Reflections on the Role of Rhetoric in Public Policy

Abstract

Abstract This article situates public policy as a mediation of rhetorical and material forces. From this perspective, public policy draws on the constitutive and consequential power of rhetoric as well as other factors like institutional authority and financial resources. As a constellation of multifarious forces, public policy refigures the text as process, which raises issues of authorship, temporality, and polysemy differently than singular speech texts and other relatively discreet texts.