Ideas, Discourse, and Rhetoric in Political Choice*.

The distinction between ideas and discourse remains ambiguous in ideational theories of political choice. In addition, the role of rhetoric, or the strategic choice of language to represent a given idea, in ideational theories of political decision making is promising but underspecified. To explore these issues, this paper studies the impact of a specific discourse (i.e. an “ensemble of ideas”) about risk—often presented rhetorically as “the precautionary principle”—in a prominent political controversy: the regulation of Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs). Widely used chemical compounds that improve fire resistance in many commercial products, BFRs have been measured in the fatty tissue of animals and human beings in increasing concentrations. The resulting concern about the safety of BFRs has led to regulatory action in a number of U.S. states. Although some have argued that a discourse of precaution facilitates the enactment of new environmental policies, we find that the rhetoric of the precautionary principle was an impeding factor for these BFR regulations. At the same time, we find that while political actors avoided the precautionary principle by name, they relied on certain ideas often attributed to the principle. Thus, the causal role of specific ideas in politics, we conclude, is significantly contingent on their precise rhetorical presentation.Polity (2009) 41, 189–210. doi:10.1057/pol.2008.31; published online 26 January 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]