R ELATIONSHIP  BETWEEN  KNOWLEDGE ,  POWER  AND  POLICY

With this multilevel perspective on policy in mind, this section introduces a separate body of literature that is relevant to this thesis and considers specifically how relations of power and knowledge between citizens, the experts and policy makers select which voices or perspectives become dominant in or are excluded from debates on policy.

A starting point for much of this work is the recognition that discourse is an important medium through which certain kinds of knowledge and perspectives may gain

ascendance in policy. Through discursive processes certain claims or justifications can appear more legitimate while others can be side-lined or excluded (Long, 1992). The ability to ensure that certain justifications gain more power and ‘stick’ better in policy is therefore partly dependent on the strategic capabilities of the actors making the claims, but also on the content and how forcefully a particular ‘discourse’ is put to use (ibid).

Hajer (1995) further elaborates that environmental discourses can be viewed as ‘a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts and categorisations that are produced, reproduced and transformed into a particular set of practices that give meaning to both physical and social realities’ (Hajer, 1995: 44). In his seminal work ‘The Politics of Environmental Discourse’ (1995), he explains in detail the ‘ecological modernisation’ ideas which suggest, amongst other themes, that a much greater involvement of the private sector in the management of environmental problems has been largely facilitated by discursive processes (Hajer, 1995).

Several analysts have also argued that language in particular plays an important role in analysing how a given problem is determined and implemented in policy and practice (Apthorpe and Gasper, 1996, Grillo, 1997, Shore and Wright, 1997). In other words, although the notion of discourse can be treated as the overarching concept, it lends itself to different kinds of analyses and theorisations that stress the significance of the various linguistic strategies and terminologies deployed by different actors (Kaplan, 1993, Keeley and Scoones, 1999). The language strategies that mainly concern this study are often described as part of frame reflection (or framing effects) (Apthorpe and Gasper, 1996) and ‘narratives’ (or story lines) (Kaplan, 1993). Both framing and narrative, is drawn from the empirical analysis of the case studies and form an integral part of the thesis’ approach to analysing discourse.

The idea of ‘frame reflection’ is used to analyse the process by which different frames (i.e. central organising ideas) are incorporated into policy positions that are expressed as a particular means of knowing, analysing, persuading and acting upon a particular situation (Rein and Schön, 1993). Framing further refers to the related ‘assumptions, methodological variables, procedural attributes or interpretive issues’ that different groups bring to a problem (Stirling et al., 2007: 16). Critical reflection of how a

‘system’, ‘condition’ or ‘method’ is framed can reveal ways in which it is implemented or acted upon in policy practice (ibid). In some cases, such as in expert analytic

approaches, a particular framing can be so powerful that it dominates the others.

Specifically, scientific and engineering perspectives tend to be very closely involved in the framing of the water resources management sector (a professional field that water quality is often considered to be part of) (Movik and Mehta, 2009). Engineering and hydrological authority in the organisation and planning of the water sector is partly attributed to the use of a variety of linguistic terms for defining the water system. A prominent example of this is the close connection between the engineering ethos of commensuration and the use of specific terminologies to define water system properties.

Coelho’s ethnographic study of engineers working for Chennai’s water authority also demonstrates that ‘pipes’ and ‘networks’, ‘infrastructural projects’ and ‘monitoring programmes’ are often more than just language terms: they also encapsulate particular expressions of power employed to demarcate the authority of engineers in the

management of the city’s water and drainage network (Coelho, 2004:51).

Understanding how linguistic terms are used by powerful expert actors to frame water quality is of further interest to this study because it illustrates how boundaries are drawn around problems according to particular techno-scientific ideals or technical

configurations (Effluent standards, monitoring frameworks and water sampling protocols are all often involved in the framing). In the light of this reasoning, engagement with the effects of framing can facilitate a better understanding of the discursive approaches available to actors in order to effectively ‘rule in’ certain ways of talking about a topic (in this case the topic is water quality), defining an acceptable way to talk, write or conduct oneself, whilst at the same time ‘ruling out’ or restricting other ways of talking or constructing knowledge in relation to the same (Hall, 2001: 72). Why such discursive strategies have been so successful despite their limitations is partly attributable to the fact that water quality is linked culturally with embedded notions about ‘faeces’, ‘filth’ and ‘dirtiness’, all of which are still largely treated as taboo topics by policy makers and politicians (Black and Fawcett, 2008: 72), and by default are delegated to scientists for finding policy solutions.

From a somewhat different viewpoint, a study of framings can also be consolidated to explain diversity across the different positions. In the context of the ‘STEPS Rethinking Regulation’ project⁶, which looked at seed and drug regulation, systems are likely to be

‘explicitly or implicitly understood or framed by users, regulators and legislators in very different ways’ (Van Zwanenberg et al., 2008: 41). Similarly, although expert actors tend to put forward powerful framings as discussed in the previous paragraph, we can also expect the framing of ‘water quality’ to vary between different groups of actors, and especially as it moves across scales and different contexts. The undertaking of

‘regulating’ water quality is likely to be framed in a very different way by national experts working from a pollution control standpoint than by the water authorities operating in the peri-urban context, whose intention is to provide a supply of drinking water to the settlements. Another point of divergence in framing may also emerge between the more formalised ‘scientific’ framings of water quality and the less

understood ‘experience based’ perspectives of marginalised citizens. So the overriding

6 The STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement hub, funded by the ESRC. It brings together development studies with science and technology studies in order to research health, agriculture and water. It is based at the Institute of Development Studies and SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research in the UK: official website, http://www.steps-centre.org.

purpose of studying the divergent framings is to understand in more detail the extent to which these can ‘capture, understand, and thus potentially intervene in the realities of poorer communities’ (ibid: 41).

An alternative approach where discourses can be understood in relation to power is through the identification of stories or ‘narratives’ that participants are prepared to tell about a given policy situation (Fischer and Forester, 1993, Kaplan, 1993, Keeley and Scoones, 1999). By identifying a set of policy narratives, the aim is to clarify how boundaries are drawn around water quality problems, and to identify what is included in or excluded from powerful knowledge systems. In India, the scientific-administrative vision of the river is shaped by a narrative which assumes that rivers will always adapt to continued growth in human settlements and consumptive market demands (Alley, 2002:238). This narrative however, is currently subject to much opposition. There is empirical evidence that suggests important rivers are in fact experiencing rapid

degradation due to pollution, and are increasingly less able to sustain new pressures and demands (Sharma and Kansal, 2011).

Similarly, much knowledge and information circulated within formal organisations can be explained through narrative processes (Gabriel, 2004: 73). Organisational narrative processes in particular are examined in order to understand how narratives expressed by expert advisors become dominant in characterising water quality problems. In Chapter 4 of this thesis, key narratives through which water quality regulation is understood by expert advisors are explored. This analysis demonstrates that the type of regulatory priorities proposed by expert advisors, and the expectations around the enforcement of water pollution norms and guidelines in local areas, are formed not just by powerful assumptions but also by different styles of rhetoric. In cities like Delhi, the inability of current technological and administrative systems to control river pollution effectively is often attributed by public officials and scientists to a dominant narrative of

‘implementation failure’. This has led to a predominant emphasis on a ‘project-based’

approach for dealing with complex river systems, involving vast financial investments

targeting the implementation of various river-cleaning projects⁷, but this approach tends to obscure not only the importance of more profound political processes that influence implementation procedures but also the inherent limitations associated with how river pollution is defined more broadly in policy processes (Alley, 2002).

By elucidating how these concerns are formulated in policy practice, the aim has been not so much to come up with alternative prescriptions for policy, but more importantly to shed light on the specific reasoning strategies that operate in the background behind established policy goals and preferences. Narratives further provide an entry point for challenging ‘deeper truths’ (Gabriel, 2004: 74) about a particular policy situation or organisational logic which are often assimilated without questioning by those that are involved directly in the formulation of policies.