asen role of rhetoric in public policy 10

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R A i P C i i A h U i i Wi i M di

Reflections on the Role of Rhetoric

in Public Policy

Robert Asen

T i aicl iua pulic plicy a a mdiai hical ad maial c.

Fm hi ppciv, pulic plicy daw h ciuiv ad cquial

pw hic a wll a h ac lik iiuial auhiy ad acial

uc. A a cllai muliaiu c, pulic plicy gu hx a pc, which ai iu auhhip, mpaliy, ad plymy

dif ly ha igula pch x ad h laivly dic x.

O

n March 2, , in the frst o his Fireside Chats, the newly inaugurated

President Franklin D. Roosevelt took to the relatively new medium

o radio to address a nation experiencing economic crisis. Over the

past ew years, the United States economy had collapsed: the gross nationalproduct and business investment had plummeted, while unemployment had

soared, rising in some cities like oledo, Ohio, to seemingly unreal levels o

80 percent. FDR devoted his frst Fireside Chat to the troubles acing the

United States banking system. Several unsound banks had closed during

the previous weeks, increasing depositors’ anxiety and threatening a run on

the system generally. Following the lead o governors in many states, FDR

declared a national banking holiday to create time to stabilize banks and



122 Rhetoric & Public Affairs

regain depositors’ confdence. FDR explained that the banking holiday “is

a ording us the opportunity to supply the currency necessary to meet the

situation.” He promised his listeners that “no sound bank is a dollar worse o than it was when it closed its doors last week.”2 However, he stressed that a ull

recovery would require participation rom citizens, who needed, oremost,

to exhibit confdence in the system. FDR insisted that “you people must

have aith. You must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite

in banishing ear. We have provided the machinery to restore our fnancial

system, and it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem,

my riends, your problem no less than it is mine. ogether we cannot ail.”

Over 0 years later, as he met with citizens across the nation as part o abarnstorming tour to address a di erent economic challenge, President George

W. Bush sounded the alarm about a crisis he oresaw in the uturea crisis

over the fnancing o Social Security. According to the president, the Social

Security system was losing money. As he toured the nation in the winter

o 200, Bush warned audiences that they paid “into a system that is going

into the red every year. . . . T at number gets worse and worse as time goes

on.” Eventually, the president insisted, the system would cease distributing

benefts entirely: “In 202, it goes broke, or good. It not only goes in the red,but whatever paper is available in the orm o IOUs is gone.” At best, this

statement constituted an alarmist exaggeration o Social Security’s fnancial

shortalls, as the 200 rustees’ Report indicated that Social Security would

continue to meet the large majority o its obligations even without legislative

action and with the depletion o its trust und. When one audience member

expressed her “right” upon hearing Bush’s ominous orecast, the president

made no e ort to alleviate her ear, promising instead to circulate his message

even more widely: “Not everybody knows it yet. T ey’re going to know it.”

My two opening vignettes o er compelling evidence o the power o

rhetoric to construct policy problems, cra solutions, and promote policies

to citizens. Although the challenges aced by the two men di eredFDR

conronted the ongoing, immediate su ering wrought by the Great Depression,

whereas Bush addressed the potential long-term insolvency o a oundational

public policysimilarities still circulated in their respective situations. Both

FDR and Bush addressed systemic policy problems that many citizens would

experience acutely as individualsthrough the loss o either savings orretirementwith only a partial understanding o the larger orces a ecting



Reflections on the Role of Rhetoric in Public Policy 123

a prosperous path whereas inaction or recklessness would exacerbate its

woes.8 However, even though FDR and Bush both called on citizens to help

them achieve their policy goals, their calls evidenced decidedly di erentrhetorical strategies. FDR sought to alleviate ear; Bush cultivated it. FDR

o ered assurances; Bush raised doubts.

In these ways, FDR and Bush o ered dramatically di erent rames or

thinking about their respective policy issues. FDR sought to contain and

minimize the banking crisis, afrming decisions already made by the ederal

government and giving citizens a readily identifable role in carrying out his

policy. FDR represented the problem as known and manageable and the solu-

tion as already underway and likely efcacious. In contrast, Bush attemptedto expand and ampliy the fnancial defcits acing Social Security. He held

that without a undamental change in policy, Social Security’s fnances would

only worsen, until the system ceased unctioning. ragically, he warned,

policymakers acilitated Social Security’s demise, since recalcitrant members

o Congress reused to support his plan to restructure Social Security as a

system o private investment accounts. In this milieu, citizens could play a

role by pressuring their representatives, but the means appeared ill-defned

and the outcome uncertain. Bush thus represented the problem as only partially known and the solution as blocked by entrenched political actors.

In both cases, then, rhetoric unctioned importantly in determining how

policymakers and citizens construed the issue and their part in achieving a

policy outcome.

Further evidence o the intertwinement o rhetoric and public policy

appears in the illuminating work o many rhetorical scholars (in addition to

those participating in this special issue) who study this topic. For instance, J.

Michael Hogan’s analysis o the nuclear reeze campaign o ers an illustrationo how rhetoric aimed at attracting media attention might hamper the policy

goals o a social movement. Hogan argues that nuclear reeze activists cra ed

a media campaign that substituted “passion or argument and celebrity or

expertise,” leading to a campaign that attracted broad but not deep public

support and could be co-opted easily by politicians (Reagan) who created

complementary media events to achieve divergent policy goals.0 Examining

the era o my opening vignette, Davis Houck analyzes the economic rhetoric o

Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt. Against the popular impression o Hooveras an inactive pessimist, Houck recounts his e orts to rally the nation. Houck




recovery. Where they di ered was in their rhetorical approaches, as FDR

exemplifed an ability to identiy with citizens, whereas Hoover o en seemed

trapped in technical jargon. Underscoring the relationship between rhetoricand economics, Houck concludes that FDR and Hoover “understood that

the concept o an ‘economic reality’ was a very malleable construct, shaped,

in part, by the public’s confdence and belie rather than an externally real,

objective reality.”

Yet even as our scholarship has o ered compelling analyses o policy

debates on a wide range o topics across historical eras, our analyses largely

have concentrated on the dynamics o particular cases. We have elucidated

the rhetorical qualities o particular debatescharting their development,demonstrating their signifcance, and o ering reasons or their successes

and ailuresbut we e ectively have neglected “meta” studies that explicitly

consider the role o rhetoric in public policy and outline a rhetorical approach

to policy analysis.2 o be clear, I do not wish to discount the case-based

quality o our literature. Quite the opposite, we have produced numerous

excellent analyses that examine texts in context, producing sophisticated,

layered, and historically inormed readings o policy debates o en lacking in

the discursive turn to policy analysis undertaken by scholars in other felds,who o en treat concepts like metaphor and narrative as a critical smorgasbord

assembled in the interests o taxonomy. My point is that our scholarship

o ers important lessons that may be more apparent to researchers in other

felds and aspiring rhetorical scholars i we explicitly consider the critical

import o our case studies.

In this article, I investigate the role o rhetoric in public policy and the

rhetorical character o the policy text. I do not o er defnitive or exhaustive

answers, but I hope to contribute to a larger (potentially cross-disciplinary)conversation about these questions. I begin by situating public policy as a

mediation o rhetorical and material orces. Although this approach highlights

the importance o rhetoric as a constitutive and consequential orce, it also

calls on rhetorical scholars to recognize the inuence o actors, processes,

and outcomes that cannot be subsumed entirely under an “imperialist”

rhetoric. With respect to the policy text, I argue that rhetorical analyses o

public policy raise issues o authorship, temporality, and polysemy di erently

than singular speech texts and other relatively discreet texts. In comparisonto a single speech, or example, a policy debate involves not a single public




appearing at a particular moment. T is suggests that policy debates represent

an ongoing engagement o text and context, as subsequent debate participants

reinterpret the meanings o prior policy debates. In this way, rhetor, audience,text, and context operate in cross-historical perspective. T ese actors make

policy debates polysemous rhetorical processes, as debate participants may

understand the objects o their deliberations di erently. I draw my examples

rom the issue o Social Security, which, or several decades, has stood as a

keystone o American social policy and, with the emergence o privatization

proposals, has been the subject o intense and undamental debate over the

past ew decades.

Rhetoric, Public Policy, and Materiality

For the past three decades, rhetorical scholars have sustained a lively debate

regarding the relationship o rhetoric and its material conditions. One position

in this debate, noting rhetoric’s constitutive power and its pervasive inuence

in our nonlinguistic environment, construes rhetoric as a material practice.

Articulating this view, Raymie McKerrow enumerates as a principle o criticalrhetoric the claim that “the discourse o power is material.” McKerrow explains

that “the social relations in which people participate are perceived as ‘real’

to them, even though they exist only as fctions in a rhetorically constituted

universe o discourse.” An opposing position argues or a distinction between

rhetoric and materiality, expressing a concern that equating the two terms

would elide important political and economic orces inorming rhetorical

practice. In this spirit, Dana Cloud objects that the rhetoric-as-materiality

perspective lapses into relativism, rendering society as “a set o competingreality defnitions that are unfxed, ree-oating, and malleable regardless o

the material circumstances in which one fnds onesel. In the competition

among rhetorically produced realities, there are ew resources or privileging

one construct over another.” Yet in establishing “rhetoric” and “reality” as

its key terms, this debate proceeds at an unnecessarily abstract ontological

level that obscures the relationship under scrutiny, at least or public policy.

We need not consider “reality” in toto, but only specifc material orces like

institutional arrangements and money.We also may discover unnecessary disjunctures when we look across




o policy,” but he outlines a segmented and unidirectional process.8 Smith’s

model stands on a biurcation o interests and ideas, which, by implying that

the ormer are “idea-ree,” e ectively renders interests as objective indicatorso socioeconomic standing. As a practice, rhetoric appears as a persuasive tool

used by elitesonly a er they have ormed policy preerencesto increase

“the size o the supporting coalition.” In contrast, other scholars pursuing

the discursive turn in policy studies ascribe a constitutive role to rhetoric.

For instance, Frank Fischer sees policymaking as “a constant discursive

struggle over the defnitions o problems, the boundaries o categories used

to describe them, the criteria or their classifcation and assessment, and the

meanings o ideals that guide particular actions.”20 Yet, even as they recognizerhetoric’s constitutive power and consequence in their critical perspectives,

these scholars tend to invoke rhetoric episodically rather than developing a

coherent rhetorical perspective, and to discuss its orce abstractly rather than

analyzing its unctions amid particular material circumstances.

My perspective construes public policy as a mediation o rhetorical and

material orces. In terms o materiality, public policies provide money, goods,

and services to target populations to achieve particular outcomes, such as

o ering retirement incomes and disability benefts to millions o Americanworkers and their amilies. A Social Security check engenders a qualitative

improvement in the lives o its recipients, enabling elderly couples to pay utility

bills and purchase groceries while o ering younger recipients the chance to

pursue long-term goals like obtaining a college education in the event o the

tragic death or disability o a working parent. Without Social Security, people

would su er. A rhetorical analysis o public policy must appreciate this basic

point, even as it must not reduce public policy to its material components

nor establish a material “reality” as the arbiter o public policy.Since material outcomes require human participation, rhetoric plays an

equally important role in public policy through the ineluctable operation

o meaning. At a undamental level, policies create, sustain, negotiate, and

redefne the meanings o the very money, goods, and services provided.

Consider the phrase “providing retirement benefts,” which might appear at

frst glance as a rudimentary description o the nonrhetorical nature o Social

Security. However, this phrase already implicates rhetoric, or it presumes

a shared understanding o each o its three terms, which participants in theprivatization debates have vigorously contested over the past ew decades.




symbolic hierarchies that unite and divide people, and synthesize and

oppose values. In these ways, policies can bring people together, creating

a target population that overcomes individual di erences, and policiescan pull people apart, constituting some individuals and groups as “other”

and inerior to conventional practices and belies. Symbolic hierarchies

reveal what some scholars have reerred to as a “politics o representation.”

In this sense, participants in policy debates do not engage in neutral and

transparent processes when they characterize themselves and others. Rather,

debate participants make (o en unacknowledged) choices regarding how

people should be portrayed. As Linda Hutcheon explains, representational

processes do not “c society as much as grant meaning and value withina particular society.”22 Representation does not occur outside o history and

society, but works with the symbolic materials o specifc cultures. During

the 0s and the frst decade o this century, as the stock market rose and

ell with the dot-com bubble and stories suraced o corporate wrongdoing

at Enron and elsewhere, images o corporate executives shi ed dramatically.

As the dot-com bubble expanded during the 0s, executives appeared as

risk-taking, jobs-making heroes whose high compensation was only a small

reward or their contributions to the overall economy. However, as the bubbleburst at the new millennium, an alternative image circulated o executives as

ruthless sel-promoters interested only in personal wealth and willing to harm

ordinary olks to satisy their desires. Even as negative images o executives

circulated in the early years o the new millenium, these representations

tended to highlight the bad behavior o individuals, drawing attention away

rom systemic problems and potential solutions or the thousands o workers

and retirees who su ered widespread losses.

Benefting rom contrasting representations, Social Security has participatedin a prominent symbolic hierarchy that has shaped the landscape o American

social policy, namely, insurance versus assistance.2 As the dominant partner

in this hierarchy, Social Security has obtained an honorifc position in national

politics as much or what it does not promote as or what it does. From the

beginning, supporters o Social Security championed its insurance basis

as promoting independence, while chastising assistance or perpetuating

dependence. Insurance benefts represented a return on workers’ contribu-

tions, and retirees claimed benefts as a right. Paling in comparison, assistancesupposedly transerred money rom workers to idlers, casting recipients as




dependence. However, we can imagine an alternative discourse that supports

insurance-based retirement benefts not by demonizing assistance, but by

celebrating the contributions (paid and unpaid) that seniors make to theircommunities.

As these examples suggest, rhetoric articulates policy purposes and

populations, and negotiates fts between them. Sometimes, an advocate may

begin with a policy purpose, such as a principled opposition to Social Security

as contrary to the operation o the ree market, then construct a population

to advance their goals. Other times, an advocate may imagine a population,

such as champions o an emergent “investor class,” then pursue a policy to

meet its ostensible interests. Exhibiting a mutually inormative relationship,purpose and population exert mutual constraint. An advocate who imagines

technology-savvy younger workers prospering in a postindustrial economy

likely would regard investment as a superior purpose or retirement policy.

Along these lines, purposes and populations may exhibit better and worse

fts, which can change over time as good fts may deteriorate and bad fts may

improve. In this spirit, advocates o private investment accounts have sought

to break the original association o Social Security with independence. For

instance, Paul Hewitt, executive director o the National axpayers UnionFoundation, insisted that “Social Security has indeed helped make many o

today’s elderly very dependent on Government.” He exhorted Congress to break

“the cycle o dependency in old age.”2 Hewitt and others championed private

accounts as an embrace o individualism that would return independence

and control to all seniors.

As policies mediate rhetorical and material elements, the process o policy-

making oregrounds the role o rhetoric as a constitutive orce. Congressional

hearings, oor debates, presidential speeches, media campaignsthese allrepresent irreducibly rhetorical acts. Policymaking occurs as debate participants

attempt to persuade others to support particular programs and outcomes. Like

ongoing policies themselves, policymaking ineluctably involves meaning and

engages symbol systems. Policymaking also mediates the material, o en in the

orm o institutional power, ofcially sanctioned authority and privilege, and

money. However, policies and policymaking di er in their explicit use and

mode o rhetoric. In terms o mode, I distinguish policymaking rom policies

as a di erence between makig meaning (policymaking) and maiaiig ad cig meaning (policies). O course, practice complicates my analytic




Welare policy betrays a sad history o administrators turning away legally

eligible applicants or assistance. T e so-called welare crisis o the 0s arose

as a consequence o poor people successully claiming their legal entitlements.On this score, James Patterson reports that, whereas only percent o eligible

amilies in the early 0s participated in the Aid to Families with Dependent

Children program, by over 0 percent o eligible amilies participated.2

As this statistic illustrates, varying levels o maintenance and enorcement

can expand, restrict, and shi policy meanings.

Policymaking nevertheless represents atypical moments in the lives

o policies where meaning making appears as the central task occupying

participants. Over its 0-plus-year history, Social Security has only periodi-cally undergone explicit legislative revision, with important amendments and

changes occurring in , 0, 2, and 8. In these momentsand as

advocates o privatization hope, in the contemporary periodquestions o

aims and methods become primary concerns. Participants in policy debates

ask “What do we want to do?” and “How do we want to do it?” Policymak-

ing thus constitutes paramount rhetorical moments in the lives o policies.

However, since no policy arises ex nihilo, policymaking does not inaugurate

unprecedented meanings as much as it intervenes in an ongoing symbolicfeld. Negative attitudes toward assistance already circulated publicly in the

0s when supporters o insurance invoked this distinction to champion

their preerred vision o retirement pensions. In a similar spirit, contemporary

advocates o privatization draw on public hostility toward government in their

case or individual investment accounts. In these ways, policymaking provides

participants opportunities to constellate meaning, creating and recreating

multiple associations and dissociations, in making policy. Drawing on di erent

constellations, debate participants may articulate social problems requiringa government response, imagine target populations, evaluate histories, and

envision utures or public policies.

Rhetoric thus acts as a powerul but not an unconstrained orce in poli-

cymaking. Individual participants in policy debates make choices in raming

policies, afrming and denying values, representing target populations, inviting

or discouraging wider agency, and other areas, but the participation o other

advocates, the judgment o audiences, the social orce o discourse, and multiple

material considerations constrain these choices. None o these orces acts asan ultimate adjudicator in policy debate. We cannot, or instance, appeal to




that his ominous assessment o Social Security’s uture fnances sounded

unnecessary alarms, Rep. Clay Shaw (R-FL) insisted that his raming met

the legal defnition o bankruptcy: “I would like to submit or the record thedefnition o bankruptcy as it appears in Black’s Law Dictionary: T e state or

condition o one who is unable to pay his debts as they become due.” Unlike

other policymakers who saw saety in the Social Security trust unds, Shaw

dismissed them as “nothing more than an IOU rom the government to the

government.”2 And yet di erent perspectives do not engender a stymieing

circulation o meaning, since policies elicit action: when members o Congress

identiy a problem, they o en seek to pass bills, and presidents may sign or

veto legislation. Rather than expressing entirely fxed or ormless meanings,policy debates constellate meanings that emerge through the convergence

and contestation o rhetorical and material orces. T is point also broaches

the processual character o the policy text.

Authorship, Temporality, and Polysemy

in the Policy Text

As rhetorical scholars know well, texts do not unction as static, stable enti-

ties. Instead, textseven seemingly discrete oneso en express multiple,

sometimes contradictory meanings that maniest as qualities o dynamism

and movement. In this way, we may view such texts less as objects and more

as processes. Drawing on the work o Mikhail Bakhtin, James Jasinski holds

that all texts “contain essential dialogic moments” that reveal “interaction

between di erent languages and voices at the level o word, sentence, utter-

ance, and/or text.” Foregrounding these moments as critically revelatory,Jasinski urges scholars to “reconstruct the dialogue embedded in the dialogic

word and polyphonic utterance.”2 In a similar spirit, G. T omas Goodnight

underscores the processual character o public argument in his defnition o

controversy as “ubiquitous, temporally pluralistic, extended argumentative

engagements constituted in the ull range o communicative actions and

enveloping communication systems and practices.”28 T e ubiquity o con-

troversy reers to its appearance across the diverse orums and interactions

o our everyday lives, as well as its emergence across a range o topics. Astemporally pluralistic, controversies endure over varying periods o time,




narrative, visual display, and other modes o expression. As these qualities

suggest, the rhetorical texts o a public controversy incorporate discourses

circulating in di erent places and at di erent times. Situating the policy textas a process, then, draws on the insights o rhetorical scholarship in public

address, argument, and elsewhere. However, even as process resonates across

these areas, we need to consider the particularities o the policy text in terms

o authorship, temporality, and polysemy.

Public policy texts o en are composed by hundreds, i not thousands, o

authors. For example, in my analysis o ederal welare policy debates in the

80s and 0s, I considered the testimony o over a thousand witnesses

who appeared beore congressional committees.2 T e number o committeewitnesses, policymakers, and other participants in the Social Security debates

over their 0-plus-year history ar exceeds this fgure. T ese numbers matter

not or their sheer quantity but or the implications they hold or analysis.

Because o their multiple authorship, policy texts do not readily cohere

thematically. Broaching this point in his well-known debate with Michael

Le over the status o rhetorical criticism, Michael McGee amously (or,

perhaps, inamously) discerned the “ragmentary” quality o the text. In the

postmodern age, McGee asserted, audiences no longer shared a commonculture, a development that broke up previously unitary rhetorical practices. In

this situation, McGee maintained that “our frst job as proessional consumers

o discourse is ivig a x uial ciicim.”0

Although McGee rightly questioned ideas o coherence in rhetorical texts,

his explanation and prescription or action do not serve policy texts. First,

discerning a common culture is a dubious enterprise: what appears to some as

“common” actually reects relations o power that cast some cultural practices

as universal and others as particular. Cultures always exhibit diversity, even i sel-appointed arbiters may not recognize it. T e absence o a unitary policy

text, then, does not represent a recent cultural development. Second, McGee

attributes too strong a sense o meaning making and agency to the critic. T e

multiple authors o policy texts do not appear as ragments waiting or the

clever critic to give their statements meaning. Rather, participants in policy

debates make meaning through their engagement with each other, and they

hope to circulate their preerred meanings more widely. In the privatization

debates, advocates o investment sought to persuade Americans that thepresent Social Security system confscated their earnings with only a shaky




Security with the uncertainty o the stock market. T e thematic plurality o

the policy text arises rom the copresence o these competing positions, not

the creative assembling o the sovereign rhetorical critic.

Multiple authorship constrains the participation and signifcance o any

single advocate in a policy debate, who must negotiate his or her participation

in light o the others with whom he or she directly interacts as well as others

who may participate at di erent times and settings. No single participant can

direct the course o a policy debate; instead, trajectories emerge as collective

achievements. Even though he possessed the power o the bully pulpit, over

the course o his town hall meetings, President Bush conronted the oppos-

ing claims o other policymakers as well as prominent oppositional mediacampaigns by groups like the American Association o Retired Persons. T ese

considerations challenge the requent interest in public address scholarship

and elsewhere with eloquence and exceptionalism. T e project o close textual

analysis, or example, appropriately investigates exemplary texts like King’s

“Letter rom a Birmingham Jail” and the Declaration o Independence.2 In

policy debates, however, mundane statements o en are more inuential than

exceptional rhetorical perormances. For instance, in a discussion about invest-

ing a portion o the Social Security trust und in the stock market, Rev. JesseJackson movingly called attention to the moral basis underlying all investment

decisions, urging policymakers to consider whether potential investments

in entities such as tobacco companies promoted positive or negative social

aims. Jackson insisted that “we could never divorce our money interests rom

our moral interests and our commitment to human rights. Without that,

we lose our moral authority in the world.” However, his poignant remarks

were drowned out by the statements o numerous othersboth liberals and

conservativeswho insisted that investment decisions should be protectedrom “politics.”

In policy debates, discourse acts as a orce that operates relatively inde-

pendently o individual participants. Insistence on the “value-ree” nature

o investment expressed a tenet o “market talk,” that is, a utopian view o

the market as an ameliorative set o practices, norms, and institutions. Such

talk embraces markets as essential elements o human liberty, efcacious

orces or fnancial gain, and superior governing structures. T roughout the

debates over privatization in the 0s and early in this century, hundreds o advocates reiterated market tenets, such as the belie in the inherently superior




the advocate o en mattered less than the tenet articulated. Moreover, even

when discourses such as market talk do not appear explicitly, they may inorm

interactions in policy debates. Advocates backing government-managedinvestment o the Social Security trust unds had to address presumptions o

partisan intererence and higher operating costs. As these examples suggest,

discourses implicate circulating bodies o rhetoric that serve as publicly

articulated ways o collectively understanding and evaluating our world, and

propagate and enorce social norms with material consequences.

In light o this interaction between particular advocates and larger dis-

courses, rhetorical critics may pursue macro- and micro-analyses that reveal

qualities o policy debates. At the macro level, the statements o individualsmay be mixed and matched to reconstruct larger themes. Discourse appears

as the rhetor, and situation reers to the larger political, economic, and social

orces inorming policy debate. At the micro level, particular exchanges

obtain signifcance or both their representativeness and their exceptionalism.

Although exceptionalism does not fgure as prominently or public policy as

or other modes o rhetoric, particular instances may challenge larger themes

in important ways, such as Jackson’s linking o economics and morality. In

e ect, macro- and micro-analyses treat policy debates as networks o inter-related rhetorical statements that can be examined broadly or at particular

nodes and linkages.

Scholars have explored the relationship between rhetoric and time

synchronically and diachronically. A preeminent illustration o the ormer

appears in Lloyd Bitzer’s enormously inuential explication o the rhetorical

situation. In important respects, time unctions as a trigger or rhetoric in

Bitzer’s account, as he defnes exigences as “imperection[s] marked by

urgency.” Moreover, Bitzer considers rhetoric’s operation at particularmoments in timewhen a speaker addresses a specifc audience about a

particular problem, such as the assassination o a president. In contrast,

Goodnight’s conception o controversy calls attention to rhetorical practices

that occur over time, as indicated by his reerence to “temporally pluralistic,

extended argumentative engagements.” Controversies, such as debates over

the morality o wearing ur, connect rhetorical practices even when such

practices, such as a protest at the entry to a ur retailer, seem discrete to

the advocates and audiences directly involved.8 emporally, policy debatesresonate more with controversies, even as they permit investigation o specifc,




appeal. For example, a er the dot-com bubble burst, some advocates o

privatization believed that its time had passed. estiying beore the Senate

Aging Special Committee in 2000, Alan Greenspan observed that “about ayear or two ago, maybe three years ago, there were considerable discussions

about the issue o partial privatization o Social Security.” Greenspan judged

that “discussion has essentially come to a halt as ar as I am concerned, and

rankly, I regret it.” However, some policymakers disagreed with this diagnosis.

Immediately a er Greenspan o ered his remarks, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY)

rejected this account. He asserted that the debate over private accounts had

not ended: “It has come to the realizationand not to sound partisanbut

this current administration is not going to allow that to happen on theirwatch, so we are delaying the urther discussion until we have an administra-

tion that might be more riendly to some type o privatization.” Although

their judgments di ered, Greenspan and Bunning both invoked time as an

contextual element or public policy debates: a booming market, a riendly

executive branch, and other actors worked together to acilitate political

agreement. Further, Greenspan and Bunning both appealed to notions o

time, implicitly urging restarting discussions o privatization or recalibrating

them in accordance with the electoral calendar.T e temporal character o policy debates complicates relations o text

and context: what may constitute text at one historical moment changes

into context at another. For instance, both supporters o the existing Social

Security system and advocates o privatization claimed that FDR would have

supported their preerred policies. T is example also indicates how aspects o

policy debates may serve simultaneously as text and context. T e ounding

debates over Social Security orm part o the context or subsequent debates,

and yet, insoar as contemporary participants explicitly invoke FDR andothers, their historical statements unction as texts in subsequent debates.

In these ways, the statements o prior participants constrain the rhetoric

o subsequent participants. Contemporary advocates may seek to invoke

FDR’s authority or seemingly opposing policy positions, but they cannot

pretend that he did not strongly preer insurance to assistance as the basis

o retirement benefts. A contemporary advocate seeking FDR’s imprimatur

or means-testing Social Security benefts would ace a greater rhetorical

burden than someone opposing this change.T e persistence o policy debates over time acilitates a “meta” quality




would address the issue genuinely and productively or resort to tricks

and gamesmanship. Along these lines, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) urged

other policymakers to educate their constituents about retirement policy,which entailed honest discussion o difcult decisions and an emphasis

on connections across generations rather than divisiveness. Grassley held

that policymakers “ought to be thinking in terms o not demagoguing this

issue.” In invoking the specter o demagoguery, Grassley expressed the ear

o many o his colleagues that they would be cast as endangering seniors’

well-being. T is ear threatened to orestall any action by Congress, sug-

gesting that only a bipartisan e ort would embolden many policymakers to

address Social Security in a orthright, and potentially unsettling, manner.Observing that “there is no issue easier to demagogue than Social Security,”

Rep. T omas Barrett (D-WI) maintained that addressing its problems would

require “Democrats and Republicans . . . to hold hands together and jump

o whatever cli there is.”0 Both past and uture debates inormed Barrett’s

recommendationmemories o elderly constituents angered by past reorms

stirred the sense o danger he discerned, and his call to address this danger

together, by holding hands, envisioned a course or uture debates.

As policy debates proceed over time, they exhibit multiple temporalities,with di erent aspects o debate o en proceeding at di erent speeds. In the

absence o a perceived immediate crisis, congressional debates may move

methodically, as various congressional committees may hold hearings

on a subject over several months or years. T roughout the 0s, various

committees in the House and Senate addressed the issue o Social Security,

examining proposals or private accounts as well as or raising the retire-

ment age, increasing the payroll tax, and other measures. However, when

President Bush identifed privatization as his top domestic priority a er his200 reelection, the pace o the debates quickened. Advocacy groups joined

the ray, launching media campaigns or and against private accounts. By

January 200, it appeared as though a ten-year debate over private accounts

would be resolved in the next ew months. T is increased speed indicates

that some debate participants, such as the president, may be better positioned

than others to draw attention to an issue and a ect the pace o the debates.

Moreover, congressional hearings, town hall meetings, and media campaigns

may occur simultaneously, as they did in winter 200, exhibiting varyingtemporalities within a larger debate.




the objects o their deliberations di erently. T ese di erences do not merely

signal support or opposition to a policy, what Celeste Condit characterizes

as “polyvalence,”2 but di erences in kind. At the heart o recent debates isan irreducible conict over whether Social Security unctions properly as

an investment or as an insurance program, which diagnoses undamentally

di erent problems or the system and recommends dramatically divergent

solutions. However, my reerence to polysemy itsel invokes a polysemous

term. In an engaging essay, Leah Ceccarelli explains that rhetorical scholars

have employed the term “polysemy” variously to reer to multiple meanings

created by rhetors, audiences, and critics. Rhetor-induced polysemy reers to

strategic ambiguity introduced by the creator o a text to negotiate potentially competing situational demands, like multiple audiences with opposing

interests. Audience-induced polysemy indicates a “resistive reading” that

understands a text di erently rom the dominant message intended by its

creator. Critic-induced polysemy alludes to the intellectual dexterity o the

analyst, who discerns multiple meanings in a text to appreciate more ully

its rhetorical dynamics.

Policy polysemy crosses and complicates categories o rhetor, audience,

and critic, clouding Ceccarelli’s tripartite distinction. Because policiesimplicate multiple authors, we cannot achieve a clear-cut identifcation o

policy polysemy as strategic ambiguity or resistive reading, or both senses

presume a readily identifable author and audience. And yet, we cannot simply

turn to the critic, because policy polysemy does not ft easily with Ceccarelli’s

characterization o critically induced polysemy as “not mak[ing] a claim about

how audiences ‘actually’ read a text, but instead, o ering a new expanded way

that audiences huld read a text.” o be sure, critics may investigate policy

texts to gain a uller understanding o their tensions, but policy debates resistappreciative criticism as much as they enable it through their multiple authors

and audiences. T e critical work o analyzing policy debates ocuses both on

discovering hw participants and audiences understand a policy as well as

arguing that a critic’s readers huld understand the debates in a particular

way. Moreover, whereas Ceccarelli’s examples involve synchronic rhetorical

acts, such as President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and

Henry Grady’s 88 speech “T e New South,” the diachronic quality o policy

debate engenders changing meanings or participants over time.As we consider policy polysemy, we must remain cognizant o the purpose-




Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories into rhetoric as a resource or explicating multiple

meanings in texts. In trying to repair rhetoric’s reputation in the eyes o its

detractors, rhetorical scholars too o en “deer the strategic aspect o rhetoric,”which Murphy explains as “the potential o rhetoric to persuade people

to make contingent choices in specifc situationsits ability to shape the

world’s appearance such that we make this move rather than that choice.”

As Murphy suggests, rhetoric serves both instrumental and constitutive

unctions, and we cannot sacrifce one as we explore the other. In policy

debates, purpose intersects with polysemy because most, i not all, o the

multiple authors o policy texts hope to persuade their coauthors to accept

their positions. Even as supporters o insurance and advocates o investmentunderstand Social Security di erently, they seek to persuade their antagonists

to accept their diagnoses o Social Security’s problems and their preerred

solutions. Moreover, polysemy returns us to the material consequences o

policy debates. T e di erent meanings circulating in policy debates portend

di erent outcomes or target populations. I, or example, Social Security is

restructured as a system o private accounts, and insurance-based benefts like

ination-indexed annuities are dropped, then retirees will see their incomes

rise and all with the ups and downs o the stock market.

Conclusion

Addressing citizens on the banking crisis, FDR both initiated policy debates

and participated in an ongoing set o debates that undamentally reconstructed

the role o the ederal government in bolstering the nation’s economic well-

being, producing important legislation that emerged in a urry o activity known as the “frst 00 days.” As a particular moment in this larger process,

FDR’s frst Fireside Chat exemplifes the roles o rhetoric I have outlined

above. FDR ascribed a narrowly delineated purpose to the banking holiday

approved by Congresssupplying currency to banks with sound assets. He

explained that since banks invested depositors’ savings, even sound banks

could not remit all their assets on demand. Further, FDR clearly identifed a

target population or this policyordinary savers and investors. He vowed

that the administration would not meet “the hysterical demands o hoard-ers,” and banks made insolvent through speculation would not necessarily




acilitate through his radio address, would alleviate citizens’ anxiety and

encourage public-spirited action. In this address and others, FDR afrmed

values o security, stability, and interdependence amidst severe economicuncertainty. And he situated new policy proposals in the context o known

and tested practices.

In ocusing on FDR’s frst Fireside Chat as a revealing moment in New

Deal policymaking, I have pursued a preliminary microlevel analysis o

this topic. o appreciate ully this diachronic policy episode, I would have

to place FDR’s address in dialogue with congressional committee hearings,

House and Senate oor debates, government agency reports, news media

coverage, public advocacy campaigns, and more. O course, as rhetoricalscholars interested in public policy, we have to delimit our studies somehow,

and I do not mean to suggest that macro-analyses must examine every

potentially relevant utterance. Instead, a macrolevel analysis must cast a

sufciently wide net to elucidate the diverse perspectives orwarded by the

multiple authors o policy debate and the developments in policy debates over

time. Both o these qualities contribute to the polysemous and purposeul

character o the policy text.

Recognizing the role o rhetoric in policymaking and the processualcharacter o the policy text challenges linear models o policymaking that

demarcate clear beginnings, middles, and ends. Deborah Stone identifes this

approach as part o the “rationality project” o policy analysis, a decades-long

e ort to ree policy rom “politics.” According to Stone, the rationality project

advances a “production model” o policymaking, “where policy is created

in a airly orderly sequence o stages, almost as i on an assembly line.” On

this line, policies supposedly move transparently rom agenda setting and

problem identifcation, through legislative analysis and selection, to agency implementation. However, as my reerences to FDR and Social Security

suggest, rhetorical studies o policymaking reveal a multidirectional process,

whereby policymakers may select problems rom an already established

agenda or introduce problems onto public agendas. In this way and others,

rhetorical scholars may contribute importantly to studies o public policy

by illuminating the constitutive and consequential qualities o this complex

communicative practice.




notes

1. David M. Kennedy, Fdm m Fa: T Amica Ppl i Dpi ad Wa,

1929–1945 (New York: Oxord University Press, 1999), 163; Michael B. Katz, I h

Shadw h Phu: A Scial Hiy Wla i Amica (New York: Basic Books,

196), 7.

. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “T e Banking Crisis,” in Wd a Cuy: T p 100 Ami-

ca Spch, 1900–1999, ed. Stephen E. Lucas and Martin J. Medhurst (New York: Ox-

ord University Press, ), 7.

3. Roosevelt, “T e Banking Crisis,” .

4. Bush launched his barnstorming tour in the winter o 5, holding town hall meetings

in more than states. At almost every stop, Bush moderated a panel discussion and

a question-and-answer session involving attendees. T e panel discussions typically in-

cluded an expert on retirement policy and laypeople rom various walks o lie: children,

parents, grandparents, young workers, older workers, retirees, armers, frefghters,

small-business owners, warehouse workers, students, single parents, new parents. T e

panelists uniormly voiced concern or the uture o Social Security and support or the

president’s proposed reorms. Retirees expressed confdence that their benefts would

not be jeopardized by private accounts, and younger workers expressed relie that they

and their children could anticipate a more secure retirement. President Bush began each

meeting with a short speech, then he discussed issues o work and retirement with the

panelists. Less o en, Bush solicited questions rom audience members. Like the panel-

ists, questioners supported his policies.

5. George W. Bush, Wkly Cmpilai Pidial Dcum 41 (5): 36, 365.

6. T e 4 rustees’ Report, the most current at the start o Bush’s barnstorming tour, o-

ered a decidedly di erent picture o Social Security’s fnances: “Despite these cash-ow

defcits, beginning in 1, redemption o trust und assets will allow continuation o

ull beneft payments on a timely basis until 4, when the trust unds will become ex-

hausted. . . . Present tax rates would be sufcient to pay 73 percent o scheduled benefts

a er trust und exhaustion in 4 and 6 percent o scheduled benefts in 7.” Board

o rustees, Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance rust

Funds, 2004 Aual Rp h Bad u h Fdal Old-Ag ad Suviv

Iuac ad Diailiy Iuac u Fud (Washington, DC, March 4), , avail-

able at hp://www.a.gv/OAC/R/R04/I_i.hml (accessed October , 9).

7. Bush, Wkly Cmpilai, 365.

. James Kinneavy succinctly defnes kai as discourse “at the right time in the right mea-




9. Bush’s appeal exemplifed Douglas Walton’s assessment o the dichotomous structure

o many ear appeals: “Either take the recommended action or the earul outcome will

occur.” Douglas Walton, Sca acic: Agum ha Appal Fa ad T a (Dor-

drecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic, ), .

1. J. Michael Hogan, T Nucla Fz Campaig: Rhic ad Fig Plicy i h l-

pliical Ag (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1994), 7.

11. Davis W. Houck, Rhic a Cucy: Hv, Rvl, ad h Ga Dpi (Col-

lege Station: exas A&M University Press, 1), 195.

1. I do not mean to suggest that rhetorical scholars studying public policy have proceeded

in a nontheoretical or antitheoretical manner. For example, David Zaresky’s seminal

study o LBJ’s war on poverty o ers important insights on the unctioning o policy

metaphors. Rather, my point is that we have not explicitly reected on the character o

the policy “text” or extensively addressed methodological considerations. See David Za-

resky, Pid Jh’ Wa Pvy: Rhic ad Hiy (uscaloosa: University

o Alabama Press, 196).

13. See, or example, Frank Fischer, Ramig Pulic Plicy: Dicuiv Pliic ad Dli-

aiv Pacic (New York: Oxord University Press, 3); Deborah A. Stone, Plicy

Paadx: T A Pliical Dcii Makig (New York: Norton, ). Fischer and

Stone’s books present important fndings, but they lack the developed trajectory and

conceptual coherence o many rhetorical studies.

14. Portions o this article are drawn rom my new book Ivkig h Iviil Had: Scial

Scuiy ad h Pivaizai Da (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press,

9).

15. For a sense o the development o this debate, see Michael Calvin McGee, “A Material-

ist’s Conception o Rhetoric,” in Explai i Rhic: Sudi i H Dugla

Ehig , ed. Raymie E. McKerrow (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 19), 3–4; Ray-

mie E. McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric: T eory and Praxis,” Cmmuicai Mgaph

56 (199): 91–111; Dana L. Cloud, “T e Materiality o Discourse as Oxymoron: A

Challenge to Critical Rhetoric,” W Jual Cmmuicai 5 (1994): 141–63;

Ronald Walter Greene, “Another Materialist Rhetoric,” Ciical Sudi i Ma Cmmu-

icai 15 (199): 1–41; Carole Blair, “Reections on Criticism and Bodies: Parables

rom Public Places,” W Jual Cmmuicai 65 (1): 71–94; Ronald

Walter Greene, “Rhetoric and Capitalism: Rhetorical Agency as Communicative Labor,”

Philphy ad Rhic 37 (4): 1–6; Dana L. Cloud, “T e Matrix and Critical

T eory’s Desertion o the Real,” Cmmuicai ad Ciical/Culual Sudi 3 (6):

39–54.




1. See his chapter “T e Role o Rhetoric in the Formation o Policy.” Mark A. Smith, T

Righ alk: Hw Cvaiv amd h Ga Sciy i h Ecmic Sciy

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 7).

19. Smith, T Righ alk, 9.

. Fischer, Ramig Pulic Plicy, 6.

1. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, T Ccp Rpai (Berkeley: University o Calior-

nia Press, 1967), –9. In Kywd, Raymond Williams makes the same observation; he

writes that representation involves “the sense (a) o making present to the mind and the

sense (b) o standing or something that is not present.” Raymond Williams, Kywd:

A Vcaulay Culu ad Sciy, rev. ed. (New York: Oxord University Press, 195),

67. See also Jacques Derrida, “Sending: On representation,” Scial Rach 49 (19):

94–36.

. Linda Hutcheon, “T e Politics o Representation,” Sigau: A Jual T y ad

Caadia Liau 1 (199): 4–5.

3. See my previous book, Vii Pvy: Wla Plicy ad Pliical Imagiai (East

Lansing: Michigan State University Press, ); Nancy Fraser, “Women, Welare, and

the Politics o Needs Interpretation,” in Uuly Pacic: Pw, Dicu, ad Gd

i Cmpay Scial T y (Minneapolis: University o Minnesota Press, 199),

144–6.

4. Senate Aging Special Committee, Scial Scuiy Rm Opi: Ppaig h 21

Cuy, 14th Congress, d sess., 1996, 44.

5. James . Patterson, Amica’ Suggl Agai Pvy 1900–1994 (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1994), 179.

6. House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee, Scial Scuiy ad

Mdica u’ 2001 Aual Rp, 17th Congress, 1st sess., 1, 1-.

7. James Jasinski, “Heteroglossia, Polyphony, and T Fdali Pap,” Rhic Sciy

Qualy 7 (1997): .

. G. T omas Goodnight, “Controversy,” in Agum i Cvy: Pcdig h

Svh SCA/AFA Cc Agumai, ed. Donn W. Parson (Annandale, VA:

Speech Communication Association, 1991), . For an inuential explication o argu-

ment as process, see Daniel J. O’Keee, “wo Concepts o Argument,” Jual h

Amica Fic Aciai 13 (1977): 11–.

9. Asen, Vii Pvy.

3. Michael Calvin McGee, “ext, Context, and the Fragmentation o Contemporary Cul-

ture,” W Jual Spch Cmmuicai 54 (199): .

31. O course, the rhetorical critic does not simply report on a policy debate; criticism




3. See, or example, Michael Le and Ebony A. Utley, “Instrumental and Constitutive

Rhetoric in Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter rom a Birmingham Jail,’” Rhic & Pulic

Af ai 7 (4): 37–51; Stephen E. Lucas, “Justiying America: T e Declaration o Inde-

pendence as a Rhetorical Document,” in Amica Rhic: Cx ad Ciicim, ed.

T omas W. Benson (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 199), 67–13.

33. House Ways and Means Committee, Pvig ad Sghig Scial Scuiy, 16th

Congress, 1st sess., 1999, 33.

34. See Robert Kuttner, Evyhig Sal: T Viu ad Limi Mak (Chicago:

University o Chicago Press, 1999); James Arnt Aune, Sllig h F Mak: T Rh-

ic Ecmic Cc (New York: Guilord Press, 1).

35. T is dynamic resonates with Michel Foucault’s discussion o “enunciative modalities”

in T Achalgy Kwldg, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon

Books, 197), 5–55.

36. Lloyd F. Bitzer, “T e Rhetorical Situation,” Philphy ad Rhic 1 (196): 6.

37. Goodnight, “Controversy,” .

3. See Kathryn M. Olson and G. T omas Goodnight, “Entanglements o Consumption,

Cruelty, Privacy, and Fashion: T e Social Controversy over Fur,” Qualy Jual

Spch (1994): 49–76.

39. Senate Aging Special Committee, Icm ax: T Slui h Scial Scuiy ad

Mdica Cii? , 16th Congress, d sess., , 1.

4. Senate Finance Committee, Nw Dici i Rim Scuiy Plicy: Scial Scuiy,

Pi, Pal Savig ad Wk, 15th Congress, d sess., 199, ; House Finance

and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee, T Mak Impac h Pid’ Scial

Scuiy Ppal , 16th Congress, 1st sess., 1999, 73.

41. For an examination o an advertisement in support o privatization, see Glen Justice,

“Social Security; Groups that Clashed in the Campaign Are Facing O Again,” Nw Yk

im, April 1, 5, G.11. For an oppositional ad, see MoveOn.org, “WMD,” Nw Yk

im, February , 5, A7.

4. Celeste Michelle Condit, “T e Rhetorical Limits o Polysemy,” Ciical Sudi i Ma

Cmmuicai 6 (199): 16.

43. Leah Ceccarelli, “Polysemy: Multiple Meanings in Rhetorical Criticism,” Qualy Ju-

al Spch 4 (199): 395–415.

44. Ceccarelli, “Polysemy,” 4.

45. John M. Murphy, “Mikhail Bakhtin and the Rhetorical radition,” Qualy Jual

Spch 7 (1): 6.

46. Roosevelt, “T e Banking Crisis,” .



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