In the previous entry (29 May 2025) I commented on two articles that apply WPR to policy relating to menstruation. Here, I follow up the earlier entry with consideration of the contribution by Koskenniemi, A. 2024. Extremely Private and Incredibly Public – Free Menstrual Products and the “Problem” of Menstruation in the Finnish Public Discourse, NORA—NORDIC JOURNAL OF FEMINIST AND GENDER RESEARCH 2023, VOL. 31, NO. 4, 381–394 https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2023.2189301

I pay particular attention to the author’s innovative approach to policy materials for WPR analysis, and to the attention paid to deep-seated assumptions/presuppositions underpinning dominant representations of the menstruation “problem”. 

Brief Summary: 

The Koskenniemi article was prompted by the decision of the Helsinki City Council in December 2021 to experiment with the distribution of free menstrual products in schools and educational institutions, a practice seen in similar decisions on city and state levels around the world. It identifies the implicit problem representations in both the public documents and public debate on the initiative. The declared goal in the article is to understand how these problem representations potentially resist or contribute to the menstrual stigma. The article asks why menstruation should be concealed or stopped in the first place. Instead of focusing on painkillers to regulate pain, it emphasises the need to explore the reasons for and realities of living with menstrual pain, including work and schooling structures. Koskenniemi argues that, ultimately, addressing the menstrual stigma becomes a question of changing the societal approach to the menstrual cycle. 

Materials used:

Koskenniemi (2024: 385) explains that to address the issue of menstrual stigma she interrogates two forms of source material: (i) the policy documents related to the experimental distribution of free menstrual products and (ii) the online public debates on the Helskinki policy proposal. She notes that this use of public debates departs “somewhat from the conventional use of the WPR approach, which targets, in the main, policy documents”. We have already seen, in the previous entry, how McAllister et al. (2025) incorporate websites and press releases into the materials analysed in their WPR analysis of Global Health policy affecting menstruation. The suggested use of online debates provides an interesting development in WPR analysis. Koskenniemi (2024) makes a convincing argument that “governing” of menstruation takes place, not just through policies, but through societal norms. Hence, it becomes important to consider the generation of those norms. Online debates, in this context, act (to an extent) as prescriptive texts, or guides to action – making them available for a WPR analysis. 

There are, however, questions to be asked about how to treat the comments in online contributions to the debate. Specifically, there is a need to consider how the subjects contributing to the debate are constituted. Akin to the treatment of interview material, I suggest that to understand the subjects as constituted in discourse rather than as sovereign subjects requires asking how what is said could be said, how the content of the online contributions is “sayable”. Hence, it could be useful to apply the processes in PIA (Poststructural Interview Analysis) to the debate material, including a focus on transformative moments (see Bacchi and Bonham 2016; Bacchi and Goodwin 2025). 

Koskenniemi (2024: 386) explains the place of coding in her analysis. She coded “the materials inductively to familiarize myself with the materials and to explore what topics were discussed and what arguments provided for and against the Helsinki proposal”. She then applies WPR thinking, as explained in the next section. I argue in the entry on the distinctions between WPR and RTA (Reflexive Thematic Analysis; Research Hub 29 Jan. 2025) that it may be more analytically useful to reverse the order of these modes of analysis, applying the theory (WPR) first and subsequently organising the material into “themes”. The goal here is to protect against identifying “arguments for and against the Helskinki proposal” outside of WPR thinking – as if they are simply “there” waiting to be named. 

Applying WPR thinking: 

Koskenniemi (2024: 386) displays a clear understanding of how to apply WPR – that is, starting from proposals and “working backwards” to identify problem representations. She applies this thinking to her coded material: 

“Since the WPR-approach focuses on discovering problem representations through an analysis of proposals for action (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016, p. 18), I then went through all the coded quotations to determine proposals for action.” 

She proceeds to analyse the proposals and the arguments for and against them to determine the dominant problem representations in the materials. She notes here that the online material proved helpful in this task (see discussion of materials above). She states that “Finally, I explored potential effects of the problem representations”. The word “potential” in this sentence is curious and will be discussed below when I consider the issue of interpretive versus constitutive approaches to WPR.

Insights generated: 

Koskenniemi (2024) includes in this study reflections on the deep-seated assumptions and presuppositions underpinning the identified problem representations. In other words, this author explores Question 2 in WPR (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016: 20) in innovative and thought-provoking ways. Because Question 2 proves to be a stumbling block for many researchers, I elaborate how it proves useful in thinking differently about “menstruation”. 

There are (at least) two interconnected presuppositions that need attention – the dominant conception of equality in western industrialised society and conceptions of the body. The strength and ubiquity of an equal opportunity ethic needs to be emphasised. I have written about the repercussions of this view of equality in several places. For example, I have shown how it underpins a conception of affirmative action as “special treatment”, a conception that proves highly problematic for those supporting the reform. Further, an equal opportunity framing has subjectifying effects, at times dissuading women from pursuing affirmative action on the grounds that they wish to be judged “on their merit” (Bacchi 1996; 2004). 

There are suggestions in Koskenniemi that an equal opportunity ethic has repercussions for how “menstruation” is problematised. She (2024: 389) mentions that a common counterargument to the free provision of menstrual products involved the claim that cis males may be disadvantaged through the growing of beards and that “if girls [sic] are given free menstrual products, why then are boys [sic] not given something as well?”.  

I note the emphasis in many of the identified policies on the need to “manage” bleeding. The implication here is that, to “fit in”, bleeding needs to made to disappear or at least to be rendered invisible, to “allow one to pass as non-menstruating” (Koskenniemi 2024: 384). Such a stance is linked to a desire to make “women” (and others who bleed) fit into existing social arrangements – to make them “equal” (Koskenniemi 2024: 389) or at least to provide them with “equal opportunities”. Elsewhere I describe this stance as a “sameness” model (Bacchi 2025; Bacchi 1999, Chapter 5). 

The “sameness” model has trouble with bodies. Chris Beasley and I (2002) have written about the tension in the full range of policies to do with abortion and cosmetic surgery between two models of personhood – between those deemed to be in control of their bodies and those deemed to be controlled by their bodies. The latter are constituted “lesser citizens”. These are most often women. 

This argument provides a novel slant on the “menstruation” debates. It highlights how the level of analysis that is needed occurs within deep-seated ontological presuppositions (Question 2 in WPR). So long as “reforms” to refigure “menstruation” focus on ways for menstruators to control/manage their bleeding, so long will we perpetuate a limited view of embodied citizenship (Bacchi and Beasley 2002). Contestation needs to occur at this level of analysis. Koskenniemi (2024) pursues exactly this level of analysis. 

Koskenniemi (2024) also makes a useful contribution to thinking about the silences accompanying the “menstrual concealment imperative” (Wood 2020). She points out that the online debates reveal that the provision of free menstrual products is linked to environmental pollution. Importantly, this issue is not mentioned in the (formal) proposal. I have been asked on many occasions how to address Question 4 in WPR which asks about silences. Just how do you identify what is not mentioned? I have suggested several ways forward, primarily reading the critical literature and undertaking comparative analyses. The suggestion that other source material – here online debates – might prompt insights into issues that do not appear in official documentation promises to be helpful.

Koskeinniemi (2024: 390) notes that “the proposal merely states that ‘people should have the right to choose which products they use’”. This statement opens the way to highlight the underlying liberal framing of the “problem”, with a focus on “choice” and “rights”. The limitations of this view, given that such “equality” ignores people’s social location and the forms of products deemed to be commercially attractive (e.g. disposable), illustrates how Question 4 features as part of a WPR analysis.  

One final issue needs to be raised. It relates to the confusion between describing WPR as about competing interpretations versus the recognition of the performative effects of problem representations (see Research Hub entry 28 April 2025). Koskenniemi (2024) recognises the centrality of a performative perspective. She notes (2024: 385), for example, that the Helsinki city policy proposal and the ensuring debates produced the “gendered lives” of Helsinki citizens. However, she occasionally uses the language of “imagined” to describe the relationship between problem representations and effects. Here is one example. She notes that the “proposals for action revolve around the accessibility, visibility, and cost of products”: “The menstruating body is thus imagined as deficient and in need of public or private, but foremost, commercial management” (Koskenniemi 2024: 392; emphasis added). 

The point I wish to make is that the connection between problem representations and effects is much stronger than an “imagined” relationship. We are talking about how this representation of the “problem” produces “subjects” as particular kinds of subject, rather than “imagining” them as such. It is possible to make this argument without suggesting that these subjects are “determined”. 

When I followed up this point, I discovered that Koskenniemi (2024: 385) quoted me from a 2010 publication: “according to the WPR-approach, policy proposals ‘imagine’ both problems and people (Bacchi & Eveline, 2012, p. 111, 119–120). From this quote, you can see that in 2010 I still lapsed into a more interpretive stance. In my usage, quotation marks were inserted around “imagine” – quoted appropriately in Koskenniemi. However, Koskenniemi proceeds to drop the quotation marks (example above).

I would now not use the term “imagine” either with or without quotation marks, since the term implies that problem representations are simply “perceptions”. I hope by now you can see why I find that understanding unsatisfactory. Related to this same point, I mention above that Koskenniemi (2024: 386) refers to the potential effects of problem representations. The effects targeted in Question 5 of WPR – discursive, subjectification, lived – indicate ways of recognising the power of problem representations in shaping lives and worlds. These effects indicate what it means to say that we are governed through problem representations. To describe them as “potential effects” reduces the power and relevance of this argument. 

Conclusions:

I take great joy from reading applications of WPR. I learn a good deal about topics that I had previously neglected. I also gain insights into how people/researchers come to understand WPR and the reasons for these interpretations – often due to my own writing at different stages over the last decades. In other words, the contributions from others help WPR to stay alive and to foster a mode of self-interrogation that is useful.

All three of the articles on the topic of menstruation (this entry and those in the previous entry) draw a similar conclusion about how menstruation is problematised in global and Finnish health policy as a matter of health and hygiene. They are also keenly sensitive to the limitations of this problem representation. As mentioned in the last entry, WPR comes into its own through a critical lens, identifying what fails to be problematised and the politics involved in this failure. Politics in WPR captures the heterogenous strategic relations and practices that shape who we are and how we live. I trust that the three contributions on menstruation have encouraged a sensitivity to the complex of factors that need to be thought about in the active shaping or making of “menstruation”.

There was an item on the news (ABC Radio National) during this morning’s walk (20 January 2025) relating to a new report on women’s health that highlighted the large numbers of women who experienced severe pain during menstruation (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-20/problematic-periods-menstruation-womens-health/104825510). The question of “remedies” was raised. One suggestion endorsed “universal reproductive leave”. Contra this proposal, a spokeswoman made the point that what was needed was to fix the workplace, not to take women out of it. Thanks to the articles on menstruation that formed the basis of this and the previous entry, I felt better able to engage the topic at a meaningful level. I thank the authors for their work. 

Don’t forget to check out this recent article on menopause: Liana B. Winett & Louise Dalingwater (30 Mar 2025): “Women are hard to study”: US and UK National Legislator discourse on menopause-related research, Critical Policy Studies, DOI: 10.1080/19460171.2025.2483537 

References

Bacchi, C. (2004). Policy and discourse: challenging the construction of affirmative action as preferential treatment. Journal of European Public Policy, 11(1): 128-146.

Bacchi, C. 1996. The Politics of Affirmative Action: “Women”, Equality and Category Politics. London: Sage.

Bacchi, C. 1999. Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage.

Bacchi, C. and Beasley, C. 2002. Citizen bodies: Is embodied citizenship a contradiction in terms? Critical Social Policy, 22(2).

Bacchi, C. and Bonham, J. 2016. “Appendix: Poststructural Interview Analysis: Politicizing ‘personhood’”, in C. Bacchi and S. Goodwin, Poststructural Policy Analysis: A guide to practice. NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bacchi, C. and Goodwin, S. 2025. Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. Second edition. (see chapter 8 on PIA by. Bacchi and Bonham). NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bacchi, C., & Eveline, J. (2012). Mainstreaming politics: Gendering practices and feminist theory. University of Adelaide Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9780980672381 

Bacchi, C and Goodwin, S. 2016. Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bacchi, C. 2025. Same difference: Feminism and sexual difference. New York: Routledge.McAllister, J., Amery, F., Channon, M. and Thomson, J. 2025. Where is menstruation in global health policy? The need for a collective understanding. GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH

Following the previous two entries on WPR and climate-related topics, I decided to examine three WPR applications on the question of how menstruation is problematised. The exercise is intended to draw attention to the versatility of WPR and how it can encourage thinking differently about a wide range of issues. The gift of WPR is exactly that – taking what is commonsense and turning it around, highlighting the operation of power relations. 

The three articles are from 2023, 2024, and 2025:

King, S. 2023. Why current menstrual policies do not work. Nature Human Behaviour 8(11): 2072-2073, DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01996-4

Koskenniemi, A. 2024. Extremely Private and Incredibly Public – Free Menstrual Products and the “Problem” of Menstruation in the Finnish Public Discourse, NORA—NORDIC JOURNAL OF FEMINIST AND GENDER RESEARCH 2023, VOL. 31, NO. 4, 381–394 https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2023.2189301

McAllister, J., Amery, F., Channon, M. and Thomson, J. 2025. Where is menstruation in global health policy? The need for a collective understanding. GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH
2025, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 2448272 https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2024.2448272

[on the related topic of menopause, please see: Liana B. Winett & Louise Dalingwater (30 Mar 2025): “Women are hard to study”: US and UK National Legislator discourse on menopause-related research, Critical Policy Studies, DOI: 10.1080/19460171.2025.2483537]

As in the two previous entries, I take each article, summarise its main argument, note the materials it uses and make a few comments on how WPR is adopted/adapted. My hope is that engaging with articles that draw on WPR will assist those who wish to use it. 

All three articles are stimulating and insightful. I highlight what each contributes to a critical analysis of menstruation-“related” policies. I have problematised “related” because, as we shall see, useful insights are generated primarily by removing the focus from menstruation as the “problem”. 

Working on this topic reminded me of earlier reflections (Bacchi 1999: 5-6) on the possible gains and losses accompanying “social problem” status. McAllister (2025, p. 1) notes that “In recent years, attention to menstrual policy has proliferated at both the national and international level”. So, you could say that menstruation has achieved social problem status. According to the sociologist, Armand Mauss (1975: x), the fact that we debate and deal with “social problems” is a sign of the health of our democracy. In contrast, it is possible to suggest that it is the very nature of the piece-meal approach to change encouraged by “social problem” thinking which keeps change within limits and manageable.

Because both King and McAllister et al. deal with Global Health policy, I comment on their contributions first. We will then turn in the next entry to Koskenniemi and the situation in Finland. 

ARTICLE 1: 

King, S. 2023. Why current menstrual policies do not work. Nature Human Behaviour 8(11): 2072-2073, DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01996-4

Brief Summary:

This is a short, highly insightful piece of writing that deserves close attention. King targets the following topics: “period poverty”; “tampon tax” policy changes; “menstrual leave” and “menopause leave” policies; and educational policies to do with menstruation. She argues that, in the case of most menstrual and menopausal policies to date, the “problem” 

“appears to be the menstruating body (and “women” by association), rather than universal menstrual ignorance and taboos, associated discriminatory beliefs and practices, and those who profit from these things”. 

Material used:

Because of the nature of this short opinion piece, King does not describe her sources in any detail. She makes reference to WHO and UNICEF guidelines, and to New York State policy. Doubtless, King’s other publications on the topic would provide details on the material informing her critical analyses. See:

King S. Menstrual Leave: Good Intention, Poor Solution. In: Hassard Juliet, Torres LD, editors. Aligning Perspectives in Gender Mainstreaming, Springer International Publishing; 2021, p. 151–76. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53269-7_9.

King, S. (2020). Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) and the myth of the irrational female. In C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, 

B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, & T.-A. Roberts (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation 

studies (pp. 319–336). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_25

Applying WPR thinking:

King indicates her interpretation of WPR in the comment: “What a policy proposes to do, reveals what the creators assume is problematic (needs to change).” I have said something similar on numerous occasions. Here is my version of this argument in the 2016 book with Susan Goodwin titled Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice (p. 16): 

“The WPR approach starts from a simple idea: that what we propose to do about something indicates what we think needs to change and hence what we think the ‘problem’ is”. 

A distinction here is that King targets “what the creators assume is problematic”, whereas I do not mention “creators”. A more substantive point is that both the quote from King and my 2016 comment fail to make the step from competing “views” of the “problem” to how the “problem” is produced as a particular form of problem. In my Keynote address for the 2022 Karlstad International WPR Symposium, I specify that the first key premise of WPR is: “Policies (and other practices) produce(enact or constitute) ‘problems’ as particular sorts of problems” ( Welcome to the WPR Network! | Karlstad University (kau.se).

This distinction is an important one. To talk about what someone assumes is problematic (King) or what we think needs to change (me in 2016) keeps the whole analysis at the level of conjecture. By contrast, to refer to how a “problem” is produced as a particular sort of problem means that the analytic target becomes the ways in which problem representations shape lives and worlds. In line with a performative perspective, problem representations are “the practices through which things take on meaning and value” (Shapiro 1988: xi) rather than impressions of “problems”. This distinction comes up for discussion in the sections on both McAllister et. al and Koskenniemi (below and next entry).

Insights generated: 

King uses her understanding of WPR to offer important insights into the politics surrounding menstruation. I offer a few examples. She notes how in the Global North and the Global South, the policy “solution” to the “problems” of “period poverty” and “Menstrual Hygiene Management” typically involves “access to free disposable period products”. With this “solution”, the “problem” is represented to be “(unmanaged) periods”: 

“This, unfortunately, frames periods and female bodies as the problem rather than the government policies and societal gender inequalities that directly contribute to increasing poverty, especially amongst women and girls, or the fact that most schools (and workplaces) are not fit for people who menstruate, or the huge profit margins involved in the sale of expensive disposable period products (and other products subject to ‘pink tax’).” 

As another example, the “solution” of “menstrual leave” and “menopause leave policies” positions the healthy female body as the “problem” rather than “inadequate work environments” which “penalise rest breaks or the uptake of sick leave”. King is not saying that either free menstrual products or “menstrual leave” are undesirable reforms but that it is important to see what such interventions problematise and what they leave in place. 

ARTICLE 2:

McAllister, J., Amery, F., Channon, M. and Thomson, J. 2025. Where is menstruation in global health policy? The need for a collective understanding. GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH
2025, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 2448272 https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2024.2448272

Brief Summary:

McAllister et al. target “how menstruation actually is understood at present within global health policy”. They describe WPR as “an approach to critical frame analysis” that offers “competing constructions” of menstruation “as an issue” (Abstract). The goal is to produce a “collective understanding” of menstruation. The authors produce a useful Table outlining the dominant (menstrual hygiene management (MHM), menstrual health) and sub-dominant (menstrual rights, menstrual (in)justice) “framings” of menstruation. They proceed to analyse the policy texts (defined broadly) of important international organisations to see which of these “framings” are endorsed currently.

Materials used: 

Table 1 in the article lists the large number of “documents analysed by organisation”. These include policy statements and guidance notes from WHO, UNICEF, UN Women and CSW [Commission on the Status of Women], UNFPA, UNESCO and the World Bank. Alongside these more conventional sources used in WPR studies, McAllister et al. add “websites (including video), press releases and shorter statements produced by these organisations in relation to key events” (p. 6). The article thus illustrates both how WPR can be applied to a large number of texts and also how it can be applied to material beyond the boundaries of its original development. Marshall (2012) explains at some length how she performed a WPR analysis of the World Bank’s “multimodal” and “hypertextual” webpages in her study of “disability mainstreaming”, extending the forms of material available for use. 

Applying WPR thinking:

As mentioned, McAllister et al. (2024) describe WPR as an “approach to critical frame analysis”. Having spent some time in an earlier Research Hub entry distinguishing WPR from CFA (Critical Frame Analysis) (30 Dec. 2024), it is useful to consider how McAllister et al.’s position on WPR has eventuated. I take responsibility for this confusion. However, I need to explain that my thinking on WPR has developed over time. I have always described it as a “work-in-progress”. Hence, you should not be surprised if the theoretical stance has evolved. Indeed, because this is the case, it is important to read more recent work (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016) rather than relying on my earlier publications. 

McAllister et al. (2024: 6) draw heavily on my 1999 book, Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems (Sage). I quote them at some length to indicate how the 1999 book develops a constructionist argument: 

“Bacchi’s critical approach understands that policy problems and solutions are not objective entities, already existing in the world, but rather socially and discursively constructed. In Bacchi’s words, ‘every policy proposal contains within it an explicit or implicit diagnosis of the ‘problem’ (1999, p. 1). She argues that ‘we need to shift our analysis from policies as attempted ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’, to policies as constituting competing interpretations or representations of political issues’ (1999, p. 2).” 

I have highlighted the words “competing interpretations or representations”. Clearly, this position reflects an interpretive paradigm. Also, it is a position that I have moved away from. My Keynote Address at Karlstad (link attached above) noted a shift in WPR from constructionism to performativity. Questioning the earlier 1999 focus on problem representations as “perceptions” or “interpretations”, I state: 

“Problem representations, it is now argued, are not perceptions but performatives. Through their proposals policies shape ‘problems’ and hence alter the existing order to a certain degree. The analytic task becomes identifying the shapes imposed on ‘problems’, where these come from and how they affect lives and worlds.”

I hope you can identify the theoretical shift here from competing interpretations of “problems” to the performative impacts of problem representations. In the latter view, problem representations are not (just) interpretations; they are interventions with “real-world” repercussions.

McAllister et al. (2024: 11) move towards a more performative stance by drawing on what they describe as the “further analysis” prompted by WPR:

“Bacchi’s WPR critical frame analysis urges further analysis. If the above [referring to MHM; see above] is the dominant framing, what is left unproblematic in this representation? What is left unsaid around menstruation? Can the ‘problem’ be conceptualised differently?” 

Pursuing these questions, the authors zoom in on important silences: “the absence of a life course perspective; the lack of attention paid to menstrual related illnesses and conditions; the lack of an integration with SRHR [Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights] approaches; and questions of environmental justice”. 

Insights

By outlining four “framings” of menstruation, McAllister et al. make it easy to consider the issues at stake. They also set the groundwork for establishing health and hygiene as a dominant framework. Drawing on Question 4 on silences in WPR, they identify key dimensions of the issue that tend to be ignored. I highlight a few of these. 

Firstly, the focus on adolescent girls and education means that issues for older women, such as peri/menopause, and transgender and non-binary people, are particularly invisible. …

Secondly, the above policy analysis highlights little discussion of pain or menstrual related illnesses. 

Finally, there is an absence of thinking about environmental issues 

The authors’ stated goal as the need for a “collective understanding” of menstruation follow the kind of analysis they offer. It would be useful to take this goal as a proposal in the WPR sense of the term and to then ask how such a proposal (to find a collective understanding) represents or constitutes the “problem”. The promise of WPR – to take commonsense and turn it around, with an emphasis on power relations – could be illustrated through this exercise.

In the next entry I look in some detail at the contribution by Koskenniemi on the situation in Finland. I discuss this article because it provides an opportunity to clarify where a WPR analysis takes us. 

References

Bacchi, C 1999. Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage.

Bacchi, C. and Goodwin, S. 2016. Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Marshall, N. 2012. Digging deeper: The challenge of problematising “inclusive development” and “disability mainstreaming”. In A. Bletsas and C. Beasley (eds) Engaging with Carol Bacchi: Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, pp. 53-70. Available as free download from University of Adelaide Press website. 

In the last entry I introduced briefly two articles that deploy WPR in their analysis of aspects of climate change. The article by Christiansen and Lund (2024) targeted corporate policies while the article by Reimerson et al. (2024) examined the “communications” of “local actors” in the forestry industry. My purpose in that entry was to encourage consideration of the diverse ways in which WPR has been and can be used. We continue that exercise in this entry. 

Article 3: Olsson, D., Öjehag-Pettersson, A. & Granberg, M.2021. Building a Sustainable Society: Construction, Public Procurement Policy and “Best Practice” in the European Union. Sustainability, 13, 7142. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137142.

Brief summary:

This article targets “soft” policies produced by the European Commission aiming to make “procurement policy” more sustainable. “Soft” policies consist of guidelines and guides to best practice. “Public procurement” refers to the purchase by governments and state-owned enterprises of goods and services. It stands for “a sizable proportion of the consumption in the EU” (p. 1). The particular focus in this article consists of policies focused on sustainable public procurement for the built environment, that is, the construction sector. WPR is adopted as a critical analysis approach “to study how unsustainability is problematized in such ‘soft’ policies for sustainable public procurement of the built environment and the potential effects of these problem representations” (p. 2). 

Materials used:

This article sets out to analyse policy documents produced by the European Commission. In this sense it offers a more conventional approach to applying WPR than the examples in the first Research Hub entry on this topic as it targets Government policies (compared to the focus on corporate policies in Christiansen and Lund 2024 and “local actors’ communications” in Reimerson et al. 2024), albeit the EU policies are designated “soft” and therefore non-binding in character. Table 1 lists the eleven documents selected for analysis. The policies include guidelines and “best practice” examples of green public procurement, socially responsible public procurement and procurement of nature-based solutions for the construction sector (p. 3). Given the size of the data base the authors used coding. They explain that, guided by the WPR questions, “we started the analytical process by coding prescriptions for public procurement practice identified in our data” (p. 5). As in Reimerson et al. (2024; see previous Research Hub entry), this analytic approach fits my suggestion that to use coding in relation to WPR it is necessary to apply the theory (WPR) first (see Research Hub entries 28 Dec 2023 and 29 January 2025).

Applying WPR thinking

The authors begin the paper with a clear exposition of a grounding WPR premise: “We argue that governing any policy domain entails the construction and representation of particular policy problems” (Abstract). The governmentality scholars Rose and Miller (1992, p. 181) describe “government” as a “problematizing activity”. As Osborne (1997, p. 174) explains, the suggestion here is that “policy cannot get to work without first problematising its territory”. In other words, to intervene, to institute a policy, “government”, including but beyond the state, has to target something as a “problem” that needs fixing. Hence, Olsson et al. (2024) set out to explore how the “problems” of sustainable public procurement are represented in EU policy guidelines and best practice documents (p. 2).

We have seen in the first two articles (previous entry; Christiansen et al. 2024, Reimerson et al. 2024) how “proposals” provide an entry point for identifying how something is problematised (problematisations, problem representations). This article by Olsson et al. (2021) illustrates the nuance and complexity involved in this task. It is not always (simply) a matter of identifying explicit aims as proposals. One needs to recognise how certain kinds of statement contain problematisations. Some examples illustrate this analytic strategy.

Olsson et al. (2021) start their critical reading of the selected policies by analysing what they call “argumentation”, how the issue was being discussed and certain positions defended. They offer this quote from GPP (Green public procurement: A collection of good practices): “By using their purchasing power to choose goods and services with lower impacts on the environment, they [major consumers in Europe] can make an important contribution to sustainable consumption and production. [76] (p. 1)” (p 7). Here is a similar statement from SRPP (Making socially responsible public procurement work): 

“Public buyers are major investors in Europe, spending 14% of the EU’s gross domestic product. By using their purchasing power to opt for goods and services that deliver positive social outcomes, they can make a major contribution to sustainable development [80] p. 4”. 

In both statements, sustainability has something to do with wise use of purchasing power. The “problem” of unsustainability, it follows, has something to do with unwise use of purchasing power. These “arguments” in effect, therefore, form problematisations. The researcher’s task is to recognise them as such.

Olsson et al. 2021 go on to introduce other, perhaps more obvious, problematisations. They describe a range of prescriptions, recommendations and objectives which can all be approached as problematisations – recall Foucault’s focus on “practical texts” as guides to conduct (Bacchi 2009, p. 36). Prescriptions, recommendations and objectives provide guides to conduct and hence indicate what needs to change – what is being problematised. For example, the authors identify “suggestions” “on how to improve knowledge sharing of innovative technical solutions for sustainability” and suggestions to, where possible, group several small contracts together, which “may provide suppliers with an incentive to better engage with procurers on such projects” (p. 8).

You may have detected a pattern in these proposals. The authors certainly did. In their critical commentary on the “soft” policies they examined, they note that “the market and homo economicus are, thus, largely presumed capable to deliver and define sustainability in a seemingly objective and neutral fashion” (p. 9). They identify as a “core assumption” underpinning all the analysed guides to practice that “sustainability can, and should be, pursued through innovations, which in turn are to emerge from market competition” (p. 10)

Insights generated

The authors conclude that it is useful to talk about two groups of problematisations. The more salient, which in their view “structures, more or less, all of the analysed policy documents”, represents unsustainability as a technical design flaw. They also identify a few “counter representations” that constitute unsustainability as unjust politics (p. 12). As an example of the latter, they quote Public procurement of nature-based solutions (2020) to the effect that the objective is “creating a fairer, more active and happier place, with a focus on supporting the most disadvantaged and vulnerable” (p. 12). This attention to “counter representations” makes a useful contribution to a WPR analysis, though each such proposal requires critical interrogation to identify its grounding premises – e.g. the makeup of a group labelled as “vulnerable”. 

Olsson et al. (2021) indicate that they draw on specific WPR questions, notably 1, 2 and 5 (though there are many references to silences, invoking Question 4). The inclusion of Question 5 on effects signals that this contribution offers a constitutive understanding of WPR (as opposed to an interpretive understanding; see previous entry). Constitutive effects involve the shaping of the world and beings in specific ways. For the topic of sustainability, “The overall dominant and, perhaps, most important effect is the discursive effect produced by the prominent position of the market and technological innovations as ways to reach sustainability and facilitate sustainable development”. Crucially, the prevalence and dominance of this problem representation naturalises the “production perspective on sustainability, making it appear as neutral and apolitical”, rendering “competing understandings of sustainable development, sustainability and the causes of unsustainability” silenced. Provocatively and perhaps somewhat ominously, Olsson et al. (2021, p. 13) conclude that “this problem representation also legitimizes, and perhaps even reinforces, a continuation of the high-emitting consumption that characterizes much of the public and individual consumption in the EU” (p. 15).

It is at this level that WPR comes into its own. The analysis it offers goes beyond consideration of competing views on issues to reflect on how problem representations help to shape lives and worlds in ways that are deeply troubling. 

Article 4: Fischer, K. et al. 2024. Progress towards sustainable agriculture hampered by siloed scientific discourses. Nature Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01474-9 

Brief summary: In the previous entry (29 March 2025) I describe the Fischer et al. (2024) article as a form of systematic review of articles that target climate change. Specifically, it analyses highly cited articles on agroecology (AE) and sustainable intensification (SI). The authors explain that “agroecology prioritizes diversity while sidelining productivity and adheres to relational epistemology, while sustainable intensification emphasizes boosting crop production while reducing environmental impact within a reductionist epistemology” (Abstract). The purpose of the exercise is to elaborate the contrasting epistemological assumptions of these two positions. The authors argue that it is useful to clarify the distinctions between the two positions to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue on possible ways forward.  

Materials used: 

This article is markedly different from the three preceding articles, in this and the preceding entry, in terms of materials used. It offers a study of academic articles rather than of policies or local actors’ contributions. Elsewhere I have suggested the possibility of using WPR to analyse theoretical or academic analyses, “which are in effect forms of proposal” (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, p. 17). Following WPR thinking an academic article defends a position (proposal) thereby indicating what is being problematised. Hence this application of WPR to academic articles seems apt. 

Fischer et al. (2024) use two “techniques” to study academic publications in the identified fields of agroecology and sustainable intensification: bibliometrics and discourse analysis:

“Drawing on peer-reviewed literature on AE and SI published in the period from 2012 to 2022, we combine bibliometric network analysis of a total of 7,266 articles featuring ‘agroecology’ or ‘sustainable intensification’ with discourse analysis of 7 selected highly cited articles on AE and 5 on SI (Fig 1 and Methods)”.

Their bibliometric analysis focuses on key words – their occurrence and patterning. As just one example, they note the appearance of the term “food security” in the SI cluster versus “food sovereignty” in the AE cluster. To this observation they add their analysis of the contrasting assumptions associated with the two terms: 

“The term ‘food security’ is commonly connected with the amount of food produced, that is, closely related to crop yield, whereas ‘food sovereignty’ places the emphasis on distribution rather than on amounts of food and is strongly connected with social movements and struggles for farmers’ rights and autonomy, issues that are closely connected with agroecology as a research field.” 

Through this form of analysis, the researchers are better able to characterise the contrasting epistemological assumptions in the two positions.

Their version of discourse analysis supplements the bibliometric analysis. Box

1 (towards the end of the article) specifies what their discourse analysis looks like. I pick up this topic in the next section.

Applying WPR thinking

WPR is not mentioned explicitly in Fischer et al. (2024). Still, I want to argue that they apply a form of WPR thinking. To understand how this occurs we need to look closely at Box 1. 

The authors introduce the comments in Box 1 with these words: “We operationalized our study of the assumptions that guide research through a discourse analysis, identifying how problems and solutions are framed and their underlying epistemology, that is, the understanding of how we create knowledge about reality” (emphasis added). They reference Analysing Policy (Bacchi 2009) in fn 18. They proceed to produce a list of questions. These are not the exact WPR questions (as in Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, p. 20). The questions for this study read:

(1) What is the main problem (implicitly or explicitly stated) that the 

article addresses? 

(2)  Which solution(s) are proposed? 

(3)  What kind(s) of evidence is/are highlighted as important? 

(4)  Which theories and methods are used? 

(5)  Which (implicitly or explicitly stated) knowledge is needed? 

(6)  What are the underpinning assumptions? 

(7)  What is missing? 

(8)  Which epistemology guides the reasoning? 

The authors provide a brief summary of the contrasting epistemological positions of “holism” and “reductionism” (see Box 1). 

I want to suggest that their Question 1 – “What is the main problem (implicitly or explicitly stated) that the article addresses?” –  replicates the intent of the first question in WPR: “What’s the problem represented to be in a specific policy or policies?” (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, p. 20). Because Fischer et al. analyse replies to their Question 1, they are not talking about a fixed problem but about how the “problem” is represented in the replies (compare my discussion of the “sensitizing questions” in CFA – Research Hub entry 30 Dec 2024).

 There are other clear connections to WPR in their Question 6 on “underpinning assumptions” (see Question 2 in WPR) and in their Question 7 on “What is missing?” (see Question 4 in WPR). More to the point, the whole exercise in Fischer et al. – identifying competing epistemologies – resonates with the task in WPR to consider the importance of underlying epistemological and ontological assumptions in problem representations. Note that the authors specify that they used coding to organise their material with their questions as a guide. As with Olsson et al (2021) and Reimerson et al. (2024), coding is introduced once the theoretical lens has been applied – that is, the theory comes first. 

For the previous articles in this and the preceding Research Hub entry I have stressed the importance of starting from proposals in a WPR analysis. Fischer et al. do not start from proposals in any clear sense but proposals still operate as a backdrop in the analysis. For example, in AE, they use a quote from Wezel et al. (2020) to the effect that sustainable agriculture “involves supporting diverse forms of smallholder food production and family farming, farmers and rural communities, food sovereignty, local knowledge, social justice, local identity and culture, and indigenous rights for seeds and breeds”. This, of course, is a proposal. On the other side (SI), they quote Mueller et al. (2012) to the effect that “clos[ing] crop yield gaps should be complemented by efforts to decrease overuse of crop inputs wherever possible”. Again, this wording suggests a proposal. In other words, WPR thinking, which starts from proposals and “works backwards” to identify problem representations, is at work in the analysis produced by Fischer et al. As with Olsson et al. (2021; above), this article shows us some of the nuance and complexity involved in the study of problematisations. It is not always simply a matter of identifying explicit aims. One needs to recognise how certain kinds of statement contain problematisations.

Insights generated

The Fischer et al. article provides insights into the importance of identifying epistemological assumptions in one’s analytic target – be it a policy or a text produced by local actors (see Reimerson et al. 2024 in previous entry). It draws these important conclusions: 

“The dominant discourse in AE portrays the key sustainability problem as the ‘monoculture nature of dominant agroecosystems’ and the associated ‘production-oriented or productivist model of agriculture’ that dominates the food system. 

… The analysed SI literature starts from the premise that the main challenge that science needs to address is the requirement to boost food production because of ‘Population growth and increases in per capita consumption, as people become richer’ and ‘can afford a more diverse dietary fare that includes meat and dairy’.” 

Fischer et al. (2024) also explore the question of “what is missing?” to great effect: 

“AE clearly lacks a discussion about productivity, making it impossible to establish whether enough food can be produced in the proposed diversified farming systems. SI takes the issue of how to balance food production and environmental impact seriously, but sidelines biodiversity loss and lacks a methodology for taking account of the acknowledged inter-relationships in farming systems”.

The authors note an almost complete absence of animals in the two discourses. They also draw attention to the lack of reflection on the “wider governance of farming systems”: 

“Giving smallholder farmers access to technology (SI) or supporting them to become champions of sustainable farming systems (AE) will have a limited impact if multinational companies continue to dominate seed markets and produce seed unsuited to smallholder contexts or if governments and international platforms do not acknowledge and provide opportunities for smallholders practising ‘agroecological’ farming to teach their approaches to sustainable agriculture”. 

Finally, the article is exemplary in producing a “reflexive” form of analysis. Fischer et al. (2024) propose “interdisciplinary dialogue within the author team to enrich the analysis and facilitate reflexivity about our own assumptions”. They note that the team comes from different disciplines “adhering variously to holistic and reductionist epistemologies in our research” and emphasise the importance of identifying their own “hidden assumptions”. To “broaden their horizons” in this article they introduced a practice of “reading articles together, guided by the discourse-analytical perspective outlined in Box 1, and jointly discussing our readings in an interdisciplinary group”. The suggestion to bring WPR-related questions to group or team discussions adds an exciting collective dimension to the undertaking in WPR to apply the questions to one’s own proposals (“self”-problematisation) (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, p. 20, 40). In this innovative development WPR becomes a practice and a group exercise!

In short, while WPR is not explicitly mentioned in this article, it offers highly relevant insights into WPR thinking. The authors declare that their intent is to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue on contrasting epistemologies given the importance of epistemological assumptions in discussions about sustainability. This level of discussion and analysis is precisely what WPR aims to encourage (see Question 2 in WPR; Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, p. 20). 

Conclusions:

I want to stress the variety in the analytic targets in the four selected articles in this and the preceding entry: first, in Christiansen and Lund 2024 on the sustainability reports of corporate actors; second, in Reimerson et al. 2024, on the articulations of local actors; third, on “soft” policies in the EU; and fourth, in Fischer et al. 2024 on the arguments in academic publications.

The four articles also alert us to some key issues to keep in mind when adopting/adapting/applying WPR: 

• The differences between an interpretive and a constitutive approach; 
• What is involved in identifying deep-seated assumptions in Question 2; 
• How to operationalise “self”-problematisation. 

The four articles also concur on some basic insights. They identify the overwhelming tendency to produce the “problems” of climate change and sustainability as technical issues inviting technical solutions. They also emphasize how this problematisation depoliticizes the issues, presenting them as neutral. The lack of focus on consumption patterns is another shared insight alongside the operation of market-oriented rationalities. These arguments are carefully elaborated. 

Looking at these four contributions allows us to see the rich possibilities in using WPR. I repeat this exercise with the topic of menstruation in the next entry. Please suggest topics you would like me to address (carol.bacchi@adelaide.edu.au). 

References

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

Bacchi, C. and Goodwin, S. 2016. Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Christiansen, K. L. and Lund, J. F. 2024. Seeing the limits of voluntary corporate climate action in food and technology sustainability reports, Energy Research & Social Science 118 (2024) 103798, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103798

Reimerson, E. et al. 2024. Local articulations of climate action in Swedish forest contexts. Environmental Science and Policy, 151 (2024) 103626

Mueller, N. D. et al. Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management. Nature 490, 254–257 (2012) 

Osborne, T. (1997). Of health and statecraft. In A. Petersen, & R. Bunton (Eds.), 

Foucault: Health and medicine. London: Routledge.

Reimerson, E. et al. 2024. Local articulations of climate action in Swedish forest contexts. Environmental Science and Policy, 151 (2024) 103626

Rose, N., & Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. The British Journal of Sociology, 43 (2), 173–205. 

Wezel, A. et al. Agroecological principles and elements and their implications for transitioning to sustainable food systems. A review. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 40, 40 (2020). 

I have been prompted to produce this entry due to the large and increasing numbers of publications that adopt forms of WPR to engage critically with climate change. The questions I address include: does WPR contribute usefully to considerations of climate change policy? If so, what can it add to those conversations? Where can it be applied? How can it be applied? 

I have selected four articles to guide the discussion. I’ll tackle two in this entry: 

Christiansen, K. L. and Lund, J. F. 2024. Seeing the limits of voluntary corporate climate action in food and technology sustainability reports, Energy Research & Social Science 118 (2024) 103798, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103798

Reimerson, E. et al. 2024. Local articulations of climate action in Swedish forest contexts. Environmental Science and Policy, 151 (2024) 103626

and two next time:

Olsson, D., Öjehag-Pettersson, A. & Granberg, M.2021. Building a Sustainable Society: Construction, Public Procurement Policy and “Best Practice” in the European Union. Sustainability, 13, 7142. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137142.

Fischer, K. et al. 2024. Progress towards sustainable agriculture hampered by siloed scientific discourses. Nature Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01474-9 

I found all four articles useful and stimulating. Unfortunately, I had to cut content to make the entry size workable and therefore lose some of the nuance of the arguments. 

To be clear, the Fischer et al. (2024) article does not specifically mention WPR or list the WPR questions as they appear in Tables introducing the approach (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, p. 20). As a result, I am unable to list it in the comprehensive list of WPR references (at this link:  Welcome to the WPR Network! | Karlstad University (kau.se); see this list for numerous other articles applying WPR to environmental politics and climate change). Still, the authors reference Analysing Policy (Bacchi 2009) in relation to the questions they produce (see Box 1). I intend to show the connection between their questions and WPR thinking in the next entry. 

Significantly, all four articles are produced by researchers in Scandinavia, one in Denmark (Christiansen and Lund 2024) and three in different parts of Sweden (Reimersen et al. 2024, Olsson et al. 2021 and Fischer et al. 2024). I say “significantly” because it is noteworthy to recognise Scandinavian countries leading the field in broadening the parameters of climate change discussions. The connection with Scandinavian countries raises questions about the context in which such discussions become possible – topics for another day. 

I intend to follow the lead of the four selected articles in accepting the relevance of a topic designated as “climate change” (though I probably would have preferred “global warming”). In other words, I accept the relevance of the category “climate change”. Instead of debating its existence (topics for elsewhere) I examine how “climate change” and “politics” are brought together using WPR. What do these articles hope to accomplish? Does WPR assist in the selected tasks? 

A distinction needs to be drawn between the articles by Christiansen and Lund, Reimerson et al. and Olsson et al. on the one side and Fischer et al. on the other. Specifically, the first three articles engage directly with policy interventions directed at climate change, while the last (Fischer et al. 2024) offers a form of systematic review of articles that target climate change or rather “sustainability” (discussed in more detail in next entry). By examining these four applications of WPR we can identify commonalities in the findings, specifically that it is relevant politically to consider deep-seated assumptions about the nature of the world, knowledge and political change in reflections on climate change. In this way the four articles help us to see the kind of thinking, analysis and politics associated with WPR as an analytic strategy. 

To begin, I tackle each article separately. I offer a brief summary of each article. Next, I indicate the variety of materials analysed in the article. The goal here is to indicate just where WPR can be applied. I then take some time to show how the selected article “reads” and applies WPR. Specifically, I want to draw attention to the ways in which the articles work with what I call “WPR thinking” – starting from proposals (of a variety of forms) and “working backwards” to identify how the “problem” is represented. As the discussion progresses, I will highlight relevant distinctions among the articles and the specific interpretations they offer of WPR. Finally (next entry) I hope to draw together the insights produced in the selected articles. This intervention should allow us to say something useful about WPR as a critical analytic strategy. To make my contribution usable, I keep the comments brief and hope that in the process I do not misrepresent the arguments.

Article 1: Christiansen, K. L. and Lund, J. F. 2024. Seeing the limits of voluntary corporate climate action in food and technology sustainability reports, Energy Research & Social Science 118 (2024) 103798, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103798

Brief summary

The analytic target in this article is corporate climate action. The authors want to know how companies represent the “problem” of climate action. To this end they examine corporate sustainability reports. They find that companies, across the two sectors of agriculture and technology, emphasise solutions aimed at improving efficiency and substituting carbon-intensive inputs in production processes, yet remain largely silent on solutions which could transform or reduce current consumption and production patterns. The companies also frame their products and services as necessary for society, legitimizing their continuing production of emissions. 

Materials analysed 

Christiansen and Lund make an important contribution by highlighting the possibility of applying WPR to forms of material other than Government reports and legislation. Note: they target companies’ sustainability reports. They offer therefore an analysis that illustrates the relevance of a governmentality approach, broadening our conception of “governance” (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, pp. 41-44). Corporate entities are clearly involved in governing practices. 

Applying WPR thinking

In Christiansen and Lund (2024) there is a strong and useful focus on “proposals”, designated as the starting point for a WPR analysis. Let us recall the key premise in WPR: what is proposed as an intervention (proposed solution) reveals a target for change and hence the way the “problem” is represented and produced (Bacchi 2022). The authors clearly articulate this point: 

“we examine corporate sustainability reports to illuminate how companies’ proposed solutionsboth constitute what they consider their own climate impacts and contribute to identifying and delimiting possible and reasonable corporate responses. (Christiansen and Lund 2024, p. 2; emphasis added)”

Here I offer a few examples of selected proposals and how problem representations are “read off” from them.

•  P. 3 – “All the food companies highlight investments in electrification, energy efficiencies and production of renewable energy, for example, from biogas and solar panels, as key avenues towards reducing their climate impact. JBS [a large meat-producing enterprise] writes: ‘Upgrades include switching out equipment with more energy-efficient alternatives, such as replacing gas boilers with heat pumps and optimizing refrigeration systems. The business also already has local solar projects at many of its sites’ (p. 58)”. Based on these proposals, the authors (p. 3) conclude: “the companies frame the problem of their climate impact, as one of inefficiency in energy use and use of fossil fuels”. Having identified the problem representation [as “inefficiency”], the authors proceed to examine underlying assumptions and the limitations of the problem representation.
•  In relation to the technology companies in their sample, the authors note: “The companies often emphasise the need to increase the awareness of and information about emissions, both for themselves, their suppliers and their clients”. It follows that “Emphasis on these solutions partly frames climate change as an information deficit problem, where we need to know more about our emissions and need new tech to address them” (p. 6). The authors proceed to query the grounds of this problem representation [information deficit], pointing out for example how such an approach can produce a “fixation on metrics and data” (p. 6).

For both the agriculture and technology sectors the authors stress the “unquestioned pursuit of efficiency” and how such a frame of reference “legitimises and depoliticises energy-intensive production and consumption patterns” (p. 7). The depoliticization of climate change identifies an important theme that arises in the other articles selected for this discussion.

The authors distinguish what they are doing in their WPR analysis from studies of “greenwashing”. They describe “greenwashing” as “strategic framings that obscure discrepancies between what actors say they do to address climate change and what they actually do” (p. 2). Rather, they want to consider how the communications of the targeted companies contribute to “producing perceptions of possibility and responsibility for mitigating climate change” (p. 2). This distinction between strategic framings and the unintended effects of corporate communications illustrates a useful understanding of WPR. The target is not deception on the part of companies but the operation of deep-seated assumptions in producing “problems” as particular sorts of problem. 

Insights generated 

Connected to the previous point, the authors produce a useful discussion of frame theory and include WPR as part of “the framing and discourse theories we build upon” (p. 2). They describe both frame theory (drawing on Entman 1993) and WPR as following “Foucauldian ideas of how discursive practices contribute towards defining and delimiting what is seen as legitimate and sensible to say”.

This postulated association between WPR and frame theory is debatable (see Research Hub entry 29 January 2025). I describe frame theory as more interested in interpretations of “problems” while WPR targets how specific interventions constitute or produce “problems” as particular sorts of problem. The authors recognise that in WPR “policies are constitutive of problem framings that, in turn, come to shape broader understandings of what constitutes societal problems (and not)” (p. 2; emphasis added). The contrast between interpretive and constitutive approach to “problems” is important and deserves more attention. It comes up again in the discussion of Reimerson et al. 2024 (below) and in Olsson et al. 2021 (next entry). 

Here I note that the authors state their decision to emphasise questions 1, 2 and 4 of the WPR approach because “Responding to questions 3, 5 and 6 requires engagement with other empirics” (p. 2). I suggest that this delineation indicates the interpretive focus in this article while the other “empirics” draw attention to the constitutive effects of problem representations. Since I stress that all the WPR questions are interconnected, I would advise against drawing this distinction. 

Article 2: Reimerson, E. et al. 2024. Local articulations of climate action in Swedish forest contexts. Environmental Science and Policy, 151 (2024) 103626

Brief summary

This article brings an innovative use of WPR to the study of “local articulations” of climate action. I say “innovative” because most common applications of WPR target forms of Government policy or the directives of other organisations (see the targeting of corporations and their reports in Christiansen et al 2024 above). In this article, the target group is “local actors”. The authors connected with this “broad range of stakeholders in two case study locations in Sweden to explore potential course of action for local climate action in relation to forests” (Abstract). The expressed hope is that “forests might offer a way to connect climate change as an abstract, global dilemma to concrete actions on the local level”. A grounding premise is that “local actors are recognized as key drivers for climate action”. 

Materials analysed

To study “local articulations” the authors conducted a series of four consecutive workshops with two groups of forest stakeholders in two different locations – one in northern Sweden and one in southern Sweden (p. 3). Thirty-one forest stakeholders participated in the process. The “pairs of workshops” aimed in the end at presenting “prioritized targets” for local decision-makers and public officials. This article focused on Workshop 2 and “participants’ development of local and societal pathways towards their envisioned futures”. The material from the workshops “was transcribed, translated from Swedish to English, and coded by the first author”. For the coding process, the authors “used a software for qualitative text analysis (NVivo 12) to enable detail and complexity in the coding and analysis, inductively developing themes and sub-themes following an analytical framework based on poststructural policy analysis (see Section 3.4 below)” (p. 4; emphasis added).

I have italicized the point about applying the software “following an analytical framework”. This analytic approach fits my suggestion that to use coding in relation to WPR it is necessary to apply the theory (WPR) first (see Research Hub entries 28 Dec 2023 and 29 January 2025). Also, the treatment of the transcripts as “text” may provide a way to use WPR in other scenarios based on group discussions. The suggested way forward here shares family resemblances with Postructural Interview Analysis (PIA) (Bacchi and Bonham 2016). Forecasting their clear understanding of a WPR analytic strategy, the authors note that the analyzed material “includes all proposals put forward by the participants” (p. 4; emphasis added). 

Applying WPR thinking

The authors state at the outset that the “aim of the paper is to critically analyse these local articulations of climate action”. To this end they ask: 

• What is the problem represented to be in local forest stakeholders’ articulations of climate action? 
• What assumptions underlie these problem representations? 
• What are their potential effects and consequences for local and forestry-related climate action? (p. 2)

Note here the uptake of Questions 1, 2 and 5 from the WPR template, compared to 1, 2 and 4 in Christiansen et al. 2024 above). I comment on the significance of this distinction below.

I was struck by how consistently and how effectively the authors identified “proposals” as starting places for the analysis. In other words, they clearly grasp and use WPR thinking in their analysis. They begin the analysis with recognition that 

“The participants presented both concrete, detailed proposals for forest and natural resource management (e.g., “triad forestry – intensive cultivation 33%, ‘normal’ management 33%, protect 33%”2) and abstract, visionary targets for the environment, the climate, or natural resources in general (e.g., ‘use our resources in the right way’; ‘climate- smart targets for the use of forests). (p. 6; emphasis added)”

They proceed to identify specific proposals and how they represented the “problem”. For example, 

“Among the proposals addressing landscape use and forestry on the local (municipal) and regional (county) levels, several targets indicate a desired move towards a different perspective on landscape use (including the creation of ‘new functional areas’, and a target stating that ‘[a] landscape perspective [is] needed in natural value assessments’). (p. 6; emphasis added)”

As one more example: “A number of proposals targeted resource use by addressing construction, consumption and waste, and energy”. (p. 6; emphasis added)

The authors thus use identified proposals to launch the analysis. Proposals provide access to the problem representations that require analytic scrutiny for their deep-seated assumptions and for their effects. 

Insights generated

Paralleling the argument in Christiansen et al. 2024, this article describes local climate action as “contingent on overarching discourses that affect understandings of possible actions, possible actors, and their opportunities and limitations on all levels of politics and administration” (p. 2). Their close analysis indicates that “Apart from some proposed targets indicating a more radical shift towards local autonomy and self-sufficiency, the participants’ proposals tended to stay close to current policies and practices”. (p. 7) They elaborate:

“For example, among the proposals concerning transportation, most seemed to assume continued high mobility of people and goods – just with different modes of transportation (public transport; railways) and/or different (fossil free) fuel sources. The detailed policy content of more radical transformation (e.g., significant decreases in mobility) remains rather quiet, if not completely silent, in the material. There is also a tendency of silence around concrete alternatives for land- and resource use. (p. 7)” 

And finally:

“Through proposals of, for example, more wood construction and increased use of bioenergy – and through the silences on concrete alternatives for land- and resource use – the participants’ pathways assume a continued use of forest resources. They seem to remain largely within the confines of – and further reiterate – dominating market-oriented and administrative- managerial rationalities.” 

Importantly, this article probes the “discursive effects” produced by these problem representations (Question 5 in WPR; Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, p. 20). That is, it moves beyond an analysis of competing interpretations (see Christiansen and Lund 2024, above) to consider the political fallout produced through the problem representations they identify. They emphasise “the discursive and positioning effects of assumptions of politically neutral (or apolitical) knowledge as necessary for action” and conclude on the need “for continued critical scrutiny of the underlying premises and choices of climate action on all levels (cf. Hulme, 2015) (p. 10; emphasis added). Through this perspective they demonstrate the usefulness of WPR as an analytic strategy.

I pursue articles 3 (Olsson et al. 2021) and 4 (Fischer et al. 2024) in the next entry. 

References

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

Bacchi, C. 2022. Keynote Address, Karlstad International WPR Symposium. https://www.kau.se/en/political-science/forskningsprojekt/welcome-wpr-network

Bacchi, C. and Bonham, J. 2016. Appendix: Poststructural Interview Analysis: Politicizing “personhood”, in C. Bacchi and S. Goodwin, Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 113-122.

Bacchi, C. and Goodwin, S. 2016. Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Entman, R. M. Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication 43(4): 51-58.

Hulme, M., 2015. (Still) disagreeing about climate change: Which way forward? Zygon® 50, 893–905