Brief report on Section Advances in Critical Policy Discourse Analysis September 4-8 2023 ECPR Conference.

This Section, supported by the Standing Group on Theoretical Perspectives, has sought to bring together scholars using critical text and discourse analytical approaches in the study of policy and politics. The section was organized under the umbrella of the edited volume Critical Policy Discourse Analysis published in 2019. The section started with an ‘authors meet critics’ session on this particular volume. While the volume was certainly praised as a substantial and timely contribution, the discussion emphasized the need to urgently address gender and to include more non-Anglo-Saxon researchers and research topics into the field, rather than taking the Anglo-Saxon as the undiscussed ‘taken for granted’. In addition, the ‘critical’ should also include the ‘constructive’ in terms of useful alternatives rather than delivering mere critique. Also, there is a need to critique neoliberalism in more explicit ways through informed theory and methodology. A clearer distinction between ‘policy’ and ‘the political’ would be welcomed.

The section contained 10 panels, concerning topics varying from ‘minorities’, ‘exploring methodology’, ‘actors, agency and democracy’, ‘water governance’, ‘ecology, hegemony, ethics and power’, ‘climate and policy analysis’, ‘policy, discourse and society’ and ‘protecting citizenship’. There was a coherent audience throughout the sequence of the panels, which led to a collective learning and research process. Salient themes that came out throughout the discussions, were the need for addressing the ‘ways forward’ following presented critical analyses, including when these were performed through sophisticated qualitative and quantitative methods. Or how to move from empirical critique of policy-making processes towards participatory research to enhance processes of deliberation, mediation and empowerment to co-create synergetic solutions. In the final wrap-up of the section following the final panel, the outcomes from the ‘authors meet critic’ sessions these outcomes were summarized as ‘ways forward’ for CPDA. In addition to the ones mentioned above, further outcomes included a more complex take on knowledge from a rational mechanism, to complex, embodied forms of knowledge to address the wicked problems of our times. Complex knowledge includes inserting forms of embodied knowledge so as to enhance processes of policy making in the direction of knowing how to establish solidarity between people(s) in turbulent and unpredictable times.

Nicolina Montesano Montessori, Jane Mulderrig and Michael Farrelly