Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice

by Carol Bacchi, Susan Goodwin

This book offers a novel, refreshing and politically engaged way to think about public policy. Instead of treating policy as simply the government’s best efforts to address problems, it offers a way to question critically how policies produce “problems” as particular sorts of problems, with important political implications. Governing, it is argued, takes place through these problematizations. According to the authors, interrogating policies and policy proposals as problematizations involves asking questions about the assumptions they rely upon, how they have been made, what their effects are, as well as how they could be unmade. To enable this form of critical analysis, this book introduces an analytic strategy, the “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” (WPR) approach. It features examples of applications of the approach with topics as diverse as obesity, economic policy, migration, drug and alcohol policy, and gender equality to illustrate the growing popularity of this way of thinking and to provide clear and useful examples of poststructural policy analysis in practice.

187 pages, Hardcover

Published August 13, 2025

Reviews

[Roma Itaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

En overskuelig guide til WPR-analysestrategien.

I bogen finder man også kapitler, der kort og godt forklarer svært håndgribelige poststrukturalistiske begreber fra Michel Foucaults forfatterskab såsom magt, viden, subjektivering, diskurs.

Første del af bogen er det (videnskabs-)teoretiske grundlag for metoden, formålet med strategien samt begrebsafklaringer.
Anden del af bogen er en sammenfatning af forskellige forskningsartikler, der har anvendt WPR til at analysere forskellige former for policy forskellige steder i verden. Her får man eksemplificeret, hvordan man kan analysere eksempelvis "subjekter", "objekter" og "problemer" (anførselstegn indikerer den poststrukturalistiske tilgang til disse begreber som ikke-fastlåste essenser eller entiteter).

Bogen er anbefalelsesværdig til alle der arbejder med policy og studerende, der ønsker en overskuelig poststrukturalistisk metode, der er let at gå til.

[Don Dealga · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent work that presents a framework for using Foucauldian & post-structuralist based analysis in the examination and critique of public policy, plus examples and applications of the framework.
The authors introduce a simple analytical tool: WPR = "What's the Problem Represented to be?" They argue that policies produce problems as particular type of problems, rather than the conventional assumption/assertion that they address extant issues.

Book has an excellent appendix outlining a very useful poststructural approach to (research) interview analysis.

[Lara Duke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hard read, but useful when considering a critical approach to policy analysis.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars. A practical guide to an approach to policy that is informed by Foucault's treatment of discourse.