Discursive Institutionalism and Food Policy Research: The Case Study of Canada’s National Food Policy

“Food” and “policy” are ambiguous concepts. In turn, the study of food policy has resulted in varying approaches by different disciplines. However, the power behind the discursive effects of these concepts in policymaking—how food policy is understood and shaped by different actors as well as how those ideas are shared in different settings—requires a rigorous yet flexible research approach. This paper will introduce the contours of discursive institutionalism and demonstrate methodological application using the case study example of Canada’s national food policy, Food Policy for Canada: Everyone at the Table! Selected examples of communicative and coordination efforts and the discursive power they carry in defining priorities and policy boundaries are used to demonstrate how discursive institutionalism is used for revealing the causal and material consequences of food policy discourses.

A Negotiative Theory of Journalistic Roles

In probing how journalists negotiate the perceived discrepancy between their social role orientation and role performance, we arrive at a negotiative theory of roles. The theory is based on an inductive study where we combine classic theoretical frameworks of role theory with conceptual approaches of discursive institutionalism and Hochschilds’ theory of feeling rules. We examined journalists’ narratives from qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 Swiss newspaper journalists, who were asked to interpret the perceived gap—found in previous studies—between journalism ideals and journalism practice. The results compelled us to revisit role theories and to consider a number of overlooked or under-utilized analytic features of social roles to propose refinements to the concepts of journalistic roles and role performance. This resulted in a negotiative theory of roles that focuses attention on intra- and interpersonal discourse as well as what we call “role work.”

A Theory of Professional Identity in Journalism: Connecting Discursive Institutionalism, Socialization, and Psychological Resilience Theory

Studies about journalists’ professional identity have so far been scarce. However, understanding the constitution and formation processes of professional identity helps to explore journalists’ and journalism’s identity, performance, and adaption to challenges. The study enhances theories about journalistic roles, professional identity, and adaptation processes in journalism, based on a synthesis of literature from different fields as well as qualitative interviews with 20 journalists from print and online Swiss newspapers. This research proposes a model that explains: (a) the constitution of professional identity in journalism as an additive, relational, and hierarchical concept; and (b) the process of formation at three distinct level of analysis. The idea is that different theories address adaptation processes on distinctive analytical fields: discursive institutionalism captures the relationship between journalists’ and journalism’s identity (macro); socialization theory focuses on the adaption process into a social community (meso); and resilience theory explains individuals’ adaptation in face of challenges (micro).

Interpretivism in Motion

Vivienne Schmidt discusses the Rudolph’s development of their interpretative approach in the context of the spirited debates about epistemology and social science inquiry. She builds upon the Rudolphs’ approach to elaborate ‘discursive institutionalism’, a mode of analysis that theorizes the nature of discourse and how discursive exchange contributes to political action and institutional change. Schmidt’s chapter advances beyond most discursive analyses by theorizing ‘ideational power’, or the capacity of actors to use ideas to: influence other actors’ normative and cognitive beliefs; control the meaning and normative value of ideas; and structure discourse by controlling its agenda. Ultimately, Schmidt makes a cogent case for methodological pluralism in the study of ideas, one that can engage and even synthesize a range of analytical approaches.

An Analysis on Schmidt V.A.'s Discursive Institutionalism and its implications to Taiwan's Teacher Professional Development Policy

This Thesis explored the theory, practices, and future prospects of the teacher professional development policy in Taiwan. Prof. Schmidt's discursive institutionalism pointed out an analysis of institutions must start from the ideas and discourses of the actors and must regard the coordinative political sphere of the policy for a policy idea to be communicated and become the consensus of political elites. Additionally, the top-down communicative political sphere was essential for ideas to be imparted to the general public. The length of participation in the professional policy in Taiwan was, on average, one to two years, because teachers there considered the policy unrelated to their classroom teaching. Although teachers were aware of the need to grow, few, in fact, take actions while most remained passive and stayed inertia. This thesis argued that the languages of a policy idea were transmitted both by a top-down and bottom-up approach. If a ruling government fails to construct an effective discourse, its policy will not be successfully implemented.