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Making sense of this significance requires a conceptual framework that refuses to separate Governing Mentalities 35 the material world from the symbolic, discursive, or narrative technologies that produce the categories and images with which we think. A feminist sociology of knowledge provides that framework, especially when joined with postpositivist policy analysis. Postpositive Policy in a Positivist World Public policy is both an instrument and an effect of power. 9 Good, self-governing subjects absorb the metaphors, rhetorical devices, gatekeeping practices, and narrative conventions integral to the policy-making process.

As a nongovernmental entity that exerts a form of quintessentially postmodern power, CASA attempts to control the terms of political discourse through textual mediation and publicity. 8 The concept signals that biomedicine will be narrowly privileged, but that all licit or illicit, presently or potentially used “substances” can be considered. Anything can serve as a “substance”—compulsive use determines whether a thing or an activity such as exercise is “addictive” or not. ” Expanding the definition of what counts as a drug could yield insight into the social context and cultural meanings attributed to addictive activities.

The challenge is to state this ethic in terms that remain multivocal. ”17 Multivocality is partly the product of a postmodern moment that has strained many modern administrative systems, in which many voices speak multiple and conflicting stories from myriad social locations. However, multivocality is also the outcome of the hard work of social movements organized to compel the recognition of cultural difference within modernity. Therein lies the potential of postmodernity as a paradigm for social action and theory that promotes democratic participation.