Discursive strategies within Thatcherism: family and market representations in its rhetoric and Community Care Documents

Abstract

My thesis examines the discursive similarities between the public political voice of Thatcherism and the "bureaucratic" policy voice of Community Care Documents. The similarities I am searching for between the rhetoric and the documents involve mythical representations of the family, the free market and the community. The argument of the thesis is that the construction of meaning in the policy documents is at least partially supported by discursive representations present in the public discourse. These representations mythologize: first, the role and form of the family; second, the role of women in caring within the family; and third, the role or capabilities of the market; and fourth; the "failings" and "breakdown" of the welfare system. I also argue that these representations exist within certain key social and economic conditions relating to "late capitalism" or more, exactly, the model of flexible accumulation and market regulation prevalent in Britain during the eighties. I conclude by arguing that if language does have a role in power relations, then it can be useful for policy analysts to learn some of the models of linguistic or discursive analysis. Such an inclusion would especially be useful in understanding the difficulties that women and other "minorities" have in finding a voice in the policy arena.