Maarten A. Hajer

The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning

Public policy is made of language. Whether in written or oral form, argument is central to all parts of the policy process. As simple as this insight appears, its implications for policy analysis and planning are profound. Drawing from recent work on language and argumentation and referring to such theorists as Wittgenstein, Habermas, Toulmin, and Foucault, these essays explore the interplay of language, action, and power in both the practice and the theory of policy-making. The contributors, scholars of international renown who range across the theoretical spectrum, emphasize the political nature of the policy planners work and stress the role of persuasive arguments in practical decision making. Recognizing the rhetorical, communicative character of policy and planning deliberations, they show that policy arguments are necessarily selective, both shaping and being shaped by relations of power. These essays reveal the practices of policy analysts and planners in powerful new ways--as matters of practical argumentation in complex, highly political environments. They also make an important contribution to contemporary debates over postempiricism in the social and policy sciences. Contributors. John S. Dryzek, William N. Dunn, Frank Fischer, John Forester, Maarten Hajer, Patsy Healey, Robert Hoppe, Bruce Jennings, Thomas J. Kaplan, Duncan MacRae, Jr., Martin Rein, Donald Schon, J. A. Throgmorton

The Politics of Environmental Discourse

A lightweight, compact, portable pull-testing device is disclosed which is especially adapted for testing the load capabilities of installed, relatively small earth anchors such as those utilized with hold-down equipment for mobile homes or the like. The device includes a tripod-mounted, vertically adjustable, hydraulically actuated piston and cylinder assembly securable to the upper protruding end of an earth anchor shaft, with generally upright tripod support legs positioned closely adjacent the protruding shaft end to permit use of the device by a single operator in crowded areas such as beneath a mobile home where space is at a premium. Novel creep indicator apparatus is also disclosed for the accurate measurement of anchor creepage independent of any settling of the device itself into the earth which may occur during pull testing.

Policy without polity? Policy analysis and the institutional void

How should policy analysis respond to the changing context of policy making? This article examines three aspects of policy analysis in this changing context: polity, knowledge and intervention. It argues that policy making now often takes place in an ‘institutional void’ where there are no generally accepted rules and norms according to which politics is to be conducted and policy measures are to be agreed upon. More than before, solutions for pressing problems transgress the sovereignty of specific polities. Furthermore, the role of knowledge changes as the relationship between science and society has changed: scientific expertise is now negotiated rather than simply accepted. And, with the weakening of the state, it is far less obvious that the government is the sole actor to intervene in policy making. This article calls for a reconsideration of the analysis of policy making in the light of this changing context. Based on a contextual perspective it calls for a revitalization of the commitments of Harold Lasswell toward a policy science of democracy by proposing a new ‘deliberative’ policy analysis.

A decade of discourse analysis of environmental politics: Achievements, challenges, perspectives

Abstract This article assesses the contribution of discourse analysis to the study of environmental politics over the period of the past decade. Defining discourse as a particular linguistic regularity that can be found in conversations distinguishes it from ‘deliberation’ and ‘discussion’. Discourse analysis is seen as focused on situational logics studying ‘language-in-use’. Three strengths of discourse analysis are highlighted: its capacity to reveal the role of language in politics, its capacity to reveal the embeddedness of language in practices and its capacity to answer ‘how’ questions and to illuminate mechanisms. The article concludes by sketching some of the challenges lying ahead of discourse analysis. Given the changing nature of policy making, discourse analysts are supposed to have a task in identifying the new sites of politics and analysing the political dynamics therein.

Coalitions, Practices, and Meaning in Environmental Politics: From Acid Rain to BSE

In the late 1980s, I studied developments in environmental politics, a field that I had, until then, not examined in any detail. Given my background studying social movements and political institutions, I was intrigued by the ‘career’ of the environmental movement. In twenty years, it had transformed from a counter-cultural movement, practising the symbolic politics of street demonstrations, lifestyle choices, and alternative consumption (expressed in an elaborate and very visible urban circuit encompassing bookshops, wholemeal food stores, dress codes, communal households, and so on) to a more mainstream political force, seeking representation and influence through ‘green’ parties and professional lobbying (see Hajer, 1995). Upon reflection, it seemed obvious that much more was going on in environmental politics than fighting ‘environmental degradation’. The differences in style, both in terms of ways of life and of conducting politics, signalled that environmental politics was in fact a field of profound ‘cultural politics’. Environmental politics appeared to be a stage at which society reflected on its record: values were at risk, moral commitments were contested and the very form of conducting politics was questioned (Hajer, 1996).

SETTING THE STAGE A Dramaturgy of Policy Deliberation

This article aims to shed light on the performative dimension of participation in policy making. It is argued that we can enhance our understanding of the dynamics of policy deliberation examining the setting in which the deliberation takes place as well as the particular staging of that setting. Portraying political processes as sequences of staged performances of conflict and conflict resolution, this article analyzes how the design of the setting affects what is said, what can be said, and what can be said with influence. This helps to understand why many of the familiar participatory arrangements fail to satisfy both governments and the public. It also gives a new perspective on joint policy learning and opens a perspective on how to enhance the democratic quality of policy deliberation.

Democracy in the Risk Society? Learning from the New Politics of Mobility in Munich

It is often assumed that more democratic procedures will help bring about a more sustainable organisation of society. This assumption is questioned using the case of transport policy in Munich, and thus addresses the way in which the key issue of mobility is handled institutionally in a risk society. The importance of new democratic, participatory practices is illuminated as is the prominent role of new practices on a ‘corporatist’ footing. The new democratic practices are shown to be less effective then their neo‐corporatist counterparts in influencing strategic decisions that bring about more sustainable mobility and in influencing related processes of design of new technologies for sustainable mobility. It is suggested that models of democratic decision‐making in the risk society should come to terms with the fact that new ‘interactive’ policy‐making practices come in different types. It is the interrelationship between these practices that needs further investigation and conceptualisation.

Rebuilding Ground Zero. The Politics of Performance

Some events have such an impact on society that it is unclear whether the standard rules of political decision making still apply. This paper analyses the planning process of rebuilding Ground Zero as a case in which politics was unhinged and new procedures were invented on the spot. The politics of planning was not only about what should be done on the site, but also about the sort of procedure that should be followed to take a legitimate decision. The paper conceives of the political process as a sequence of staged performances and introduces a model that analyses policy processes in terms of discourse, dramaturgy and deliberation. It describes the rebuilding of Ground Zero as a case of an ‘unhappy performance’ in which, as the process continued, the wider publicly-shared determination to create a bold symbolic response to terrorism lost out to uninspired political-economic reasoning. It argues that this analysis of policy processes as performance deserves a much wider application as todays world is full of situations in which decisions are made in networks marked by unclear rules as to how to arrive at a legitimate decision.

The Living Institutions of the EU: Analysing Governance as Performance

Abstract How to analyse the dynamics of informal governance that takes place in networks that are multi-party, polycentric, trans-national and – almost by necessity – inter-cultural? This paper portrays informal governance in the EU as a complex game of negotiation. Actors not only negotiate outcomes but also the rules according to which the negotiation is to take place. This process creates ‘living institutions’ in which participants agree upon rules and credibility and authority for its joint decisions gets established. The argument of the paper is that this implies a crucial role for the dramaturgy of negotiation that co-determines if a negotiation is successful or not. The paper suggests governance should be approached as a sequence of staged performances.

Politics on the move: The democratic control of the design of sustainable technologies

This article examines how “design rationality” could help remediate the controversy over environmental degradation. Drawing on the case of designing sustainable forms of traffic management, it argues that this will only be effective to a limited degree. “Policy conversation” does indeed take place but within a coalition of actions that pushes a particular set of solutions. This facilitates due procedure but erodes political legitimacy, thus potentially reproducing an intractable controversy. The article suggests a five-phase model of democratic control as an alternative.