Explaining and Interpreting Ideological Effects: A Rhetorical Approach to Green Belts

The authors argue the advantages of an approach that explores the understanding of participants in political discourse. A spectrum of rhetorics is proposed which can provide a framework for such exploration and draws on what is termed ‘the rhetoric of partial rationality’ to examine a particular discourse, that concerning green belts. Throughout the paper it is stressed that such rhetorical analysis must be contextualised. Interpretation must complement, rather than replace, explanation. Providing complementary explanatory and interpretative analyses suggests a potential way of tackling ideological effects. Therefore the authors deal both with a general methodological issue—the analysis of ideological effects—and with a specific policy issue—green belts.