Drug Problematizations and Politics

Interrogating the Role of “Problems” in Alcohol and Other Drug Research

References to “problems” abound in political debate and analysis, displacing considered reflection on issues. At a basic level, the term “problem” is ambiguous in meaning. It can refer to a concern, a gap between the current situation and a more desired state (Hoppe, 2011, p. 23) or simply a question (Meyer, 1995). Its use is prolific, in particular, in the alcohol and other drug field, where making alcohol and drug use “problems” is rife (Bacchi, 2015a).

“Alcohol problems” and “drug problems” operate as taken-for-granted descriptions of conditions that ought to be rectified and/or eliminated. The terms are heavily and negatively value laden, indicated by their common association with “social problems.” As argued in Poststructural Policy Analysis (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016, p. 62), “Here we have Problems with a capital ‘P’.” Consider, for example, the Fact Sheet produced by the Australian Government (2016) headed “What is the Ice Problem?” (emphasis added). Consider also the Health Department’s (Australian Government, 2004, emphasis added) module “What is intoxication and why is it a problem?”

It is inadequate, however, simply to recommend that the term “problem” be deleted from alcohol and other drug policies and research. As Tanesini (1994, p. 207) reminds us, concepts have no fixed meaning; rather, “they are proposals about how we ought to proceed from here.” Clearly, therefore, “problem” and “problems” as concepts have to be considered within the projects to which they are attached. They are never exogenous to (outside of) social and political practices.

The term “problem” appears in the work of important poststructural philosophers. Both Canguilhem and Bergson, with Deleuze, call for the creation of problems (Osborne, 2003, p. 9), albeit with different meanings. ¹ In addition, the poststructural scholars Glynos and Howarth (2007, p. 167) follow Shapiro (2002, p. 601), who proffers “problem-driven research” as preferable to “theory-driven research,” where “a phenomenon is characterized so as to vindicate a particular theory rather than to illuminate a problem that is specified independently of the theory.” On the other side, the writer and public speaker Eckhart Tolle (2005, 2009), associated with positive psychology, prefers “challenges” to “problems.”

These examples indicate the need to consider the forms of politics made possible by particular theoretical stances and their associated terminologies. In this context, it is important to reflect on the political implications of the problem-solving paradigm that informs the “evidence-based” policy movement, a powerful influence in alcohol and other drug research. In evidence-based policy, there is a grounding assumption that the “problems” being “addressed” are readily identifiable and uncontroversial. Researchers are called upon (simply) to test various interventions to find out “what works” in relation to those “problems” (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). This approach to research establishes relations of governing that privilege those who get to set the “problems” to be “solved,” illustrating the “centralizing power-effects” of “evidence-based policy” discourse (Lancaster, Seear, Treloar, & Ritter, 2017, p. 60).

In a move to displace the power of “problems” that defines the alcohol and other drug field in restrictive and negative ways, this article proposes a shift in focus to the study of problematizations. It draws on exemplary research in the field to illustrate what is gained, in respect of political analysis and on-the-ground political effects, from this innovative perspective. Particular attention is directed to the mediating role played by problematizations in the constitution of “objects” and “subjects” and to the importance of self-problematization. The next section introduces the WPR approach, an analytic strategy that facilitates this form of critical analysis.

The WPR Approach: Displacing “Problems”

The conventional view of public policy is that policies are reactions to problems that sit outside the policy process waiting to be “solved.” As an example of this common perception, Edwards (2004, p. 1, emphasis added) states, “public policy addresses societal problems and is about ‘what governments do, why they do it, and what difference it makes’.”

By way of contrast, in the WPR approach, governments do not react to problems that are presumed to be self-evident. Rather, they are seen to be involved in the creation or production of “problems” as particular sorts of problems, with particular parameters, causes, effects, and remedies. There is no suggestion of manipulation in this proposition; rather, it is a description of the way in which policies do their work as explained below.

Policy proposals or proposed “solutions,” it is claimed, by their nature contain implicit representations of the “problem” or “problems” they purport to address. This argument builds on the commonsense understanding that what we propose to do about something reveals what we think needs to change and hence what we think the “problem” is. For example, a policy that offers training programs to women as a way to increase their representation in positions of influence produces the “problem” as women’s lack of training. In a WPR analysis, women’s lack of training is identified as a problem representation, referring to how the issue is problematized.

To interrogate problem representations, the WPR approach deploys seven interrelated forms of questioning and analysis (see Table 1). It incorporates adaptations of Foucauldian archaeology, genealogy, and problematization. Questions are asked about

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

WPR Chart: What’s the Problem Represented to be? (WPR Approach to Policy Analysis).

Question 1: What’s the problem (e.g., of “gender inequality,” “drug use/abuse,” “economic development,” “global warming,” “childhood obesity,” “irregular migration,” etc.) represented to be in a specific policy or policies? Question 2: What deep-seated presuppositions or assumptions (conceptual logics) underlie this representation of the “problem” (problem representation)? Question 3: How has this representation of the “problem” come about? Question 4: What is left unproblematic in this problem representation? Where are the silences? Can the “problem” be conceptualized differently? Question 5: What effects (discursive, subjectification, lived) are produced by this representation of the “problem”? Question 6: How and where has this representation of the “problem” been produced, disseminated, and defended? How has it been and/or how can it be disrupted and replaced? Step 7: Apply this list of questions to your own problem representations.

Source. Adapted from Bacchi and Goodwin (2016, p. 20).

The focus in this analytic strategy is on problematizations within policies, distinguishing it from interpretive studies that direct attention to how people (e.g., policy workers) problematize issues (Bacchi, 2015b).

To say that a policy represents a “problem” in a particular way does not imply that we are talking about an image or impression of a “problem,” as if we could wish it otherwise. As Anderson and Harrison (2010) explain,

As things and events they [representations] enact worlds, rather than being simple go-betweens tasked with re-presenting some pre-existing order or force. In their taking-place they have an expressive power as active interventions in the co-fabrication of worlds. (p. 14)

The WPR Approach: Moving Beyond Policy Analysis

To date, the WPR approach has been applied primarily in the field of policy analysis (Bacchi, 1999, 2009). However, drawing on governmentality studies (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016, pp. 41–44), a key premise of the approach is that governing involves a wide range of actors and agencies, including experts and professionals and the knowledges they produce. As a result, the WPR approach can be deployed to interrogate the full range of governmental and knowledge practices.

The suggestion here is that the logic behind the WPR approach—that proposals contain implicit representations of “problems”—offers a way of thinking rather than simply a method of policy analysis. In this broader understanding, various materials (see below) are treated as proposals, that is, as recommendations for how things ought to be. Hence, based on the premise that proposals indicate what needs to change, it becomes possible to consider how these materials conceptualize “the problem,” enabling a WPR analysis.

For example, this way of thinking proves fruitful in teasing out the problematizations in governmental technologies including “mundane programmes, calculations, techniques, apparatuses, documents and procedures” (Miller & Rose, 2008, p. 55). Technologies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), produced by the OECD (2017), which compares “literacy” rates as a “measure of human outputs,” problematizes “citizenship” in terms of human productivity (Kelly, 2015, p. 21). As another example, the apparently innocuous practice of signposts at European airports that establish different checkpoints for “persons covered by Community law” and for “third-country nationals” problematizes “citizenship” in ways that firm up both “Europe” as a “place” and the category of “the European” (Walters, 2002). In the alcohol and other drug field, Moore and Fraser (2013) show how the “episode-of-care” funding model, as a governmental technology, produces the “problem” it assumes, an apparent increase in the number of “addicts” (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016, p. 90).

Because the WPR approach assumes a broad view of governing that extends beyond governmental institutions, it can be applied to nongovernmental technologies as well as to governmental technologies. For example, the questions in the approach can be used to critically interrogate:

“Expert” knowledges also become targets for analysis. Researchers in the alcohol and other drug field (Lancaster, Treloar, & Ritter, 2017), for example, have shown the usefulness of the WPR approach in analyzing “evidence-based policy” discourse. Seear and Fraser (2014) apply WPR to case law and precedent. Månsson and Ekendahl (2015) take symposia as their target, while Farrugia (2016) shows how WPR can be applied to social marketing texts.

The way of thinking introduced in the WPR approach, in which various materials are thought of as proposals about how things ought to be, can be adapted to reflect critically on phenomena that are not strictly textual, such as buildings, ceremonies, and organizational culture (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016, p. 18). For example, one could study how modern schools with their “uni-purpose facilities located on enclosed land, fenced and gated” reflect a “hidden curriculum” that problematizes the moral and cognitive training of young people (see Bottrell & Goodwin, 2011, p. 4). In this instance, buildings are treated as proposals about how things should be, revealing what is represented to be problematic.

With similar logic, it is possible to apply the WPR approach to concepts, such as “affirmative action” or “equality” (Bacchi, 1996). Since concepts can be described as “proposals about how we ought to proceed from here” (Tanesini, 1994, p. 207, emphasis added), it is possible to analyze what is the target of change and what the “problem” is represented to be.

Bottrell and Meagher (2008) suggest that WPR could prove to be a powerful form of analysis in the whole field of practice research. As they point out, the focus in that area of study is on establishing which interventions work to address which problems. Here, as in conventional policy studies, “problems” are treated as self-evident and as exogenous to analysis. Bottrell and Meagher (2008) put WPR forward as a way to counter this logic. They recommend treating practice “interventions” as proposals that create particular understandings of “problems,” providing a basis for interrogating those problem representations.

Interviews, often employed in social science research, require a modified form of WPR since they do not readily produce proposals about how things ought to be. Poststructural interview analysis provides such a modification (Bacchi & Bonham, 2016; see also Bonham & Bacchi, 2017). This seven-stage analytical strategy treats interviews as texts, with a focus on precisely “what is said.” It enlists methods of interrogation similar to those deployed in WPR, including:

The following section concentrates on the insights produced into how governing takes place through these forms of analysis, with a particular focus on how “subjects” and “objects” are constituted.

How Are Problematizations Useful?

As argued above, we are governed, not through policies, but through their problematizations. Since this argument draws its inspiration from Foucault, it is important to clarify that he uses the term “problematization” in two ways:

“Thinking problematically” involves a conviction to approach questions differently, not to argue pro or con a specific position but to inquire into the terms of reference within which an issue is cast. As Deacon (2000, p. 127) explains, the analytic purpose is not to look for the one correct response to an issue but to examine how it is “questioned, analysed, classified and regulated” at “specific times and under specific circumstances.” In line with this objective, the WPR questions (see Table 1) serve to involve researchers in “thinking problematically.”

In the second meaning, problematization captures a two-stage process including “how and why certain things (behavior, phenomena, processes) became a problem” (Foucault, 1985, p. 115) and how they are shaped as particular objects for thought (Deacon, 2000, p. 139; see also Deacon, 2006, p. 186, Footnote 2). These problematized phenomena are referred to as problematizations and become the foci for study, as Foucault (1986) elaborated:

The archaeological dimension of the analysis made it possible to examine the forms of problematization themselves, its genealogical dimension enabled me to analyze the formation out of the practices and their modification. (pp. 17–18)

When applied to policy analysis, the approach provides useful insights into modes of governing. As Rose and Miller (1992, p. 181) describe, “government” is a “problematizing activity.” Osborne (1997, p. 174) concurs that “policy cannot get to work without first problematizing its territory.” That is, in order for something to be governed, or imagined as governable, it needs to be problematized (Packer, 2003, p. 136).

It follows that a study of problematizations can provide ways of comprehending the rationales, or rationalities, associated with specific modes of rule. For example, Dean and Hindess (1998, p. 9, emphasis added) describe a neoliberal rationality as “a style of problematisation, a mode of reasoning that can best be identified by examining problematisations.” A critical analytic task becomes discerning “which of these problematizations indicate lines of fracture and transformation and which indicate a consolidation of regimes of government” (Dean, 1999, p. 44).

A study of problematizations also provides crucial insights into how practices constitute “subjects” and “objects,” indicating a contribution to this basic premise of the so-called “ontological turn.” ² Pellizzoni (2015, p. 77) expresses concern that reference to the constitutive nature of practices—his target is Barad (2007, p. 57)—“leads easily to taking them [practices] as self-evident givens rather than perspectival ‘cuts’ in the spatio-temporal flux of events.” ³ The analysis to follow shows how the concept of problematization works past this difficulty.

Given his nominalism and his fondness for spatial/geographical metaphors, Foucault (1981/1991, p. 75) describes practices as “places” where “what is said and what is done, rules imposed and reasons given, the planned and the taken for granted meet and interconnect.” Here, in lieu of a definition of practices or a presumption that practices are self-evident, Foucault directs attention to how selected practices function—to the work they do. Flynn (2005, p. 31) offers an example:

the practice of legal punishment…entails the interplay between a “code” that regulates ways of acting—such as how to discipline an inmate [“rules imposed”]—and the production of true discourse that legitimates these ways of acting [“reasons given”].

Foucault’s particular concern is to consider how governing practices form or constitute “subjects” and “objects.” To this end, he turns to problematizations. The following quote from Foucault (1994), writing as Maurice Florence, shows the connections between practices and the constitution of “subjects” and “objects” and the place of problematizations in this analysis:

He [sic, the researcher] first studies the practices—ways of doing things—…through which one can grasp the lineaments of what was constituted as real for those who were attempting to conceptualize and govern it, and of the way in which those same people constituted themselves as subjects capable of knowing, analyzing, and ultimately modifying this real.

These “practices,” understood simultaneously as modes of action and of thinking, are what provide the key to understanding a correlative constitution of the subject and object. (p. 318, emphasis added)

For example, as Foucault elaborates, to understand how “madness” was produced as “real,” as an “object for thought,” it is necessary to examine the following practices:

how madmen [sic] were recognized, set aside, excluded from society, interned, and treated; what institutions were meant to take them in and keep them there, sometimes caring for them; what authorities decided on their madness, and in accordance with what criteria; what methods were set in place to constrain them, punish them, or cure them; in short, what was the network of institutions and practices in which the madman [sic] was simultaneously caught and defined. (Foucault, 1969, in Eribon, 1991, p. 214)

To trace the dynamic by which this occurs, Foucault (1985, p. 115) asks “how and why were very different things in the world gathered together, characterized, analyzed, and treated as for example ‘mental illness’?” The answer to this question, he explains, provides the “elements” deemed relevant “for a given ‘problematization’” (Foucault, 1985, p. 115).

To summarize, by looking at what was “done” (i.e., the practices) to those called “mad,” it is possible to see how they were “problematized”—conceptualized as a specific kind of phenomenon—and made “real.” In this way, attention is directed to the “conditions of emergence” (Foucault, 1972, p. 163) or “modes of coordination” (Mol, 2002, p. 84) involved in collecting together things, actions, gestures, behaviors, words that make up “madness” as an object of thought and “the mad” as “real” “subjects.” Problematizations thus provide a key link in the constitutive role of practices.

Foucault (1997c) proceeds to spell out the political implications of identifying the place of problematizations in constituting “the real,” offering a dual agenda:

It was a matter of [first] determining the role of politics and ethics in the establishment of madness as a particular domain of scientific knowledge [connaissance] [e.g. how it came to be], and [second] also of analyzing the effects of the latter on political and ethical practices [e.g. how the mad are treated, etc.]. (p. 116)

Applications of WPR within the alcohol and other drug field illustrate the role of problematizations as important mediating factors in the production of “the real.” Fraser and Moore (2011, p. 499), for example, deploy poststructural methods of policy analysis, including WPR, to examine “how the problem of ATS [Amphetamine Type Stimulants] use has been formulated in policy” in Australia. In their analysis of the 1985 Drug Misuse and Trafficking Bill (New South Wales), Lancaster, Seear, and Treloar (2015, p. 1201) use the WPR approach to reflect on how the practice of constituting “illicit drug use” as an “inherently criminal activity” limits access to injecting equipment to “authorized persons,” with concerning effects for population health. Lancaster, Duke, and Ritter (2015) produce a comparative analysis of how the “problem of drugs” is represented in “recovery” discourse in Australia and the United Kingdom. Other recent applications of WPR by Månsson and Ekendahl (2015) and Manton and Moore (2016), respectively, show how, through problematizations in specific sites, “cannabis” and “intoxication” are produced as objects for thought, and “youth” and “men” and “women” are constituted as particular kinds of “subjects.”

Conclusions: Self-Problematization and Critique

A particular concern in this article has been to highlight that, in treating so-called “problems” as self-evident or given, researchers can produce or reinforce (dangerous) “realities”—for example, “drug problems” and “alcohol problems” as taken-for-granted ills to remove, and a problem-solving (evidence based) ethic that obviates the politics involved in constituting “problems” as particular sorts of problems. The WPR approach offers self-problematization as a means to assist researchers to avoid potentially dangerous uses of “problems” and other concepts.

Self-problematization is not to be confused with reflexivity, a mode of self-monitoring popular in much poststructural and other social theory. Important contributions from Mazzei (2013, p. 733) and Stengers (2008, p. 53) point to the way in which the notion of reflexivity relies upon a political subject reminiscent of the humanist subject, that is, a subject able to draw upon inner resources of insight and judgment.

Self-problematization attempts to bypass this difficulty by making the act of thinking itself an object of thought (Rabinow, 2003, p. 8). In the place of easy-to-make declarations of the need to become “reflexive,” it institutes a practice of the self, an exercise in which one subjects one’s own recommendations and proposals to a WPR analysis (see Foucault, 1997a, 1997b). Step 7 in the approach (see Table 1) specifies “Apply the list of questions to your own problem representations.” In respect of political implications, such a practice creates the opportunity for researchers to consider the operation of frameworks of meaning—for example, harm, responsibility, well-being, social inclusion, and so on (see Pellizzoni, 2015, p. 69)—in their analyses that could undermine their objectives or produce deleterious consequences.

This self-critical ethic institutes a commitment to a form of ongoing critique, “an open-ended provocation of the problematic” (Osborne, 2003, p. 7). As a result, there is a reluctance to engage in a project of creating or constituting problems (see above), which implies an ability to “legislate as to the very universe of problems and solutions that might be available to us” (Osborne, 2003, p. 7). By contrast, the kind of poststructural analysis offered here does not prescribe political positions, nor does it describe desirable futures:

Rather, it aims to make visible why particular positions and visions of the future occur to us, and especially to reveal when and where those positions work in the same register of “political rationality” as that which they purport to criticize. (Brown, 1998, p. 44)