How does morality influence drug policy? Analysing drug policy constellations in the UK

Background: There is growing interest in how drug policy is not just a technocratic process of fittingmeans to politically agreed ends, but riven with normative conflict in which both aims and methods of policy are profoundly influenced by moral concerns.

Aim: This paper sets out to show how empirical analysis can throw light on the influence of moral positions through empirical operationalisation of a new theoretical perspective; the policy constellations approach.

Data: The data for analysis comes from drug policy discussions at UK level between 2015 and 2021. They are in the form of policy documents, discourse, and transcripts of 20 semi-structured interviews with policy actors.

Methods: Critical realist discourse analysis is used to identify policy positions, narrative tropes and factoids, and then analyse them to identify the moral influences on UK drug policy. The connections between 294 members of policy constellations (policy actors) and 157 policy positions they hold are then mapped using two-mode social network analysis (SNA).

Findings: Analysing the policy discourse reveals five underlying ethico-political bases that influence UK drug policy. They are: compassion, traditionalism, paternalism, progressive social justice, and liberty. The SNA confirms that this posited five-part structure of ethico-political bases succeeds in showing the influence of these bases on the pattern of connections between policy actors and positions.

Conclusion: A mixed methods analysis of policy discourses and networks that is informed by the policy constellations approach can contribute to the explanatory critique of policy making, and especially of the role of morality in this process.