FRAMING DRUG POLICY what’s ‘the problem

							FRAMING DRUG POLICY:
what’s ‘the problem’ represented to be?

Carol Bacchi
Politics Discipline
University of Adelaide
What’s ‘the problem’ represented to be?
An approach to policy
• Introduce the approach
• Offer a list of questions outlining a What’s the problem
  (represented to be)? approach.
• Identity some areas where the approach could be
  usefully applied in the field of alcohol and drug policy.
Comparing a What’s the Problem?
approach to Conventional Approaches
to policy
Meredith Edwards (2004):
‘Public policy addresses societal problems and is
about what governments do, why they do it and what
difference it makes.’
— a ‘reactive’ approach
—based on the assumption that governments react
to fixed and identifiable social problems and do their
best to resolve them.
A What’s the problem (represented to be)?
approach
—draws attention to the ways in which
governments (and others) give a particular
shape to social problems
—these ‘shapes’ are called problem
representations
—problem representations have effects
How are we to identify problem representations?


• Distinction between cause and concern
• Examine specific policy proposals (provides
  pointers to how the issue is being conceptualized)
• Scrutinize policy debates
What’s the Problem (represented to
be)? Questions to ask:
• 1. What is the problem (of ‘problem gambling’, ‘problem
  gamblers’, ‘drug use’, domestic violence, pay equity,
  child care, etc.) represented to be either in a specific
  policy debate or in a specific policy proposal?
• 2. What presuppositions or assumptions underlie the
  representation/s? Identify binaries and contradictions.
• 3. What effects are produced by this representation of
  the problem?
Questions to ask (continued)

• What is left unproblematic in this representation?
  Where are the silences?
• How would ‘responses’ differ if ‘the problem’ were
  thought about or represented differently? [Here it is
  useful to think about shifts in representation of ‘the
  problem’ over time or across cultures.]
Effects of problem representations

• How subjects are constituted within a problem
  representation
• Limits of what can be said
• Limits on what will change and what will stay the same
• Benefits for some; harm to others
Applying a ‘what’s the problem
represented to be?’ approach
• Dominant representations of ‘drug problems’
• The ‘harm minimization’ response
• Drug use as a ‘health issue’
• Broader social policy frameworks: social exclusion,
  whole of government, partnerships
• Broader social and cultural context: eg
  ‘consumptogenic culture’
Implications for those with a reform
agenda
• Conduct a ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’
  analysis of problem representations (including those
  that lodge in one’s own proposals)
• Try to shape reforms that avoid effects we consider
  deleterious
• Consider context