GREEN, Maia

Delivering discourse : some ethnographic reflections on the practice of policy making in international development - Birmingham, UK : Institute of Local Government Studies, 2007

This article examines policy making as creative practice. As such policy making cannot be considered apart from the communities wich it engages. International development polivy making involves dispersed communities of practice who coalesce around global policy categories. Theses categories assume significance in policy discourses when they can legitimate spending. Policy making in this context is concerned with making categories count. The consequences of effective policy making are not restricted to changing policy discourses but are intended to have material and institutional effects. International efforts to shift the parameters of interventions around a particular policy category - the AIDS orphan - are examined to demonstrate some aspects of this process