Theorizing governance in an uncertain present: Foucault and post-positivism in policy studies.

摘要

Owing primarily to the pervasive influence of positivism in the social sciences, the field of policy studies has historically been dominated by empiricist and state-centered orientations to the study of politics, power and rule in society that obfuscate the diversity, complexity and diffusive dimensions of governance. Drawing upon theoretical contributions from the governmentality stream of scholarship inspired by Michel Foucault, this thesis elaborates a post-positivist orientation to policy studies, one which is motivated by the need for a critical rethinking of the notion of government. I argue that relations of governance in contemporary liberal-democratic societies are not consistent with conceptions of government as the monopoly of the state. In support of this claim, my thesis undertakes an analysis of the recent history of social assistance reform in Ontario to indicate the ways in which the question of government is increasingly becoming a question of "self-government" through neo-liberal approaches to social policy and practice at the beginning of the twenty-first century.;Key Words: Government, governmentality, public policy, post-positivism, problematization, liberalism, neo-liberalism, techniques and technologies of government, the social, welfare