Innovations in Critical Policy Analysis

What’s the Problem Represented to Be?

Buch | Hardcover

214 Seiten

2026
Policy Press (Verlag)
978-1-4473-7379-7 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Januar 2026)
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Public policy is often framed as a response to social problems rather than the cause of them. Carol Bacchi’s influential ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) approach – first published in her 2009 book, Analysing Policy – addresses this contrast and has become an essential methodology for post-structural analysis of public policy.

This edited volume brings together leading international scholars to rethink, extend and reflect on the WPR approach in novel ways, demonstrating its applicability beyond policy documents and across diverse social science disciplines. It presents innovative perspectives on a radical methodology, making it a must-read for research methods scholars and critical policy analysts.

Engaging with multiple theories, concepts and purposes, this book provides cutting-edge insights and real-world applications that make it an essential tool for interrogating policy and power in practice.

Malin Rönnblom is Professor of Political Science at Karlstad University. Rosalind Edwards is Professor of Sociology at the University of Southampton.

1. Thinking with the ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ critical approach to research and analysis - Malin Rönnblom and Rosalind Edwards

PART I: Rethinking WPR

2. What’s the ‘problem’ of ‘underlying health conditions’ represented to be? Applying WPR to concepts - Carol Bacchi and Anne Wilson

3. Comparing and contrasting WPR and CDA: divergent conceptions of discourse and distinct analytical strategies - Jian Wu

4. Genealogy and WPR: the importance of Bacchi’s questions when evoking a genealogical sensibility - Stephen Kelly

PART II: Extending WPR

5. WPR and construction of the object as a lens to understand governing families through AI technologies: combining

epistemologies - Rosalind Edwards and Pamela Ugwudike

6. Where critical hands touch: towards decolonial policy analysis - Amelia Odida

7. Where is the problem represented to be? - Tomas Mitander and Andreas Öjehag Pettersson

8. Emotional problems: poststructural policy analysis and emotional discourses in the case of birth tourism - Stephanie Paterson and Lindsay Larios

9. Winding up the future? The crank radio as policy - Lina Rahm and Jörgen Behrendtz

PART III: Reflecting on WPR

10. Enabling self-problematising? Strategically choosing re-analysis and co-authorship with an attention to difference - Hanne Marlene Dahl

11. Reflecting on the value of the WPR framework as a teaching tool in public policy analysis - John Boswell

12. Doing WPR analysis with practitioners: from emotions to political change - Malin Rönnblom

13. Conclusion: A conversation about thinking with WPR - Malin Rönnblom and Rosalind Edwards

Erscheint lt. Verlag	13.1.2026
Co-Autor	Jian Wu, Carol Bacchi, Anne Wilson, John Boswell, Stephen Kelly
Zusatzinfo	2 Tables, black and white; 2 Illustrations, black and white
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Empirische Sozialforschung
ISBN-10	1-4473-7379-0 / 1447373790
ISBN-13	978-1-4473-7379-7 / 9781447373797
Zustand	Neuware