Discursive Institutionalist Approach Research Articles

The Euro’s Taxing Path to Political Legitimacy

ABSTRACT In Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone, Vivien Schmidt authoritatively charts how the European Union weathered the crisis of its single currency in the 2010s, gradually moving from fiscal austerity and structural reform to a more systemic solution and flexible interpretation of the euro’s governing rules. Using a discursive institutionalist approach in combination with a “systems theory” understanding of democratic decision making, Schmidt persuasively argues that we need to look at the euro problem as a fundamentally political problem that lacked democratic legitimacy as long as technocrats were in charge of policy solutions. Schmidt argues that the euro crisis needs to be broached from the point of view of the E.U.’s split-level legitimacy as well as the growing politicization of E.U. governance in an era of increasing populism and rising Euroskepticism. Schmidt’s application of discursive institutionalism allows readers to judge for themselves whose and which ideas mattered, why and in what way they were implemented, and how they gradually evolved over time.

'Nurses are seen as general cargo, not the smart TVs you ship carefully': the politics of nurse staffing in England, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Nurse workforce shortages put healthcare systems under pressure, moving the nursing profession into the core of healthcare policymaking. In this paper, we shift the focus from workforce policy to workforce politics and highlight the political role of nurses in healthcare systems in England, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Using a comparative discursive institutionalist approach, we study how nurses are organised and represented in these four countries. We show how nurse politics plays out at the levels of representation, working conditions, career building, and by breaking with the public healthcare system. Although there are differences between the countries - with nurses in England and Spain under more pressure than in the Netherlands and Sweden - nurses are often not represented in policy discourses; not just because of institutional ignorance but also because of fragmentation of the profession itself. This institutional ignorance and lack of collective representation, we argue, requires attention to foster the role and position of nurses in contemporary healthcare systems.

Ideational bricolage as a route to transforming local institutions for heat decarbonisation: heat networks and local government in England

ABSTRACT Heat networks could play a significant role in energy system decarbonisation. Unlike much energy infrastructure, heat networks are developed at a local-scale, raising questions about which actors and institutions, at which scales, will most effectively deliver networks. This paper examines different ideas about the role of local government and the translation of those ideas into the institutional framework for heat networks in England. The paper applies a discursive institutionalist approach to analyse ideas and discourses across three case studies and at the national level. We argue that there is a push back by local governments against the UK government dominant discourse of the efficient market in respect to heat network development. This model constitutes the role of local governments as enabling and convening actors, while emphasising techno-economic feasibility and private finance. There is, however, evidence of local governments specifying a more central ensuring role and incorporating local public goods beyond financial returns. We highlight ideational bricolage as a process by which the local state can mobilise ideational power to challenge dominant discourses. This demonstrates how powerful institutions, and their discursive components, can be disrupted – and potentially displaced – by locally led emergent, and perhaps only partially coherent, assemblages of ideas.

The politics of Uber in Quebec. A discursive institutionalist study

AbstractDigital platforms have led to the disruption of public policy in many sectors. Five years after the arrival of Uber in Quebec (Canada), the old regulatory framework was replaced by a policy which espouses the business model of the multinational. Following the discursive institutionalist approach, this research reveals the dynamic by which Uber penetrated the political sphere to take advantage of it and the roles of ideas and institutions in legitimizing the transformations.

Theresa May, the Brexit negotiations and the two-level game, 2017–2019

ABSTRACT For the two years between the activation of article 50 of the Lisbon treaty and the expected withdrawal on 29 March 2019, Theresa May was confronted with an apparently classical two-level game, where she needed to find a compromise between what Brussels could find acceptable, especially as far as trade relations were concerned, and what her domestic constituency demanded. This was made more complex by the fact that the latter was itself divided between Remainers, Soft and Hard Brexiters and multiple other sub-groups. Based on a discursive institutionalist approach, this article suggests that the Prime Minister was caught in a contradiction between her ‘hard’ rhetoric at home and the reality of her bargaining position in Brussels. Tsebelis’ nested games theory explains why her communicative discourse was politically rational but ultimately incompatible with the reality of the European power game.

A discursive institutionalist approach to American foreign policy – principled and cognitive interpretations of Bosnia

ABSTRACTThe disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991 was a pivotal challenge in U.S. foreign policy during the early 1990s. Specifically, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia proved to be a particularly contentious issue across two presidential administrations. Even as both Presidents Bush and Clinton recognised the humanitarian atrocities - initially, neither was willing to use military force in response, fearing any U.S. intervention would lead to a Vietnam-like quagmire. Yet, following the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, Clinton's position changed, favouring decisive action. Given that during this time, the U.S. remained a great power and enjoyed relative stability in coalitional arrangements - what explains this variation in policy? To explain this variation, I build on discursive institutionalist approaches, which distinguish between different types of ideas, offering two mechanisms - normative displacement and cognitive repression - by which agents come to interpret interests in more principled, or cognitively-laden ways, leading to variation absent systemic or ideational shifts.

Europeanization: A Critical Realist, Discursive Institutionalist Approach

Europeanization: A Critical Realist, Discursive Institutionalist Approach

Between welfare state and (state-organised) charity

PurposeOver the last four decades, Turkey has built an elaborate social assistance regime, which provides extensive coverage of the poor but lacks some of the key characteristics of European minimum income protection systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore what ideational roots underlie the regime and how these ideas and paradigms historically shaped the structure of the regime. The paper focuses on two central social assistance legislations: the social pensions law of 1976 and the Law that established the Fund for the Encouragement of Social Cooperation and Solidarity in 1986.Design/methodology/approachBased on a discursive institutionalist approach, the paper combines a qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates and official reports with a policy analysis of social assistance legislations in Turkey.FindingsThe paper shows that two competing policy paradigms shaped the ambivalent structure and design of Turkey social assistance regime: a welfare state paradigm and a state-organised charity paradigm. The welfare state paradigm, which perceives social assistance as a social right, was dominant in the 1970s and is embodied in the social pension programme. The state-organised charity paradigm, which aims to reinvigorate the Islamic tradition of charitable foundations (waqf), was dominant in the 1980s and is embodied in the Fund for the Encouragement of Social Cooperation and Solidarity. Today’s social assistance regime combines both elements in a curious synthesis.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to comparative social policy research and discursive institutionalism by uncovering the historical and ideational foundations of a largely neglected case, social assistance in Turkey.

Rethinking strategic culture: A computational (social science) discursive-institutionalist approach

ABSTRACT The strategic culture approach has been suffering from a prolonged theoretical stalemate, despite a surge in case studies, which culminated in the Johnston-Gray debate and subsequent schism. The present paper outlines a new approach designed to overcome this deadlock, and consists of three arguments. First, the three previous generations of strategic culture studies have failed to explain how strategic culture influences behaviour. Second, aligning strategic culture theory-building with discursive institutionalism offers a way to overcome this fundamental fallacy. Third, a research programme for strategic culture should draw on computational social science to enable it to present and test middle-range theories.

Redistribution in an Age of Neoliberalism: Market Economics, ‘Poverty Knowledge’, and the Growth of Working-Age Benefits in Britain, c. 1979–2010

The expansion of cash benefits to low-paid workers has been one of the most significant developments in recent UK public policy. Since 1979, transfer payments to working-age households have trebled in real terms, helping to offset increases in wage inequality. Adopting a discursive institutionalist approach, this article argues that the growth of transfer payments partly reflects the influence of what John Kay has called ‘Redistributive Market Liberalism’ – the belief that poverty and inequality are best alleviated through income transfers outside the market. Although its roots can be traced back to the 1940s, Redistributive Market Liberalism came to the fore after 1979 in the context of a reaction against trade union power and renewed confidence in neoclassical microeconomics, and reached its apogee in New Labour’s child poverty strategy. The 2008 financial crisis, however, appears to have disrupted the ascendancy of this free-market philosophy and prompted a return to more interventionist forms of distributional politics.

Europeanization: a Critical Realist, Discursive Institutionalist Approach

Europeanization: a Critical Realist, Discursive Institutionalist Approach

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach to Understanding the Changes to the Irish Social Partnership Policy After 2008.

Abstract: Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to social partnership policy at the end of the decade of the 2000s. Did these changes constitute a transformation in social partnership policy, or were they a continuation of a previously established policy pathway? The CJT consists of three elements--economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change--that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the changes to social partnership policy constituted a critical juncture. In this context, ideational change is very important, constituting the intermediating factor between a crisis and the subsequent nature of the policy change. Our findings will help explain the nature of the changes to social partnership policy at this time. Keywords: Crisis; critical juncture; ideas; social partnership; policy. JELs: E61, E65, H12 1. INTRODUCTION This paper examines the nature of the changes to social partnership policy after 2008. Social partnership itself can be seen from a wide variety of perspectives, giving rise of a range of different definitions. For us, in the interest of simplicity, we see social partnership as comprising 'co-operation between key players in the making of economic and social policy' (Casey & Gold, 2000, p. 9) and, as such, social partnership constitutes a neo-corporatist model for social concertation (Roche & Cradden 2003, p. 75). The economy, after years of stagnation during the 1980s, performed exceptionally well in the following decades, particularly during 1997-2007, what Timoney (2010) refers to as the peak of the Celtic Tiger. However, this prosperity ended in 2008, leading to a questioning of extant policies, including social partnership. Sudden policy discontinuities are often attributed, in a cause and effect manner, to economic crises (see punctuated equilibrium (Jones, 2001)). However, crises are often followed by policy continuity, not change. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that policy change is a complex process and that to understand it we need to take account of political circumstances, recognising that crises can be a necessary, but insufficient, condition for policy change. The CJT has been used to examine a range of policy changes (see Hogan & Cavatorta, 2013; Hogan & Doyle, 2007). According to Hogan's (2006) CJT, a critical juncture is a multi stage event. A crisis can create a situation where extant policies and associated ideas are called into question by change agents. Subsequent displacement of the extant paradigm, by the consolidation of a new set of ideas on how policy should operate, can lead to radical policy change. But, without ideational change, policy change will likely be first or second order, not third order (paradigmatic) change. (1) The presence, or absence, of ideational change links a crisis to the subsequent nature of the policy change. Here we use the CJT to investigate the nature of the changes to social partnership policy after 2008. 2. THE CRITICAL JUNCTURE THEORY According to Hogan and Doyle (2007), a critical juncture consists of discreet, but interconnected elements: crisis, ideational change (extant ideational collapse, new ideational consolidation) and radical policy change (see Figure 1). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Thus, CJT uses ideas in a form of discursive to overcome the limitations of traditional new institutionalist approaches, particularly historical institutionalism, in explaining policy change--specifically their static and overly determinist nature (Schmidt, 2010). Historical institutionalism has followed March and Olsen's (1984) suggestion about de-emphasizing micro processes and focuses on explaining complex processes and inefficient histories. Of particular importance to historical institutionalism is macro processes of path dependency (Pierson, 2000), a concept that borrows heavily from economic history (see Arthur, 1994; David, 1985; North, 1990). …

What do citizens want? And why does it matter? Discourses among citizens as opportunities and constraints for EU enlargement

ABSTRACTThis article examines the role of citizens’ discourses as constraints and opportunities for future enlargements. Public opinion is an increasingly important factor influencing EU’s integration capacity. When governments’ decisions on enlargement are challenged in referenda, the credibility of the EU’s promise is diminished and integration capacity is negatively affected. We take a discursive institutionalist approach that focuses on citizens’ perceptions and understandings of enlargement expressed in several discourses in each member state. We argue that political élites can turn to citizen discourses to identify conditions under which enlargement would be acceptable to citizens. Identifying empirically citizen discourses in two old and two more recent member states, we find discourses supportive to enlargement, constraining discourses and a third group that would approve of enlargement but under certain conditions. Examining these conditions we find that to increase integration capacity, enlargement policy needs to be objective, to involve citizens in the member states and to promote better governance in candidate states.

Ideas and agency in immigration policy: A discursive institutionalist approach

AbstractPolitical science literature tends to depict the role of ideas in policy in two distinct ways: as strategic tools mobilised by agents to achieve pre‐given preferences; or as structures imposing constraints on what is considered legitimate or feasible. Discursive institutionalism seeks to combine these insights, suggesting that while actors are indeed constrained by deeply entrenched ideas, they nonetheless enjoy some autonomy in selecting and combining ideas. This article seeks to further develop this approach in two ways. First, it identifies three discursive strategies through which policy actors can selectively mobilise ideas: they may foreground one level over others; exploit ambivalence in public philosophies; or link programme ideas over time by invoking ‘policy legacies’. Second, the article elucidates the mechanisms through which such strategic selections can in turn modify existing public philosophies and programme ideas, thereby influencing policy change. These claims are examined by comparing discourse on immigration policy liberalisation in Germany and the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2008. Evidence is found of all three discursive strategies. Moreover, the article shows how, in the German case, these discursive representations led to longer‐term adjustments in underlying programme ideas and public philosophies on immigration.

Foreign Policy and the Ideology of Post-ideology: The Case of Matteo Renzi’s Partito Democratico

The post-communist Italian Left has experienced a long phase of ideational misalignment between ideas placed at different levels, as a qualified discursive institutionalist approach demonstrates. Background public philosophies have often clashed with post-communist political ideology, while foreign policy programmes have often contradicted specific policies. Under the leadership of Matteo Renzi, however, the PD is now experiencing a moment of remarkable ideational consistency. Rather than being founded on entirely new premises, this new consensus folds old elements into new ones and shows all the defining traits of post-ideology. Yet, by espousing post-ideology, Renzi is making an ultimately ideological move whose limitations may soon start to show.

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach to Understanding Comparative Policy Change: Ireland and Mexico in the 1980s

Employing the critical juncture theory, a discursive institutionalist approach, this article examines the nature of changes to Irish industrial policy and to Mexican macroeconomic policy in the early 1980s. Were these significant changes, or were they continuations of previously established policy pathways? The critical juncture theory consists of three elements—economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change—that we must identify to be able to declare with some certainty if the policy changes constituted critical junctures. Our findings will help explain why Irish industrial policy did not undergo a radical transformation during the 1980s, whereas Mexican macroeconomic policy underwent major change. Haciendo uso de la teoría crítica de la coyuntura, es decir, de un enfoque institucionalista, este artículo examina la naturaleza de los cambios en la política industrial de Irlanda y en la política macroeconómica de México en los principios de la década de 1980. ¿Estos cambios de política constituyen transformaciones o eran simplemente una continuación de las políticas previamente establecidas? La teoría crítica de la coyuntura se compone de tres elementos—la crisis económica, el cambio ideacional y la naturaleza del cambio de política—que debemos identificar para ser capaces de afirmar con cierta certeza si los cambios en las políticas constituyeron momentos críticos. Nuestros hallazgos ayudarán a explicar por qué la política industrial irlandesa no sufrió una transformación radical durante la década de 1980, mientras que la política macroeconómica mexicana sí se sometió a un cambio importante en esa década

A discursive institutionalist approach to understanding policy change: Ireland and Mexico in the 1980s

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy, and Mexican macroeconomic policy, during early the 1980s. Did these policy changes constitute transformations, or were they simply continuations of previously established policy pathways? The CJT consists of three elements – economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change – that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the policy changes constituted critical junctures. Our findings will help explain why Irish industrial policy did not undergo a radical transformation during the 1980s, while Mexican macroeconomic policy underwent major change in that decade. Â

Globalisation and/or Europeanisation? The Case of Flexicurity

The relationship between globalisation and Europeanisation is conventionally studied by focusing on the domestic level. In this article we explore this relationship at the international level instead. We examine the way in which the two phenomena in the form of the ILO and the EU relate to one another. Adopting a discursive institutionalist approach and focusing on flexicurity, we investigate whether, how and under what conditions the discourse on flexicurity provides a point of convergence or divergence between globalisation and Europeanisation. Our empirical data reveals attempts by the European Commission to use globalisation as a legitimating device for a market-accommodating programme for labour market reform. The ILO remains more sceptical, both about the overall effects of globalisation and the more concrete uses of flexicurity. Meanwhile, the concept of flexicurity is subject to change and rearticulation in line with the evolving policy agenda endorsed by the Commission and/or the member states. The relationship between Europe and globalisation is thus far from neutral. ‘Europe’ is active in shaping globalisation; translated into the work undertaken here, Europeanisation could be conceived as a facet of globalisation rather than as a bulwark to it, or merely as a process running parallel to it.

The bonds of institutional language: A discursive institutionalist approach to the Clerk of the Privy Council's annual report

AbstractThe Clerk of the Privy Council's annual report is seen as an important documentation of the public sector's priorities, but has never been examined. Using a combination of traditional content analysis and digital humanities techniques, this study analyses the first sixteen reports written under the aegis of six clerks, and concludes that they reflect competing priorities and emphases. Yet while the reports are each distinct, they collectively are highly repetitive and remarkably unaffected by either the context in which they were written or the policies pursued by governments. The consistency of the texts over sixteen years of transformation in government indicates that such institutional discourse is slow to change, demonstrating a strong “bond” to what had been reported previously. This article also shows how a mix of methods in dissecting the use of language can contribute to the budding field of discursive institutionalism.

Trade unions and discourses of diversity management: A comparison of Sweden and Germany

This article uses a discursive institutionalist approach to explain the different responses of Swedish and German trade unions to diversity management and their involvement in its institutionalization. It is argued that the institutionalization of diversity management is more likely to be based on social dialogue where it is introduced primarily as a solution to a socio-political crisis (as in Sweden). However, where its introduction is motivated primarily by a drive for softer regulation (as in Germany), it may undermine social dialogue.