Six - Why Is Policy?

Summary

A key feature of policy mobilities and assemblage theory (PMAT) is that policy, as assemblage, functions primarily to coordinate desires (see also Thompson, Sellar and Buchanan, 2022), and it is the forces of desire that make policy mobile. As discussed in Chapter 2, while desire is central to assemblage theory, it has often been overlooked in secondary literature. The role of desire is also something that has not been fully explored in existing PM-informed research, and we believe it is one of the key contributions that a conjoined PMAT approach can make to CIE research. We see this as a concern for questioning and problematizing assumptions around why is policy (see Figure 6.1); that is, why do we even have policy, and why do policies occur in the way they do? In this chapter, we will first spend some time detailing the concept of Deleuzian-Guattarian desire by addressing the question of how policy works to make certain situations desirable. Some of this was covered in Chapter 2 (see the section titled An ontology of difference, becoming and desire), but it is worth repeating and devoting further attention to here. We will then explore how policy research(ers) might work with an analysis of desire when looking at a policy assemblage, such as PREP.

How does policy make certain things un/desirable?

Assemblage theory is premised on the assertion that there is nothing in our worlds that is not a product of our desires. We appreciate this may be a confrontational statement. It suggests the acts of violence, hatred, abuse and neglect that we experience in our worlds are a product of what we desire. In suggesting this, we are not suggesting that humanity is necessarily evil or, for that matter, inherently good, or that our worlds are the product of our inner evil or goodness. First, Deleuzian desire is not the desire of individuals but a generalized desire (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983). It is desire that flows through society, which we then experience as our own. Second, Deleuzian desire is not expressing a want or a need; it is not a longing for some pre-existent object that we miss or lack (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983).