Discourse, subjectivity and the policy realm : reconceptualising policy workers as located subjects.

Abstract

This thesis identifies two hegemonic discourses circulating within and around the policy realm - the logic of agency and the logic of rationality. Combined, these logics constitute policy workers as ’rational agents’: people who believe they can (logic of agency) objectively identify and solve policy problems (logic of rationality). These discourses affect the ways in which policy workers perform their work, impacting upon substantive policy outcomes. --p. v.