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Policy’s Hubris: Power, Fantasy, and the Limits of (Global) Media Policy Interventions
Introduction
Over the past decades, global policy has gained a place high on the agendas of political, civil society, business, and academic forums. The resources invested within this field are considerable and diverse, and there are many ideological projects launched to deal with this once so poorly charted territory media policy being no exception. Without wanting to discredit the relevance of global policy development, and its intentions to “civilize” the many territories that are still open, this chapter aims to take a step back in order to deconstruct some of the basic assumptions that circulate within this field.
I should start immediately with a reminder that deconstruction has to be distinguished from demolition, a point made by Derrida (1978: 10). This chapter will deploy post-structuralist theory (and, more specifically, a combination of the work of Foucault and Lacan1) to theorize the existence of three basic fantasies that feed into the field of the political, politics, and policy. In order to analyse the power dynamics (and hegemonies) that these fantasies trigger, this chapter will start with a discussion on power. More specifically, two approaches to power will be developed: the first is based on the distinction between causal and strategic power, while the second is based on the differences between discursive power, material body-related power, and material ...
