The ambition of this paper is to analyze the discursive practices of three Danish trade unions for
professional and managerial staff as found in their strategy and position papers. Using discourse
analytic methods, the paper analyzes, discusses, and compares the strategy papers of the three
unions in order to investigate how they problematize their roles and objectives. This investigation
clarifies the discursive premises of the unions and it shows how these premises restrain and afford
their agendas. The overall purpose of the paper is to investigate and describe the dominant logics
and rationalities that shape the documents and to point to their limits and bounds. Through an
archaeological investigation, the paper critically examines the implicit and tacit naturalizations
made in the documents and reveals the ideological presuppositions of the discursive practices of
the authors. The paper documents how ?strategic management? has become an integral part of
Danish trade unions practices and the paper sets out to discuss this trend in relation to the general
neo-liberal decentering of the ?social? and promotion of ?community? as the locus of governance.
Through examples from the practices of the Danish trade unions for professionals, the paper
substantiates how new technologies of governance and the subjectification of union members as
?customers? tend to transform the role of the trade unions from the position of ?political actors? to
?service providers? in the advanced liberal societies.
Author Biography
Anders Buch, Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University Copenhagen
