Governments and other regulatory authorities are seeking greater participation by citizens in decision-making, partly in response to widespread alienation and self-exclusion from politics and government, and partly in pursuit of 'better governance'. This is sometimes presented in terms of 'participation' and sometimes 'partnership', not simple equivalents though there is an overlap: partnership is often understood as including 'communities' or 'users' as 'stakeholders'. Insofar as these initiatives are claimed to be involve forms of regulation which can make governance more democratic, they give rise to a contemporary form of an old question: what is the relationship between regulation and democracy in countries we call 'democracies'? what tensions and contradictions are there between them? what is the nature of the dialectic between them? Regulation and democracy can be regarded as conflicting principles or 'logics'. Within their tense relationship, democracy is a deeply contested concept. I assume two features of democracy: it is adversarial, and oriented to widening the set of subjects with the capacity to develop and pursue strategies. The question I am concerned with is to what extent these initiatives can have democratic content in this sense.

It is clear both from such practical initiatives and theoretical debates that questions of democracy involve questions of public discourse and dialogue, so there is a strong case for including a focus on language/discourse in research. My methodological concern is with adding resources to existing frameworks for critical research which can bring discourse into greater focus with greater analytical purchase and thereby enhance these frameworks. More specifically, with developing an approach to analysing political discourse based upon 'critical discourse analysis' for a specifically semiotic 'point of entry' into trans-disciplinary research on politics and government/governance.

I shall use one particular case to illustrate applying this approach in trans-disciplinary research on participation initiatives: a series of farm trials of GM crops in the UK 1999-2003, and an EU research project exploring ways in which people position themselves and others as 'citizens' within discussions and public debate around these trials. I shall address two issues: (a) the tendency for government participation initiatives to limit forms of participation in ways which bring into question their democratic content; (b) ways in which participants can nevertheless seek to move such forms in a more democratic direction. I shall indicate how this framework for political discourse analysis can contribute to addressing these issues.

Biographical Note