Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems

by Carol Lee Bacchi

This book offers a powerful new approach to policy studies. Drawing on recent perspectives from social constructionism, discourse analysis, the sociology of social problems and feminism, Carol Bacchi develops a step-by-step analytical tool for deconstructing policy problems. Her `What′s the Problem?′ approach encourages students to reflect critically upon the ways in which policy problems get constructed within policy debates and policy proposals.

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 1999

About the author

Carol Bacchi is Professor Emerita of Politics in the School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide. She received her PhD in History from McGill University in 1976.

Her PhD thesis on the ideas of the English-Canadian suffragists became the basis of her first book, Liberation Deferred? She migrated to Australia in 1976 and joined the Politics Department in 1984. Her major publications since that time include: Same Difference: Feminism and sexual difference (1990), The Politics of Affirmative Action: 'Women', Equality and Category Politics (1996), Women, Policy and Politics: The construction of policy problems (1999), Fear of Food: A diary of mothering (2003), Analysing Policy: What's the problem represented to be? (2009), (with Joan Eveline) Mainstreaming Politics: Gendering practices and feminist theory (University of Adelaide Press, 2010; available free online).

Reviews

[Jas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This text was part of the required course materials for my Gender and Public Policy class in university. It was a mixed senior undergraduate & graduate seminar.

An absolutely brilliant textbook and the only qualm I have about it is that it is a bit dated, so an updated version would be nice but as many of the issues covered in the text are on-going, the discussion Bacchi presents is still pertinent. My professor supplemented the text with more recent journal articles, which made for an excellent combination.

Bacchi's What's the problem represented to be approach is useful to analysis of public policy in general, and more specifically to women & public policy. In this approach, she breaks down the different problem representations of policy issues, how these representations shape discourse, and the implications this has for potential policy solutions.

The book is broken into 2 parts: Part one going through traditional approaches to policy analysis and outlining how what's the problem approach is to be conducted; part two covers specific topics (pay equity, discrimination, education policy, childcare policy, abortion, domestic violence, and sexual harassment).

[Hannah Costello · Rating 5 out of 5]

So refreshing to see post-structuralist methods being used in the policy field so often taken up with quantitative methods.