A frame-critical policy analysis of Canada’s response to the World Food Summit 1998–2008

Archives of Public Health

Catherine L Mah³  Catherine Hamill⁴  Krista Rondeau¹  Lynn McIntyre² 

[1] Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

[2] Institute for Public Health, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

[3] Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

[4] Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

关键词: World food summit;    Food insecurity;    Public policy;    Framing analysis;   

Others  :  1083888
DOI  :  10.1186/2049-3258-72-41

 received in 2014-04-28, accepted in 2014-08-13,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

The 2012 visit to Canada of Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, led to a public rebuff by Canadian governmental officials. This paper adapts the frame-critical policy analysis of Schön and Rein (1994), to explore the rhetorical basis for this conflict. This examination is offered as an illustrative example of how food insecurity is framed as a public policy problem in a high-income nation and how this framing has changed over time.

Methods

We analyze Canada’s decade of sequential responses to the 1996 World Food Summit, spanning 1998–2008, in the form of Canada’s Action Plan on Food Security, and its subsequent Progress Reports. We conducted a qualitative policy analysis, adapting the frame-critical approach first delineated by Schön and Rein (1994). This analysis uses a social constructionist approach to map out the relationships between tacit understanding of policy by particular actors, explicit rhetoric in the public domain, and action in this policy area over time.

Results

We identify three key ways in which competing rhetorical frames arise over time: frame shifts (e.g., a shift away from language highlighting the right to food and health); frame blending (e.g., discussion about poverty becomes obscured by complexity discourse); and within-frame incongruence (e.g., monitoring for health indicators that are unrelated to policy solutions). Together, these frames illustrate how the conflict embodied in the UN Special Rapporteur’s visit has been deeply woven into the policy discourse on food insecurity in Canada over time.

Conclusion

Frame-critical analysis is instructive for exposing and also predicting tensions that impede forward progress on difficult policy issues. Accordingly, such analyses may be helpful in not only dissecting how policy can become ‘stuck’ in the process of change but in active reframing towards new policy solutions.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Mah et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]De Schutter O, quoted in S. Schmid: UN envoy blasts Canada for ‘self-righteous’ attitude over hunger, poverty. 2012. [National Post] http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/15/un-envoy-blasts-canada-for-self-righteous-attitude-over-hunger-poverty/ webcite accessed 23/08/2013
• [2]Aglukkaq L: News release: meeting with UN special rapporteur. Ottawa: Leona Aglukkaq MP, Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency; 2012.
• [3]Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Canada’s Action Plan for Food Security. Ottawa: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; 1998.
• [4]Butler-Jones D: The Chief Public Health Officer’s report on the state of public health in Canada, 2008: addressing health inequalities. Ottawa: Public Health Agency of Canada; 2008.
• [5]McIntyre L, Rondeau K: Food insecurity. In Social Determinants Of Health: Canadian Perspectives. Edited by Raphael D. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press; 2009:188-204.
• [6]Health Canada, Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion: Canadian Community Health Survey, Cycle 2.2, Nutrition (2004) – Income-Related Household Food Security in Canada. Ottawa: Health Canada; 2007.
• [7]Tarasuk V, Mitchell A, Dachner N: Household Food Insecurity in Canada, 2012. Toronto: Research to identify policy options to reduce food insecurity (PROOF); 2014. http://nutritionalsciences.lamp.utoronto.ca/resources/proof-annual-reports/annual-report-2012/ webcite accessed 24/03/2013
• [8]Seed B, Lang T, Caraher M, Ostry A: Integrating food security into public health and provincial government departments in British Columbia. Agric Hum Values 2013, 30:457-470.
• [9]Nord M, Hopwood H: A Comparison of Food Security in Canada and the United States. Economic Research Report Number 67. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service; 2008.
• [10]Schön DA, Rein M: Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies. New York: BasicBooks; 1994.
• [11]Hawkins B, Holden C: Framing the alcohol policy debate: industry actors and the regulation of the UK beverage alcohol market. Critical Policy Studies 2013, 7:53-71.
• [12]Richardson T, Isaksson K, Gullberg A: Changing frames of mobility through radical policy interventions? The Stockholm congestion tax. International Planning Studies 2010, 15(1):53-67.
• [13]Sturdy S, Smith-Merry J, Freeman R: Stakeholder consultation as social mobilization: framing Scottish mental health policy. Soc Policy Admin 2012, 46:823-844.
• [14]Kingdon JW: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2nd edition. New York: Longman; 2003.
• [15]Goodin RE, Rein M, Moran M: The public and its policies. In The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy. New York: Oxford University Press; 2006:3-35.
• [16]Hajer M, Laws D: Ordering through discourse. In The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy. Edited by Moran M, Rein M, Goodin RE. New York: Oxford University Press; 2006:251-268.
• [17]Rein M: Reframing problematic policies. In The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy. Edited by Moran M, Rein M, Goodin RE. New York: Oxford University Press; 2006:389-405.
• [18]Rein M, Schön DA: Frame-critical policy analysis and frame-reflective policy practice. Knowledge Policy 1996, 9:85-104.
• [19]Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Canada’s First Progress Report on Food Security. Ottawa: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; 1999.
• [20]Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Canada’s Second Progress Report on Food Security. Ottawa: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; 2002.
• [21]Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Canada’s Third Progress Report on Food Security. Ottawa: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; 2004.
• [22]Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Canada’s Fourth Progress Report on Food Security. Ottawa: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; 2006.
• [23]Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Canada’s Fifth Progress Report on Food Security. Ottawa: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; 2008.
• [24]FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations): Rome Declaration on World Food Security and World Food Summit Plan of Action. Rome; 1996. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.HTM webcite accessed 2/08/2013
• [25]McIntyre L: Food insecurity policy is not the flip side of food security policy. Policy Options 2011, 32(7):48-51.
• [26]MacGillivray IC, Strachan LW: Canada and world food security. Can J Devel Studies 1998, 19:97-121.
• [27]Riches G: Reaffirming the right to food in Canada: the role of community-based food security. In For Hunger-Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems. Edited by Koc M, MacRae R, Mougeot LJA, Welsh J. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, Ottawa; 1996:203-207.
• [28]Power E: Conceptualizing food security for Aboriginal people in Canada. Can J Publ Health 2008, 99:95-97.
• [29]Ford JD: Vulnerability of Inuit food systems to food insecurity as a consequence of climate change: a case study from Igloolik, Nunavut. Reg Env Change 2009, 9:83-100.
• [30]Dewulf A, Gray B, Putnam L, Lewicki R, Aarts N, Bouwen R, van Woerkum C: Disentangling approaches to framing in conflict and negotiation research: A meta-paradigmatic perspective. Human Relations 2009, 62(2):155-193.
• [31]Bachrach P, Baratz MS: Decisions and nondecisions: an analytical framework. Am Pol Sci Review 1963, 57(3):632-642.