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    Agency, truth and meaning: judging the Hutton Report

    Coole, Diana (2005) Agency, truth and meaning: judging the Hutton Report. British Journal of Political Science 35 (3), pp. 465-485. ISSN 0007-1234.

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    Abstract

    The Hutton Report is now established as an important element of Britain's involvement in the Iraq War. In this article the ideas that underpin it are analysed. In particular, the focus is on Hutton's presuppositions concerning the nature of truth, agency, subjectivity, meaning and language. It is shown how unquestioned assumptions structured his method and shaped his conclusions. Although such presuppositions are widely shared by the public, too, a discursive conflict within the report is identified, revealing a sub-text of competing understandings that protagonists invoked. These suggest a more phenomenological and intersubjective approach to the interpretation of events. The conclusion is that Dr Kelly and the BBC were victims of a particular sense of truth and that Hutton failed to situate important actors and events within geopolitical, institutional, experiential and affective structures. The author suggests that a greater appreciation of the contingent way information enters the public domain (itself more evident in the Butler Report) is a pre-condition for better intelligence and public policy making.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Birkbeck Centre for British Political Life
    Depositing User: Sandra Plummer
    Date Deposited: 01 Feb 2006
    Last Modified: 30 Jun 2024 03:55
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/310

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