Discourse analysis and strategic policy advice: Manoeuvring, navigating, and transforming policy

Discourse analysis (DA) has established itself as a widely accepted and legitimate approach to policy analysis. It is used to study issues such as the role of knowledge in policymaking, political cleavages and coalitions, and legitimacy. However, the proponents of DA have generally been reluctant to provide strategic policy advice. This reluctance limits the utility of DA for providing new and partly alternative policy ideas and advice on how to propagate new policies and to consolidate existing ones. This paper aims to extend the scope of DA to include advice that may change or modify how discourses are utilised in shaping policy. It elaborates on seven types of discursive agency allowing policy actors (including politicians, policy strategists, public managers, and citizen groups) to either consolidate existing policy or propagate new policy by manoeuvring within a given discursive framework, navigating between different and conflicting discourses, or transforming existing discourses.