PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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a frequently quoted definition, and it is also in this vein that I employ the adjective
discursive here.
Discourses, I argue, are structured in different “discursive frameworks” each of
which emphasizes different overarching themes and each of which has different
analytical foci. I define a discursive framework as a theoretical approach consisting of
an ensemble of underlying rationales and concepts that together form the intellectual
backdrop for a set of policy responses and actions relating to a particular topic. Each
discursive framework I identify is distinguished by its overarching theme, its unit of
analysis, and its framework of action. 2
Table 3.1 provides an overview of the five identified discursive frameworks for
sustainable policy-making. These discursive frameworks will be discussed in more detail
in Chapter 4. The rest of this chapter is devoted to “setting the stage” for this discussion.
I first explain how and why I move away from the previous definitional search related to
the three-dimensional concept of sustainability to a wider, structural analysis of
environmental discourse. I then make a general distinction between three metatheoretical
perspectives on social science research, namely modernity, post-modernity
and anti-modernity, which variously influence the empirical foundations of the five
discursive frameworks. After that, I differentiate the notion of a discursive framework
from the notion of a paradigm, and explain the concept’s relation to the academic
literature on advocacy coalition frameworks and on epistemic communities.
these two conditions are satisfied, a discourse can be said to be hegemonic in a given
domain.[Emphasis added.]
2 If my definition uses the term “discursive framework” as essentially synonymous to “theoretical
approach,” why am I introducing the neologistic term, on might ask? The key reason is that the generic
term “theoretical approach” is variously used at the practical/methodological, theoretical and even at the
meta-theoretical/epistemological levels. As section 3.4 explains, my “discursive frameworks” are meso-