---- PEARSON Copyright© Pearson Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group 2014 -ISBN 9780733985752-Baachi/Analysing Policy Copyright C Pearson Australia {a dlvision of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2014- ISBN 9780733985752- BaachVAnalysing Policy To Stephen, Angie, Anne W. and Anne F. Copyright© Pearson Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Lid) 2014 -ISBN 9780733985752-Baachi/Analysing Policy Carol Bacchi Copyright C Pearson Australia {a dlvision of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2014- ISBN 9780733985752- BaachVAnalysing Policy Copyright© Pearson Australia (a division ofPearson Australia Group) 2009 Pearson Australia Unit 4, Level 3 14 Aquatic Drive Frenchs Forest NSW 2086 www. pearson.com.au The Copyright Act 1968 of Australia allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% ofthis book, whichever is the greater, to be copied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that that educational institution (or the body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. For details of the CAL licence for educational institutions contact: Copyright Agency Limited, telephone: (02) 9394 7600, email: [email protected] All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Copyright Act 1968 of Australia and subsequent amendments, no part ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Acquisitions Editor: Joanne Stanley Project Editor: Kathryn Munro Associate Editor: Jessica Sykes Production Coordinators: Chris Richardson and Barbara Honor Copy Editor: Abigail Nathan Proofreader: Bree DeRoche Copyright and Pictures Editor: Emma Gaulton Indexer: Lisa Knowles Cover design by Natalie Bowra Cover photograph from Getty Images Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed in Malaysia. l 2 3 4 S l3 12 ll lO 09 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Author: Bacchi, Carol Lee. Title: Analysing policy: What's the problem represented to be? Edition: lst ed. ISBN: 9780733985751 (pbk). ISBN: 9781486022366 (vital source). Notes: Includes index. Includes bibliography. Subjects: Policy sciences--Evaluation. Dewey Number: 320.6 Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright. However, should any infringement have occurred, the publishers tender their apologies and invite copyright owners to contact them. Due to copyright restrictions, we may have been unable to include material from the print edition ofthe book in this digital edition, although every effort has been made to minimise instances of missing content. Pearson Australia is a division of Copyright© Pearson Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Lid) 2014 -ISBN 9780733985752-Baachi/Analysing Policy Preface vi Acknowledgements viii Introduction ix Chapter 1 Introducing a 'what's thc problcm rcprcscntcd to be?' approach to policy analysis Chapter 2 Rethinking policy analysis: Theory and politics 25 Chapter 3 Welfare, 'youth' and unemployment 54 Chapter 4 'Dangerous' consumptions: Drugsfalcohol and gambling policy 78 Chapter S Crime and justice 100 Chapter 6 Health, wellbeing and the social determinants of health 127 Chapter 7 Population, immigration, citizenship: 'Securing' a place in the world 154 Chapter 8 The limits of equality: Anti-discrimination and 'special measures' 180 Chapter 9 The ambivalence of education: HECS and lifelong learning 204 Chapter 10 'Knowledge production' in the 'information society': Media and research policy 232 Conclusion: í\ right to the problems' 262 Glossary 274 Index 279 Copyright C Pearson Australia {a dlvision of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2014- ISBN 9780733985752- BaachVAnalysing Policy This book offers students a way to analyse policy. It should be stated at thc outset that it does not offer a conventional form of policy analysis. Indeed, this is a most unconvcntional book i:tbvul pvlil:y. Il i:. bc:.l uc:::;~.:ribcJ i:l:; i:l pv:;L:;Lru~.:luri:tl i:tpprvctdJ lv pvli~.:y ctnctly:.h. Whi:tL lhi:; means will be made clcar in due course. Stated simply, the intent is to dig dccper than usual into the meaning of policies and into the meaning-makíng that is part of policy formulation. As Beilharz (1987, p. 393) put it sorne years ago, 'tbe object becomes that of sceking to understand policy bettcr than its authors'. 1 developed the methodology introduced here, called 'what's the problem represented to be?', in an carlicr book (Bacchi 1999). My specific task in that book was to examine how such an approach could provide insights inro the ways in which women's inequality has been understood in Western policy interventions, and the implications for feminist theorists. The positive reception the approach received both in Australia and overseas led me to develop it further and to show how it can be applied more widely. While the starting place for analysis is public policy in Australia, the focus on methodology and application means that the approach is easily adaptable to other settings. This is also the case d u e to an ex plicit intent to understand national policies w ithi n broad in tcrnational contexts. The book has becn designed for case of application. Chapter 1 lays out thc steps in the approach in a straightforward, 'how to do' fashion. The hope is that students can begin to use the approach right away, should they wish to do so. Chaptcr 2 providcs thc thcoretical background to the key concepts in the approach. Chapters 3 and 4 apply the approach in a systematic way, whilc Chapters 5 through 10 develop a more intcgratcd form of analysis. Terms that appear in bold are explained in the Glossary. A supplement to the text, containing hyperlinks to key references, is downloadable from the publisher's catalogue (www.pearson. com .a ufCatalog uefBrowse .aspx ). Copyright C Pearson Australia {a dlvision of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2014- ISBN 9780733985752- BaachVAnalysing Policy PREFACE vii The book has an underlying and unifying argument. It offers a 'what's the problem represented to be?' approach to policy analysis as a counter to the current enthusiasm in both education and in public policy for 'problem solving'. This argument gets an airing in the Introduction, and runs as a sub-theme through to Chapter 10, where it is more thoroughly discussed. The message of the book, put briefly, is that, to offer new dimensions in thinking about how governing takes place, it is imperative to shift the focus from 'problem' solving to 'problem' questioning - interrogating the ways in which proposals for change represent 'pro blems'. REFERENCES BAccm, C. 1999, Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems, Sage, London. BEILHARZ, P. 1987, 'Reading Politics: Social Theory and Social Policy', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 388-406. Copyright© Pearson Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Lid) 2014 -ISBN 9780733985752-Baachi/Analysing Policy Because the 'what's the problem represented to be?' approach has been tested and refined over the past ten years, many people need to be acknowledged. In particular 1 am indebted to the feedback and support provided by my colleagues Joan Eveline, Chris Beasley and Caro! Johnson. In addition 1 learned a great deal from discussions with undergraduate and postgraduate studcnts who have worked with the approach. Angelique Bletsas, Zoe Gill and Zoe Gordon merit special mention. Exchanges with scholars around the globe and opportunities to offer courses and lectures based on the approach in Umeii, Copenhagen and Aalborg assisted greatly in its development. Special thanks are owed to Angelique Bletsas for editorial suggestions and for coming up with an abbreviated name for the 'what's the problem represented to be?' approach to policy analysis. M y research assistant, Anne Wilson, contributed significantly to the final product, hunting down elusive references and discovering new, relevant material. Anne also read the entire manuscript, checking references and spelling consistency. In addition I wish to thank the staff of Pearson Australia, in particular Joanne Stanley, Kathryn Munro, Abigail Nathan and Lisa Knowles, for their support and advice. I aro also indebted to Mitchell Dean, Pat Armstrong and Anette Borchorst for the time and consideration they put into producing their generous endorsements. Thanks also go out to the outstanding group ofreviewers whose careful commentary on the proposal significantly contributed to this first edition: Susan Keen, University of NSW; Sarah Maddison, University of NSW; Jeannette Taylor, Murdoch University; Sue Goodwin, University ofSydney; Megan Allesandrini. University ofTasmania; Kate Driscoll, RMIT; Marty Grace, Victorian University; Andrew Parkin, Flinders University; Greg Marston, University of Queensland; and Marilyn Palmer, Edith Cowan University. And, as always, eterna! gratitude to my son, Stephen, for his patience and encouragement, and for bis artistic suggestions. Copyright C Pearson Australia {a dlvision of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2014-ISBN 9780733985752- BaachVAnalysing Policy The approach to policy introduced in this book - called 'what's the problem represented to be?' - takes nothing for granted. Indeed, the very idea of 'policy' becomes a subject for interrogation. As Miller and Rose (1990, p. 3) contend, the whole notion of 'policy' fits within a particular understanding of the role of government. It is this role I intend to explore. In addition, as Shore and Wright (1997) insist, policy has an undeniable cultural dimension. It takes shape within specific historical and national or international contexts. In this sense it is appropriate to think about policy in anthropological terms, as a cultural product. This way of approaching 'policy'- asking questions about its sources and how it operates- is part of a larger project: to understand how governing takes place, and with what implications for those so governed. A brief elaboration is required. In asking how governing takes place the airo is to understand how order is maintained, and how we live within and abide by rules. The concern with public policy, therefore, includes but extends beyond laws and legislation to encompass 'a general understanding of societal administration' (Dean and Hindess 1998, p. l 7). Laws or legislation are taken as starting points for asking questions about how governing (governance) in a broad sensc occurs on a daily basis. Of particular interest are the roles of experts and professionals in this process. The term 'policy' is generally associated with a program, a course of action. Public policy is the term used to describe government programs. There is an underlying assumption that policy is a good thing, that it fixes things up. Policy makers are the ones who do the fixing. The notion of 'fixing' carries with it an understanding that something needs to be 'fixed', that there is a problem. This presumed 'problem' can be, but does not need to be, explicitly elaborated. That is, most government policies do not officially declare that there is a problem that the policy will address and remedy. Rather this is implicit in the whole notion of policy - by their nature policies make changes, implying that something needs to change. Hence, Copyright C Pearson Australia {a dlvision of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2014- ISBN 9780733985752- BaachVAnalysing Policy