What They Talk About When They Talk About Homelessness: Discourse and Knowledge Culture as a Barrier to Integrated Policy Initiatives

Maja Flåto

doi:10.1017/s0047279421001057

Abstract

Abstract Integrated government initiatives have become a common approach following the institutional fragmentation of New Public Management reforms. Complex societal issues require equally complex solutions, which sectorial units of government cannot attend to alone. However, integrated policy initiatives are prone to a range of obstacles. Using a study of policymaking aimed at homelessness in Norway as a case, this paper discusses how sectorial-shared knowledge creates barriers to a common view of policy problems and solutions. Engaging theories of governmental fragmentation, coordination, discourse, and epistemic cultures enable an exploration of how the involved policy sectors understand and address homelessness. The findings indicate that all policy sectors seem to recognise their responsibility within a social welfare frame, but despite having cooperated for several years, embeddedness in sectorial discourse and epistemic culture causes differing problem definitions. Established terms and categories within homelessness policies are filled with content according to epistemic embeddedness, thereby contributing to obscure the differences, rather than integrate the policy initiatives.

Highlights

Today’s society is recognised by how professional knowledge is interweaved with social life (Knorr-Cetina, : )
The division of knowledgeable persons by professions and epistemic culture created sectorial divisions in governments through the twentieth century, that was further segmented by the influence of neoliberal ideas and New Public management governing tools from the ’s
The findings indicate that all policy sectors seem to recognise their responsibility within a social welfare frame, but despite having cooperated for several years, embeddedness in sectorial discourse and epistemic culture causes diverging problem definitions, and thereby leads to diverging solutions

Summary

Introduction

Today’s society is recognised by how professional knowledge is interweaved with social life (Knorr-Cetina, : ). The formation of policies is a competition over various understandings of socioinstitutional reality (Fischer, ), materialising in problem definitions reflecting these understandings (Bacchi and Goodwin, ; Rose, ). This makes studies of discourse and knowledge central within policy studies. Examples include the Fischer and Gottweis ( ) studies addressing policymaking as part of an argumentative turn in society, focusing on communicative practices in policymaking and how competing actors construct divergent policy narratives when approaching complex issues Another example is Schmidt’s ( ; ) discursive institutionalism that addresses the interactive processes of discourse by which actors in policymaking express ideas embedded in institutional contexts

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion