From Reluctance to Acceptation: Participation of Poor-People in Policy Implementation Using Discursive Institutionalism

Abstract

The poor-people reluctance in participation in government’s policy implementation was caused by by the distance of government policy discourse and poor-people discourse. This article investigates policy implementation of sanitation program in Probolinggo City, East Java using Discursive Institutionalism perspective and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis method to discover hidden meanings of the multi-actor’s discourse. The research found, first, the reluctance of poor-people participation in policy implementation was caused by negative discourse on sanitation interpellated the poor-people. Second, acceptation for the program implemented was achieved by narrowing the gap of discourse through penetration of alternative discourse constructed under policy design. Third, policy implementor’s discourse was exercised by breaking personal discourse of the people. Forth, discursive strategy changed personal discourse of society which then shifts reluctance to acceptance for government programs. Fifth, policy design for activating urban poor-people’s participation as social engineering based on discourse and discursive strategy.