Policy-making as an articulation and communication process: Nicaragua's telecommunications reforms

The public policy-making debates preceding telecommunications privatization in developing countries are increasingly complex and crowded by numerous actors. This study begins from the premises that current policymaking processes in developing countries are significant for communications researchers, yet existing research does not offer adequate frameworks for looking at today's policy-making scenarios.; The study reviews general privatization processes, factors, and experiences, showing that Nicaragua is not alone in its telecommunications reforms. Three major privatization policy areas are identified: ownership structures, social and economic objectives, and effects on labor. The study applies Stuart Hall's theory of articulation to the analysis of telecommunications reforms in Nicaragua. Significantly, this framework offers the potential to look at an increasingly crowded policy-making process, while considering the material, discursive and ideological factors shaping the debates. In examining the two Nicaraguan privatization laws, Laws 210 and 293, this study investigates three general themes: the formation of alliances and arguments concerning privatization (ownership structures, social and economic objectives, and effects on labor), changes over time, and the effectiveness of groups and their arguments.; The study finds that in the course of the 1990s there was a slow but steady ideological shift from market socialism to free market liberalism. The different groups in the debate formed alliances at the local and international levels. Discursively, actors and alliances legitimized their positions while delegitimizing their opponents. Furthermore, they employed similar ideologies---like the notions of egalitarianism and progress---but articulated these in different ways.; This study makes two significant contributions to the field of communications. First, it provides a wealth of information on telecommunications in Nicaragua, especially the reforms during the 1990s. Second, the theory of articulation is shown to be an excellent framework for the analysis of policy-making. It allows for an assessment of a wide variety of factors---actors, arguments, contexts, ideologies---played out at different levels---the national and the international, the material and the discursive. The case is made that the theory of articulation has been successfully employed, but additional research is needed in order to continue to improve its application to policymaking scenarios.