, Janice Dudley, Patricia Harris and Alan
Petersen

What is poststructuralism, and what has it got to do with social policy? How can policy makers, who deal with very practical issues, make use of the concepts of poststructuralism in their own work? And how does poststructural analysis relate to our understanding of citizenship? These are questions that we explore in this book, with specific reference to the social policy areas of welfare, education, public health and science and technology. In this introductory chapter, we spell out our assumptions and explain what is distinctive about our approach. We examine the politico-economic and theoretical contexts which have shaped both policy making and our own thinking, and outline the themes that are covered in the chapters that follow. We have all contributed equally to the planning and writing of this chapter. To begin, Alan explains the rationale for this book and seeks to clarify our particular use of the term ‘poststructuralism’, and what we believe distinguishes a poststructuralist approach from other approaches. Patricia then examines the relationship between poststructuralism and the social policy literature. This is followed by Janice's discussion of the economic and political context shaping the specific policy responses that have come to be identified with neo-liberalism. And, finally, Ian explores the relationship between citizenship and neo-liberal regimes of governance—an important recurring theme in the book—and introduces the remaining chapters.

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning number of new books focusing on poststructuralism as a theoretical perspective. There has also been a steadily growing number of texts dealing with conceptual and theoretical approaches to policy. However, as yet, few books have systematically examined the implications of poststructuralism for the critical analysis of social policy. While poststructuralism has had a profound impact on thinking in the social sciences and humanities over the last decade or so, its implications for our understandings of social policy and its impacts have been relatively unexplored. This book represents an effort to address this lacuna, to show how the insights offered by poststructuralists can be usefully employed in the analysis of contemporary social policy, with specific reference to the areas of welfare, health, education and science and technology. These are areas of our respective research interests and expertise, and also constitute much of the contemporary field of social policy. The emergence of economic liberalism, increasing globalisation, the reconstruction of the welfare state and the move towards a more market-driven approach to social provision has radically reshaped policies in all these fields, calling for new perspectives and new tools of analysis. This rapidly changing context has brought into question many of the categories and concepts by means of which we have so far understood the human, such as ‘citizenship’ which was developed further in the context of the welfare state. With the ‘winding back’ of the welfare state, the emergence of a new conservatism and attacks on established social and civil rights, it is important that policy makers and policy analysts who are concerned about protecting and advancing rights seek to critically appraise basic concepts and categories. In particular, there is a need for careful analysis of the manifestations and operations of the increasingly dominant ‘rationality of rule’ known as advanced liberalism or neo-liberalism. Neo-liberal policies have radically altered the public domain through privatisation, downsizing, the contracting out and rationing of services and the emphasis on local and individual autonomy. There are few areas of policy unaffected by the recent and dramatic shifts in social priorities ushered in by neo-liberal rule. In this context, the concept of citizenship is of crucial significance, as a site for exploring the meanings and limits of liberal democratic participation and for contesting the imperatives of neo-liberal rule. The concept of citizenship, with its implied rights and duties, we believe, needs to be closely and critically scrutinised at this historical juncture, and hence figures prominently in the discussion that follows.

What do we mean by poststructuralism?

Before proceeding much further, we should make clear our particular use of the term poststructuralism. Because we take seriously the claim that our descriptions are never innocent, in the sense that they are unable to provide an unmediated and impartial access to an already given social reality, but rather constitute our reality, we believe it is important that authors seek to define their terms clearly. Throughout its relatively brief history, the term poststructuralism has been charged with multiple meanings. This has led to some confusion in discussions. Confusion has arisen in part because writers often use the term ‘poststructuralist’ as though it were singular when in fact it is plural, encompassing diverse theoretical positions, including apparently ‘apolitical’ forms of deconstructive criticism and more explicit forms of political critique and practice, such as feminist poststructuralism (Weedon 1987) and queer theory (Seidman 1996). It is not our intention here to explore the diverse definitions of poststructuralism, nor the history of poststructuralist thought, since this has already been done extensively elsewhere (see, e.g., Best and Kellner 1991; Sarup 1993; Smart 1993). When we use the term poststructuralism here, we take it to mean that school of thought which is opposed to and seeks to move beyond the premises of structuralism, to develop new models of thought, writing and subjectivity. As Best and Kellner explain, structuralism focuses on the underlying rules which organise phenomena into a social system and aims at objectivity, coherence, rigour and truth. Structuralists seek to describe social phenomena in terms of linguistic and social structures, rules, codes and systems, and to develop grand, synthesising theories (Best and Kellner 1991:19). Examples of structuralist analysis include Marxism and functionalist sociology. Poststructuralists, on the other hand, focus on the inextricable and diffuse linkages between power and knowledge, and on how individuals are constituted as subjects and given unified identities or subject positions. That is, they focus on micro politics and on subjectivity, difference and everyday life (ibid.: 24). This is clearly exemplified in the work of the French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault. Poststructuralists such as Foucault are concerned with de-constructing the concepts by which we have come to understand the human subject, including concepts such as ‘the self’, ‘the social’ and ‘citizenship’.

Poststructuralists adopt a unique kind of deconstructive and analytic approach, with a specific purpose in mind. Because they seek to challenge the humanist notion of an unchanging human nature, they favour a historical method which sees different forms of consciousness and identities as historically produced. The method of genealogy, proposed by Foucault, has been the method adopted by poststructuralists for disrupting the certainties of the present and allowing new perspectives to emerge, including those of previously marginalised groups (see Chapter 2). Poststructuralists challenge the notion that there is an overall pattern in history and that the present state of affairs is inevitable and immutable. Given poststructuralists’ scepticism about grand theory building and the claim of positivistic science to know all there is to know, it is not surprising that poststructural work has also tended to focus on the mundane, everyday practices which constitute our social realities. Their focus on ‘subjugated’ and ‘disqualified’ knowledges tends to place them in sharp opposition to the sociological tradition (from Marx, Durkheim and Weber to the present) that privilenges professional knowledge over the lay interpretation of reality (Best 1994:44). This is not to say that they have abandoned analysis of broader social structures or of the broader sweeps of history, or eschew the use of systematic methods. However, the historical and social determinism of structuralist sociology is rejected in favour of an analysis of the interconnections between the macro-level and the micro-level workings of power, particularly as these are played out in specific domains, for example, in the workplace, in education and in the clinic, and how this affects our understandings of the human subject and people's awareness of themselves as subjects (i.e. their subjectivities). Some of these features of poststructuralism are ones which are also often associated with postmodernism.

The term poststructuralism is sometimes used interchangeably with postmodernism, and this is also the source of some confusion. This is not to say that poststructuralism is unrelated to post-modernism. However, the exact nature of the relationship depends upon one's particular conception of postmodernism, that is, whether one is using this term to refer to a period in history, a cultural context or a theoretical approach. Poststructuralism has been variously described as a symptom of the postmodern culture which it seeks to describe, as a part of the maxtrix of postmodern theory, and as a discourse of and about modernism (see Dickens and Fontana 1994:89–90; Best and Kellner 1991:25; Huyssen 1984: 39, in Smart 1993). These definitions highlight the significance of the broader cultural and theoretical context within which poststructuralism emerges and with which poststructuralists engage. However, they also tend to convey the impression that there has been an abrupt and absolute shift in culture and theory which has not in fact occurred. The popularisation of the ideas of writers such as Baudrillard, who portrays the present age as one in which the distinction between reality and illusion has disappeared—where what is real is but a simulacrum and where ‘the social’ no longer exists—and Lyotard, whose highly influential book The Postmodern Condition (1984) provides a polemic attack against the discourses of modernity while offering new postmodern positions, has had the unfortunate effect of suggesting that there has been an abrupt break with the past. The very use of the prefix ‘post’ in poststructuralism and postmodernism indeed suggests a radical shift in perspective or milieu that has often been used by critics to dismiss the contributions of those scholars who draw on poststructural or postmodern ideas. Although poststructuralism has emerged in a context of significant change—one in which the very foundations of knowledge are being questioned—it is important to recognise continuities as well as raptures in our ways of thinking about the social world. For instance, the particular concept of ‘the social’ that has underpinned thinking about social policy and social action for much of the last two hundred years continues to predominate, despite its erosion under neo-liberalism (see Chapter 4). Faith in rational science and in the ability to manage or ameliorate social problems rationally also endures in diverse areas of culture, including the policy arena, where professional, science-based knowledge and ‘top-down’ approaches to formulating policy continue to hold a privileged position vis-à-vis non-professional or lay knowledge and ‘bottom-up’ approaches. Thus, while contemporary societies are undergoing changes of a kind and order that call for novel approaches, we need to guard against setting up false dichotomies of ‘old’ and ‘new’ or ‘past’ and ‘present’ and hence overlooking the importance of continuities in our ‘ways of seeing’.

One of our intentions has been to present our arguments in a way which allows conflicts in viewpoint and unresolved dilemmas of theory to emerge. Although we share certain concerns and can agree on the broad outlines of poststructuralism and how it might contribute to policy analysis, there are also many points on which we disagree and arguments which need further thought. We each make use of and engage with poststructural ideas in somewhat different ways. As you will note, each of the chapters is followed by short reflexive essays which constitute responses by each of us to queries raised by the others to our argument. This gives the book more of an interactive flavour than is found in most other texts. We hope that these essays serve as a pedagogic device, helping to convey to students, and to lecturers not familiar with poststructuralist thought, the challenges posed by poststructuralism to the idea of the authoritative voice. In organising the material in this way, we hope to stimulate further debate, rather than to foreclose discussion about the contributions of poststructural analysis to policy analysis.

The relationship between poststructuralism and the
social policy literature

What is the relationship between poststructuralism and the social policy literature? In order to answer this question properly, we need first to clarify what we mean when we refer to the ‘social policy tradition’. A useful way of doing this is by contrast: that is, by establishing which kinds of policy writing are not part of the social policy tradition as we understand it.

We start with those texts which aim to provide a set of strategic or analytical tools for the practitioner (thus, for example, Hogwood and Gunn's Policy Analysis for the Real World (1984)). Typically, such texts deal with the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policy. Their substantive concerns include the nature of decision making, the means of forecasting and diagnosing policy issues and the locus of policy making. Questions relating to the operation of power and the nature of the state are rarely raised. The social and political policy context is a given, something which the intelligent policy maker takes into account and deals with as he or she designs and implements chosen strategies.

In contrast, the social policy tradition (in both its more orthodox and critical forms) has such issues at the heart of its concerns. It sets out to describe the social, economic and political conditions in which policy arises. Social policy research aims to provide a critical understanding of how policy is made and what its effects are. Epsing-Anderson's Welfare States in Transition (1996) provides a recent example. Its writings are intended to inform the work of the practitioner but not to provide a set of instructions and are intended for academics as well as policy makers.

The social policy tradition also needs to be distinguished from public policy writing. This distinction operates at two levels: area and perspective. As far as area is concerned, public policy texts typically deal with a broad range of policies including macro and micro economic reform, industrial relations, transport, the environment, health, education and (less often) welfare. In contrast, social policy texts generally restrict themselves to areas more obviously linked to the welfare state: health, education, income security and employment are the prime examples. In relation to perspective, public policy writings focus on the institutional settings of political decision making, the actual operations of power and the influence of int...

Table of contents

• Front cover
• Poststructuralism, Citizenship and Social Policy
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: themes, context and perspectives
• 2 Public welfare and liberal governance
• 3 Higher education policy and the learning citizen
• 4 Public health, the new genetics and subjectivity
• 5 Technology and citizenship
• 6 Conclusion
• Index