Politics and Penal Change: Towards an Interpretive Political Analysis of Penal Policymaking
| Author | HARRY ANNISON |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12269 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
The Howard Journal Vol57 No 3. September 2018 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12269
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 302–320
Politics and Penal Change: Towards
an Interpretive Political Analysis
of Penal Policymaking
HARRY ANNISON
Associate Professor, Southampton Law School, Southampton University
Abstract: This article offers an interpretive political analysis framework, exploring and
asserting its value for understanding penal change. It is argued that this approach serves,
in part, to emphasise the importance of the minutiae of political activity: the crucial
impact that apparently minor decisions, unimportant participants, or particular ‘rules of
the game’ can play in specific outcomes. It emphasises the importance of human agency
and meaning: the relationship between politics and fate. It facilitates the connections
of particular ‘micro’ analyses with ‘macro’ accounts of penal change. I argue that the
approach set out here thereby enables us to place centre stage the beliefs and practices of
policy participants, and the political dynamics of policymaking. By doing so, particular
case studies serve as valuable ‘windows’ into the meanings in action that iteratively make
sense of,respond to, and thereby (re-)constitute the realities in which actors operate, specific
penal outcomes, and broader penal change.
Keywords: interpretive political analysis; penal change; penal politics;
policymaking
There has been a welcome proliferation, in recent years, of works ex-
amining the complex causal dynamics of penal change. Much of this has
involved sociological perspectives and methodological frameworks being
brought to bear on questions of penal policy and punishment.1This article
examines, and argues for, the value of a methodological framework that
has an alternative origin: the interpretive political analysis approach de-
veloped within political science. Specifically, it draws on the path-breaking
works of political scientists Bevir and Rhodes (2003, 2006, 2010), and policy
studies scholar Hendrik Wagenaar (2011).
This interpretive approach has been forged through scholarly debates
that differ from those that shaped the development of the field that has
come to be known as the sociology of punishment. It arose from a re-
action to the predominance within political science of top-down, ‘objec-
tive’, (social) scientific modes of analysis and explanation that, for propo-
nents of an interpretive approach, were inconsistent with a philosophically
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2018 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League
and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Howard Journal Vol57 No 3. September 2018
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 302–320
appropriate conception of the meaningful nature of human action (Bevir
and Rhodes 2004).
It will be argued that the interpretive framework set out here com-
plements and contributes to existing approaches to understanding penal
change in a number of ways. It serves, in part, to emphasise the importance
of the minutiae of political activity: the crucial impact that apparently mi-
nor decisions, unimportant participants, or particular ‘rules of the game’,
can play in specific outcomes. It emphasises the importance of human
agency (but not autonomy) and meaning: the relationship between politics
and fate (Gamble 2000). And due to its theoretical orientation (as set out
in detail below), it facilitates the connections of such ‘micro’ analysis with
‘macro’ debates regarding penal change.
While emerging from a different lineage, and via different scholarly
debates, there are connections here with a number of recent interventions
into debates on the analysis of penal change. Goodman et al.haveargued
persuasively for the value of sustained analysis of the ongoing ‘agonistic’
struggles that underpin penal development (Goodman, Page and Phelps
2015, 2017). Rubin and Phelps (2017) have raised concern at the tendency
in some works on penal change to speak as if ‘there is a single, unified,
and actor-less state responsible for punishment’ (p.422). They, instead,
encourage the study of:
[The] diverse array of actors from bureaucratic leaders down to the front-line staff
implementing policy,each with their own (shifting) penal preferences and concerns.
(p.434)
Further, Loader and Sparks (2016) have criticised the tendency of much
extant literature within the sociology of punishment to underplay – or even
reject – the role of politics and political ideologies (in a non-reductive, non-
pejorative, sense) in penal change.
The interpretive approach set out below provides one valuable means
of analysing specific instances of penal change in a manner that flows
with the concerns and contentions noted immediately above. In order to
substantiate this claim, the article proceeds as follows: first, I situate the
interpretive framework by surveying existing literature on penal change.
I identify a number of dominant approaches, examining their underlying
assumptions, their strengths and also criticisms that have been levelled
against them.
I then set out the interpretive political analysis framework, spending
some time discussing the key concepts in play (including, most centrally,
belief, tradition, practice, and dilemma). Finally, I consider the ways in
which concepts utilised within policy studies can further enrich the anal-
ysis of penal policymaking advanced here. I then discuss findings from
projects examining penal policy under the 2010–15 UK coalition govern-
ment in order to illustrate the practical application, and implications, of
this framework.
In closing, I argue that the interpretive framework set out in this article
offers one means by which to place centre stage the beliefs and prac-
tices of policy participants, and the political dynamics of policymaking, in
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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