The public action languages approach to public affairs

Abstract

The paper starts from the observation made by authors involved with different aspects of public action, that the State is not synonymous with public affairs. Given a more polycentric approach in which the public, or publics, are themselves key and independent social actors, amongst others, it questions the central role that public policy is assumed to take in articulating the discussion and provision of public goods and services. The paper takes a historical perspective on the emergence of policy at different moments in the English language and looks in more detail at three periods which are widely recognized as moments when English speaking democracies made significant steps forward in broadening the agenda of public affairs: Roosevelt’s New Deal, 1933; the 1945 British Labour Government; and the Johnson administrations (1963-1968). In all of these cases, there were very practical breakthroughs, with new approaches to some very difficult issues but with very little, if at all, discussion of policy. Given that action and talk go together, what other social languages (to use Bakhtin’s term, 1986) were available? In pointing out that these were many and most continue to be present and highly active today, the paper questions the centrality and inevitability of public policy and concludes by arguing for a public action languages approach to the study of public affairs.