A few months ago I suggested it was time to apply WPR to WPR. I have thought of undertaking this project on numerous occasions. I was prompted into action by several WPR applications that have picked up the suggestion to apply WPR to contrasting theoretical perspectives (Bacchi 2009: 128-136; 103-105; 249-251; Research Hub entry 18 March 2018).

For example, Primdahl et al. (2018) reflect on the forms of critical analysis produced in some selected articles contributed to the Journal of Curriculum Studies. To undertake an analysis of the “content of the argumentation”, the authors examine the various contributions in terms of their problematizations, in effect applying WPR to the selected articles (see Research Hub entries 3 December 2018; 17 Dec. 2018). More recently, Johansson and Larsson (2022) use WPR to produce a critical review of the research literature on identity in university physics. These examples highlight the usefulness of applying WPR to theoretical propositions, opening up the opportunity to apply WPR to WPR. 

The decision to apply WPR to WPR was also motivated by the recognition that, as researchers, we are inside the processes we are examining. In line with the so-called “reflexive turn” in poststructuralist critique, it is necessary, therefore, to acknowledge that the researcher/theorist plays an active role in constructing the very reality s/he is attempting to investigate (Eveline and Bacchi 2010: 154). It is time, therefore, to ask myself just what “reality” WPR creates. 

What does WPR propose?

Applying WPR involves selecting specific proposals to gain access to the problematizations at work in the analytic target, in this case WPR (Research Hub entry 30 Jan. 2023). I decided to use my 2012 article “Introducing the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ approach” for this purpose since, by its nature (short, introductory), it is both simple and clear (Bacchi 2012: 21-24). By the same token, given its brevity, it lacks nuance and depth. I have always prided myself on an ability to “reduce” complex theory to accessible prose. Today, I remind myself that “pride cometh before a fall”! On this note I apologize in advance for the many references to my publications, which became inevitable in this attempt to problematize WPR. 

The short, simple Introduction to WPR drafted in 2012 reminded me of a critical article I wrote on a 2001 directive from the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation to health researchers to simplify their analyses to make them “useful” to policymakers. In this directive researchers are:

“Instructed to use plain English and to avoid jargon; they are to lay out their research using a 1:3:25 format, with one page of ‘main messages’, three pages of ‘executive summary’ and twenty-five pages for the main report.” (in Bacchi 2008: 169-170)

In my article on this directive I make the point that condensing the analysis to fit on one page potentially distorts the content. In support of this proposition, Mills and Thomson (2023: 193) describe how the sociological perspectives they, as consultants, sought to bring to the analysis of exclusion in UK education policy “were side-lined in the executive summary”. Clearly, then, the format we adopt to “convey” our “messages” – and this applies equally to my short Introduction to WPR – have power effects, which ought to be acknowledged.

In this Research Hub entry I treat the WPR set of questions (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 20) as a “practical text” and a guide to “conduct” (Bacchi 2009: 34). The brief Introduction, just mentioned (Bacchi 2012: 21), describes WPR as a “resource, or tool, intended to facilitate critical interrogation of public policies”.  Readers are informed that “this task is accomplished through a set of six questions and an accompanying undertaking to apply the questions to one’s own proposals for change”. While the question format suggests that the approach is not prescriptive, there is still the implication that WPR produces an organized way to proceed that ought to be followed. The power implications of this form of analysis need to be recognized. 

These power implications are most obvious in what Sue Goodwin and I (2016: 20) now refer to as “Step 7”, which calls upon researchers to engage in self-problematization: “Apply this list of questions to your own problem representations”. In contrast to the other six questions in the approach, “Step 7” is not a question but an instruction. Over the years I have struggled to find a term to soften the blow, if you will, making Step 7 more of a recommendation than a command. You will find the “instruction” described in different places as a “directive” (Bacchi 2009: 19; judged to be too strong), an “injunction” (blurb on back cover of Bacchi 2009; still too strong), an “undertaking” (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 19; just right?). I feel a little bit like Goldilocks! 

An undertaking is described as a task that is (simply) taken on, though it also carries the implication of a formal promise (Cambridge Dictionary). I judge the term to be “just right” since it appears to throw the ultimate decision to engage in self-problematisation, which is what Step 7 entails, back onto the researcher. You can see here my struggle to balance the power effects of WPR with a determination to encourage self-problematization. In the most recent iteration of the WPR “method”, I decide that encouraging self-problematisation ought to be the priority, for reasons elaborated later:

“In terms of practical application of WPR, it is possible to draw selectively upon the forms of questioning and analysis just described, so long as a self-problematizing ethic is maintained” (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 24; emphasis added). 

What is produced as “the problem”?

Given that the proposal is to adopt the WPR questions as a guide to research, the “problem” is produced as alternative ways of thinking (e.g. positivism). As a result, WPR is automatically engaged in epistemological and ontological debates. Following Question 2 in WPR, I ask: which epistemological and ontological presuppositions underlie the identified problem representation in WPR?

In several places (e.g., Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 15, 33, 49) I, with Sue Goodwin, specify that WPR is associated with an ontology of becoming rather than an ontology of being. A clear distinction is drawn with realist premises. In an ontology of becoming, assumptions about the being of “things” are replaced by references to their becoming (Chia 1996). The physicality of “objects” is not questioned. However, “objects” are seen as in continuous development, as “in formation”, rather than as fixed. In effect, practices and relations replace “objects” (Veyne 1997). “Things” become open-ended and malleable. The argument is that such an ontological stance creates space for contestation and unmaking.

“Subjects” too are considered to be in a process of continuous development. In this argument, the idea that human beings are sovereign subjects who grasp meaning intuitively (Foucault 1972: 227) is rejected. This questioning of the humanist subject is contested in many quarters.

In terms of epistemology, a particular way of thinking about “knowledge” is at work in WPR. Following Foucault, knowledge is not “truth” but what is “in the true”, what is accepted as true (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 31, 35). Knowledges, or discourses, are treated as contingent historical creations that produce hierarchical and inegalitarian forms of rule. The focus of analysis becomes how “truths” are produced. 

This position is best described as anti-epistemological rather than as endorsing a specific epistemology. However, WPR makes a knowledge claim in its starting premise: “what one proposes to do about something reveals what one thinks is problematic (needs to change)” (Bacchi 2012: 21). This statement/claim displays a form of logic, or correct reasoning. At the same time, WPR criticizes forms of analysis that appear to claim “truth status”. Classically, it distinguishes itself from those forms of “ideology critique” that talk about “false consciousness”, implying the possibility of a “true consciousness” (discussion below). 

How does WPR negotiate this tension between making a truth claim and questioning claims to truth? The role of Step 7 becomes critical here. Through this analytic intervention (Step 7), WPR puts into question its own knowledge claims. 

How did we get “here” from “there”?

Since it is infeasible to produce a full-blown genealogy of WPR (Question 3), I have decided simply to list what would need to be included in such a genealogy, with some indications of issues that require elaboration. 

The short Introduction (Bacchi 2012), which I am using as our starting point, indicates that WPR has changed since its incarnation in the 1999 book, Women, Policy and Politics: the construction of policy problems (Bacchi 1999). Questions 3 and 6 were added in 2009 (Bacchi 2009: 2). Moreover, in 2012, I emphasized the need to refer to the approach as “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” rather than “What’s the problem?”, which I had used in 1999. To capture the fluid nature of WPR – how it changes over time –  the 2012 Introduction describes the “WPR” approach as an “open-ended mode of critical engagement, rather than as a formula”.

A genealogy would need to probe the alterations made to WPR mentioned in the 2012 Introduction and subsequent amendments to the approach to see what they reveal about the influences affecting the development of WPR. To my knowledge only one scholar has undertaken this task, Daniel Chao (2019), and he contributes significantly to locating WPR theoretically in terms of its shifting iterations. 

As one example, in the 1999 book I talk about WPR as a study of competing interpretations of “problems”, a perspective supported in the use of the term “construction” in the title – “the construction of policy problems” (Bacchi 1999: 2). The use of that term reflects the reliance at that time on social construction theorists (Bacchi 1999: 52-57).

By contrast the 2012 brief Introduction (p. 22) describes policies as producing “‘problems’ with particular meanings that affect what gets done or not done, and how people live their lives”. This move away from social constructionism and interpretivism to a focus on the constitutive effects of problem representations is strengthened in subsequent iterations. In my keynote address at the Karlstad Symposium I characterized this shift as a move away from social constructionism towards embracing performativity (see  KEYNOTE ADDRESS – CAROL BACCHI – 18 August 2022). 

The shift in WPR from a constructionist to a performative theoretical stance indicates the need to include a genealogical survey of critical theories through the period of writing. I would ask: which authors are identified as contributing to the thinking in WPR and what are their theoretical commitments? 

Clearly, Foucault becomes a major focus. While he is not explicitly mentioned in 2012, the articles referenced in the brief Introduction include one with Jennifer Bonham on “discursive practices”, a key concept in Foucault (2014), and one with Malin Rönnblom, on “discursive institutionalism” (2014), which contrasts a Foucauldian approach to other theoretical stances on “institutions”. 

Foucault clearly increases in influence in the evolution of WPR. The 2009 book, Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to be?, contains numerous quotes from Foucault in shaded boxes, from early in the text, to illustrate specific theoretical points (Bacchi 2009: xv, xix, 17, 26, 27, etc.). By 2016, with Sue Goodwin, I describe WPR as “a Foucault-influenced poststructural approach” (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 28) and note the importance of identifying “distinctions from other intellectual traditions”. The next genealogical task would entail identifying those distinctions.

Such a task immerses the researcher in the theoretical debates that have engaged those on the left politically from at least the time of Marx and Engels. It would involve developing a familiarity with the Frankfurt school, with Gramsci, with Laclau & Mouffe, with Latour, with Žižek, and so on. It would also necessitate clarifying the distinction between social constructivism, social constructionism and performativity (Bacchi 2009: 32-33).  

The debates around “ideology critique” and “false consciousness” help to locate WPR thinking in terms of theoretical developments (Research Hub 30 Sept 2021; 30 October 2021). The issue of concern became how to “understand how relations of domination or subordination are reproduced with only minimal resort to direct coercion” (Purvis and Hunt 1993: 474). Where Marx and Engels target the “distorted beliefs intellectuals held about society and the power of their own ideas” (Eyerman 1981: 43), post-Marxists, including Gramsci, Althusser and the early Frankfurt School (Daldal 2014: 157) are more concerned with the “false consciousness” of the working class. In the latter explanation, “false consciousness” serves as a convenient explanation “for the reluctance of oppressed workers to rise in revolt” (Strickland 2012: 48).

Displaying its Foucauldian sympathies, WPR questions the diagnosis of “false consciousness”, which presumes the ability to identify “true consciousness”. The pivotal place of self-problematization in WPR, indicated in Step 7, counters any such impression of epistemic privilege. In Foucauldian-influenced analyses, such as WPR, there is a shift in focus from the grand theorizing of a force called ideology to the minutiae of routine and mundane practices (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016). What is at stake here are contrasting versions of political change, as John Law (2008: 637) explains: 

“It is to refuse to be overawed by seemingly large systems, and the seeming ontological unity of the world enacted by large systems. It is, instead, to make the problem smaller, or better, to make it more specific.”

Disputes over the adequacy of this diagnosis/prognosis lie at the heart of many contemporary theoretical debates. 

What remains unproblematized in this problem representation?

Numerous scholars have pointed to topics and perspectives that they argue ought to be included in WPR. They often deal with these perceived lapses by combining WPR with other theoretical approaches. A central concern is that the focus on “routine and mundane practices” (see above) precludes critiques of large and patterned forces of structural oppression (Van Aswegan et al. 2019: 195). Another complaint is that the decentred subject in Foucauldian-influenced forms of analysis denies actors’ agency and bypasses social actors’ “everyday life and practice” (Brady 2014: 27). 

Questions are also raised about how WPR engages with important theoretical debates around feminism, disability, racism, ethnicity, sexual orientation and post-coloniality. The 2009 book identifies “feminist body theory” as a key intellectual tradition in WPR (Bacchi 2009: 264). No such reference appears in the 2016 book, though the text reflects on the engagement between poststructuralism and feminism (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 10-11, 42) and considers how “gender equality” is produced as a particular sort of “problem” in specific sites (pp. 65, 103). Researchers have productively explored the need to combine WPR with Critical Race Theory (Street et al. 2021), Critical Disability Theory (Van Aswegan et al.,2019), Critical Sexuality Studies (Pienaar et al. 2018; Manlik 2020), and post-colonial theory (Dixit and Banday 2022). 

What effects accompany this problem representation?

In the reluctance to address structural forms of oppression, WPR is considered by some to be involved in narrowing the terms of reference of critical analysis in unproductive ways. There is also widespread concern with the subjectification effects of the non-humanist subject presumed in WPR – specifically, the questioning of human agency. This concern translates into a conviction that poststructural forms of analysis create people as dupes of “the system”, diminishing the value of people’s lives. At a practical level, the reform implications (“lived effects”) of WPR are often considered weak, if not defeatist. The unwillingness to commit to specific reform agendas is held to undermine the possibility of progressive change (Savage et al.2021). 

Poststructuralists themselves express hesitation about the practical effects of reflexive research practices. Since meaning in poststructuralism can be fixed only temporarily, Chia (1996: 49) insists that “our own theoretical products must be self-deconstructing”. He states that “throw-away explanations are the essence of reflexive practice”, limiting the political utility of interventions such as WPR. 

Which specific practices produce this problem representation? And what forms of resistance are identifiable? (Question 6)

WPR has emerged from knowledge practices primarily in Western universities and through the contributions of a community of scholars based in these universities. Sue Goodwin and I (2016: 11) also stress the role of policy workers/analysts engaged in deploying WPR. Together, these researchers have expressed disquiet with contemporary political practices around issues to do with gender, race, disability, economic inequality, and heteronormativity.

From those who position themselves on the left politically, concern is expressed that poststructuralism weakens the political offensive against capitalism and its “vested interests”. From the right, the questioning of the rational agent is identified as a threat to human progress and Enlightenment. 

How can I apply self-problematization to an exercise in self-problematization? Step 7 – What is the point of this exercise? 

Subjecting WPR to a WPR analysis allows us to see that every research enterprise is an exercise in power relations. No such exercise is innocent. WPR encourages a particular way of thinking. That way of thinking challenges realist premises. It also puts under erasure a humanist conception of the subject. 

The extent to which these perspectives make it difficult to identify and confront groups and individuals who display intentional malfeasance in political encounters is a matter of contention. There is also a need to consider the adequacy, in terms of political response, of analysing the “conditions of emergence, insertion and functioning” of “regimes of truth” (Foucault 1972: 163). 

To apply Step 7 to this analysis, I need to consider if, as a critic, I may have missed something. Attention can be drawn to the determination in WPR to disrupt the power effects one inevitably creates (see discussion above). While the approach accepts the inevitability of “fixing” meanings, if only temporarily, it also creates space to question (“unfix”) those meanings, illustrating what Lather describes as a “doubled practice” (Bacchi and Eveline 2019: 340; Lather 2001). Researchers are prompted to see themselves as politically invested cultural beings who examine critically the analytic categories they adopt (Bacchi and Eveline 2010: 342). In this way, scepticism about the truths we produce and those we critique becomes a productive political force for change. 

As with the application of WPR in other sites, applying its questions to WPR itself ensures that an ongoing process of problematization and self-problematization is maintained. As we are all implicated in power relations and as our work necessarily has power effects, this recursive practice becomes essential.

References

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Bacchi, C. 2008. The politics of research management: Reflections on the gap between what we “know” (about SDH) and what we do. Health Sociology Review, 17(2): 165-176.

Bacchi, C. 2009. Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to be? Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education.

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(Problematizations, problems represented and governmentality. An analytical proposal for the study of public policies and the state). De Prácticas y discursos Universidad Nacional del Nordeste Centro de Estudios Sociales, 8(11): 123-152. DOI:10.30972/dpd.8113807

Open access at: http://revistas.unne.edu.ar/index.php/dpd/article/view/3807/3428

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