Environment, climate and health at the crossroads: a critical analysis of public policy and political communication discourse in the EU

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with theories and methodologies of critical discourse analysis and their (joint) contribution to climate change, environmental and health policy research in the European Union. Drawing on a conception of policy-making and policy discourse that involves deliberation and decision-making in contexts of uncertainty, risk and disagreement, it argues that the antagonistic nature of policy discourse provides a window into how societies express and define themselves as they grapple with uncertainties about facts, options, beliefs and common values. On this view, the chapter adopts a corpus-assisted critical discourse approach to address the connection between the environment, climate change and health as a complex network of interdiscursive interdependencies which are subject to predictable variations over time. It shows that in some cases environmental, climate change and health discourses compete with other kinds of public discourse, e.g. economic or development discourses; in other cases, they are internally interwoven with such discourses. This implies looking into how policy discourse in general is intertwined with practices and institutions, and how it is constrained by a variety of cultural and political formations.