The Politics of Meaning Struggles

Shale Gas Policy Under Pressure in France

Advances in Critical Policy Studies series

Philippe Zittoun研究教授的政治Science, LAET-ENTPE, University of Lyon and Sébastien Chailleux, Associate Professor, Centre Emile Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux, France

Working to demystify the enigmatic process behind enacting public policies, The Politics of Meaning Struggles uses the case of the 2011 prohibition of hydraulic fracturing by the French government to address the wider phenomenon of governmental shifts in policy decisions.

‘Drawing inspiration from the politics of meaning creation, this fresh perspective of pragmatist constructivism proposes an explanation of public policy not as a coherent whole but as an investigation of interrelated micro-phenomena of semantic confrontation and power struggles in diverse discourse forums. Analytically rich and methodologically sophisticated, it helps us understand how facts and coalitions are built through political conflict and contestation in different settings to shape public policies that discuss, support, change or abandon established courses of action.’
– Nikolaos Zahariadis, Rhodes College, US

‘Through the lens of their Pragmatist Constructivist Framework, Zittoun and Chailleux provide an eye-opening, and to some extent jaw-dropping, account of the French Government’s reversals on fracking policy. By detailing the why, where, when and how of definitional struggles animating French fracking policy, they offer many insights into how policy “problems” and “solutions” are made and unmade. A brilliant evocation of the politics of meaning and how it matters for explaining policy outcomes.’
– Christopher Ansell, University of California, Berkeley, US