My central claim is that texts introducing and explaining critical realism focus on its ontological insights, and even though issues of judgemental rationality and theory choice are central to research these often become peripheral and/or are not stated in the way Bhaskar presented them. This claim is defended by comparing Bhaskar's statements and arguments about theory choice to texts introducing critical realism and its potential research implications. The method of rational theory choice and the key criterion for it are presented: (...) immanent critique combined with retroduction to determine whether a theory has greater explanatory power than its rivals, where greater explanatory power is defined as having greater epistemic credibility because it can explain more significant phenomena and has a greater ability to integrate knowledge; and multitheoretic-linguality as a prerequisite for applying the criterion of greater explanatory power. Greater explanatory power may be assigned to competing theories, metatheories and interpretations. Lastly, a more detailed example of the disparity between Bhaskar's specifications for rational theory choice and those found in a methodology text is provided. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAn unresolved aspect of the Logics Approach within Poststructuralist Discourse Theory is how to operationalize its abstract theoretical concepts – of social, political and fantasmatic logics – for concrete textual analysis, especially of policy documents. Policies often institute new understandings, procedures or practices, something the logics, as originally articulated, fall somewhat short of capturing. To overcome these methodological challenges this article constructs a framework for poststructuralist policy analysis that brings together the Logics Approach with more textually oriented tools developed within (...) Critical Discourse Analysis, namely assumptions and genre chains. For empirical illustration it draws on a case study of the European Union's adaptation policy in response to climate change. The resulting framework offers a means through which more implicit social and political logics can be examined, and contributes new insights to methodological debates around the use of the Logics Approach, specifically in relation to critical policy analysis. The article concludes with seven observations of relevance for future studies and suggests avenues for further empirical and conceptual exploration. (shrink)

This paper identifies and analyzes what constitutes special education in the revised Swedish preschool curriculum. The paper also contributes with an analytical mode of understanding political, as well as other, documents, in, for example, an educational system. The analytical strategy is mainly built upon discourse theory and discourse analysis, using the ideas of Ernesto Lacalu, Chantal Mouffe and Michel Foucault. The results show a fortified hegemonic discourse about a preschool for all children, where child-centred and inclusive approaches are dominant and (...) where special education, to a large extent, is constituted by more management, stimulation and special support. The paper raises questions about the possible effects the hegemonic discourse may contribute to.Nyckelord: diskurs, diskursanalys, diskursteori, läroplan, specialpedagogik, inkludering, pedagogik, styrdokument, svensk förskola för alla barn, utbildning. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing project of developing a specifically critical realist approach to discourse analysis. This is important not just because critical realist researchers n...

The analysis focuses on the centrality of the mind and the mental, and their relationship with the notion of discourse in International Relations theorizing. While many forms of discourse theory ar...

In this debate article I respond to Alison Assiter's various objections and points regarding my work on Kant's empirical realism, his relation to ontology, and related issues. Although Assiter raises some very interesting and important issues, I do not find her ontological interpretation of Kant sufficiently supported textually, and I think her objections to my work are too dependent on omissions and mistaken assumptions to provide an effective challenge.

Moving beyond the post-political framing of the climate change debate, scholars have tried to show that scientific practice is based on politically significant forms of social construction. While sympathizing with this attempt, this paper questions their use of the term ‘political’. Drawing on post-foundational political theory and focusing on the example of climate denialism, it argues that the relation between science and the political constitutes a double bind: while upholding an original distinction between science and the political is untenable, representing (...) science in political terms is impossible, because of the specific way the scientific field is symbolically instituted. (shrink)

Poststructuralist discourse theory is enjoying increasing recognition for its potential to contribute to the study of institutional change and continuity. Yet the most fruitful approach to realizing this potential has hitherto not been found. The main proposition so far has been to operationalize DT’s insights and concepts by adopting them into the framework of discursive institutionalism. However, an ongoing debate about the compatibility of the ontologies underlying DT and DI has cast doubts over whether such a combination is theoretically feasible. (...) The critical literature review in the first part of this article indeed finds insurmountable ontological differences between the discourse-theoretical and the discursive-institutionalist traditions, as their clashing notions of what is understood as a ‘discourse’ result in diverging views on power, agency, and subjectivity. Instead of merging DT into DI, I suggest to empower the former as a self-sufficient paradigm for institutional analysis. To achieve this, the second part of this article re-articulates the ‘logics framework’ proposed by Jason Glynos and David Howarth into a middle-range theory for the study of institutionalization and politicization in a discourse-theoretical fashion. The purpose of this re-articulation is to dispel various arguments against the viability of an autonomous poststructuralist approach to institutions. (shrink)

Literature reviews have traditionally been a simple exercise in reporting the current relevant research, both to provide an overview of the current status of the field, and perhaps to draw attention to controversies. From the perspective of positivist research traditions, it was important to neutrally report all the relevant research, which was assumed to be foundational. In this article, written for the Applied Critical Realism special issue of Journal of Critical Realism, I use my own research to illustrate how a (...) literature review might look if it were non-foundational and guided by the principles of immanent critique. Immanent critique is central to Bhaskar’s philosophical methodology but has not been much applied in critical realist empirical research. Following a brief introduction to immanent critique, its history and relation to other ways of grounding knowledge, an excerpt from a literature review is used as backdrop for an extended discussion about various potential applications, and impl... (shrink)

This article discusses the metatheoretical foundations of a critical realist approach to critical discourse analysis and counterposes them to insufficiently realist tendencies in Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, on the one hand, and anti-realist post-Marxist discourse theory on the other. The first section argues that Fairclough's approach is progressive in many ways, but lacks metatheoretical rigour with respect to important demarcation problems. These mainly concern CDA's understanding of discourse as mediating entity, its underlying dialectical-relational approach and overarching concept of social (...) practices. The discussion of Fairclough's approach necessitates a treatment of the relation of discourse and epistemology, in which the heritage of Foucault plays a crucial role and a brief engagement with ideology, in which Althusser is a major point of departure. The thesis is advanced that, among other things, Althusserian and Foucauldian residues in CDA's metatheory esta.. (shrink)

Discourse theory posits capitalism as a radically contingent discursive system constituted through hegemonic practice. This paper asks what this discursive conception means for the critical analysis of capitalism. To answer this question, the paper first outlines the ways by which this discursive conceptualization enables a critical political economy of capitalist systems: namely by enabling a theorization of how such systems are hegemonically constituted, are ideologically maintained, become prone to crises, and may be contested. The paper then examines how this discursive (...) conceptualization might account for the workings and dynamics, including cause–effect relations, of capitalism. That is, the paper examines if and how discourse theory can contribute to a critical political economy of capitalist systems. This examination draws upon and develops the concept of social logics. The paper concludes by suggesting that discourse theory can ‘supplement’ the critique of capitalist systems. (shrink)