Speaking of change: why discourse is key to the dynamics of policy transformation

Abstract

This article maps out the field of study known as discursive institutionalism while exploring the range of ways in which scholars in this field explain the dynamics of change (and continuity). In so doing, it examines theoretical issues related to the timing of change, including crisis-driven or incremental approaches to change in policy, programmatic, and philosophical ideas; the content of change not only in different levels of ideas but also in different types, cognitive and normative, and in different forms of discourse; the processes of change via ‘sentient’ agents in different discursive spheres, whether the coordinative discourse of policy actors or the communicative discourse of political actors with the public; and the context of change, not only the meaning context of ideas and the forum for discourse but also the formal and informal institutional structures that are the focus of rationalist, historical and sociological institutional approaches. The article seeks to demonstrate that only by understanding discourse as substantive ideas and interactive processes in institutional context can we fully demonstrate its transformational role in policy change. Speaking of change, in other words, rather than just thinking it, is key to explaining the actions that lead to major policy transformations.