Poststructural Policy Analysis

This book offers a distinctive approach to policy analysis and a refreshing and politically engaged way of thinking about policy. It clearly articulates a Foucault-influenced poststructural perspective on policy and policy analysis for researchers, students and policy makers. As a "guide to practice", the book introduces a critical analytical approach to policy analysis called ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR). Instead of treating policy as simply the government’s best efforts to address problems, this analytic strategy highlights how policies produce ‘problems’ as particular sorts of problem and how governing takes place through these problematisations. First published in 2016, the book describes the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of the WPR approach to policy analysis in a detailed and accessible manner. It features examples of application of the approach with topics as diverse as obesity, economic policy, migration, drug and alcohol policy, and gender