Education Policy Networks and Spaces of 'Meetingness': A Network Ethnography of a Brazilian Seminar (original) (raw)
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Policy Communities and Networks: Education Management and Governance
In a world of increasing globalization it is desirable for productive and successful countries to have a positive effect on the global society. It may be necessary to have policy communities inside and outside the country for this. To develop policies, governments require information from non-governmental sources. The recent emphasis on policy communities and networks is a result of the perceived role of these communities in policy development and implementation. The main influence of policy communities and networks may only be through generating, discussing, and promoting ideas to various groups. In this paper, we will discuss two contrasting approaches to policy communities and networks: those taken by Iran and Canada. In addition, we will examine how such countries could engage in policy borrowing to improve their effects on the global society.
New Philanthropy, New Networks and New Governance in Education
Political Studies, 2008
This article draws upon and contributes to a body of theory and research within political science which is concerned with changes in the policy process and new methods of governing society; that is, with a shift from centralised and bureaucratic government to governance in and by networks. This is sometimes called the 'Anglo-governance model' and the most prominent and influential figure in the field is Rod Rhodes. The article focuses on one aspect of these kinds of change within the field of education policy and argues that a new form of 'experimental' and 'strategic' governance is being fostered, based upon network relations among new policy communities. These new policy communities bring new kinds of actors into the policy process, validate new policy discourses and enable new forms of policy influence and enactment, and in some respects disable or disenfranchise established actors and agencies. The argument is illustrated with examples of networks identified and mapped by the author. Some of the relationships among participants who make up these new networks are traced and discussed, drawing upon research into the privatisation of education funded by the ESRC. These relationships interlink business, philanthropy, quangos and non-governmental agencies. This article seeks both to add to a body of research within political science which is concerned with changes in the policy process and new methods of governing society, that is with the shift from 'the government of a unitary state to governance in and by networks' (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003, p. 41), and to make a modest contribution to the conceptualisation of policy networks. The analysis of policy networks is sometimes called the 'Anglo-governance model' and the most prominent and influential figure in the field is Rod Rhodes (see Marinetto, 2005; Rhodes, 1995; 1997; Rhodes and Marsh, 1992), although there is also a lively US school of public network management research (see Agranoff and Maguire, 2001). In both these literatures a contrast is drawn wherein governance is accomplished through the 'informal authority' of diverse and flexible networks, while government is carried out through hierarchies or specifically bureaucracy. Governance then, involves a 'catalyzing of all sectors-public, private and voluntary-into action to solve their community problems' (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992, p. 20) and 'explores the changing boundary between state and civil society' (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003, p. 42)-and as we shall see between state and the economy. In general terms this is the move towards a 'polycentric state' and 'a shift in the centre of gravity around which policy cycles move' (Jessop, 1998, p. 32). All of this suggests that both the form and modalities of the state are changing.'The state, although not impotent [see below], is now dependent upon a vast array of state and non-state policy actors' (Marinetto, 2005, p. 599).
This paper explores the emergence of both new trans-national spaces of policy and new intra-national spaces of policy and how they are related together, and how policies move across and between these spaces (Schriewer 2014), and some of the relationships that enable and facilitate such movement. Borrowing the term from one of the research respondents (see below), it takes what he called the Indian Education Reform Movement (IERM) as a case in point and as a focus for the discussion of policy networks and policy mobilities. The IERM is one of many new 'complex and contradictory spaces ripe for critical interrogation' (Peck and Theodore 2012, 21). The paper is an attempt to think outside and beyond the framework of the nation state to make sense of what is going on inside the nation state -and the need to move beyond what Beck (2006) calls 'methodological nationalism' . In particular, it takes seriously the need to rethink the frames within and scales at which new education policy actors, discourses, conceptions, connections, agendas, resources, and solutions of governance are addressed. In other words, thinking about the spaces of policy means extending the limits of our geographical imagination. It also means attempting to grasp the joining up and re-working of these spaces in and through relationships.
Beyond Networks? A Brief Response to ‘Which Networks Matter in Education Governance?’
Political Studies, 2009
Mark Goodwin's commentary on and critique, in this issue, of my 2008 article in this journal ( Ball, 2008 ) is both pertinent and constructive and indeed I agree with almost all of it. Goodwin makes the point that the distribution of power and capabilities within policy networks was not properly addressed in my article and that as a result I may tend to overestimate the looseness of such networks and underestimate the continuing prominence of the formal legal powers of the state in processes of governance. He also suggests that the existence of and work done by the networks I describe should not in themselves be taken to be indicative of a shift from government to network governance. These concerns raise very proper and important questions and pose major challenges for empirical policy network analysis. However, I would want to say that my 2008 article represents a first foray into the issues and problems of a grounded analysis of network governance in education. Many of the poi...
ECNU Review of Education, 2023
The flows and frictions of policy networks We are all scholars of policy to some extent. Such a definitive statement is not without merit-after all, we all experience and interact with policy across education, from the "eddies and flows" (Cochrane & Ward, 2012) of its movements to the "fixities and moorings" (Sheller & Urry, 2006) of its frictions. Regardless of whether we explicitly refer to ourselves as "policy researchers," the various dimensions of education and schooling upon which we choose to putatively focusincluding pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, and student wellbeing-are continuously being (re)shaped and (re)constituted by the various material and discursive elements of policy, in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Unsurprisingly, policy remains a central preoccupation of education research, leading to a continued focus on developing, adopting, and adapting different theoretical, methodological, and analytical approaches to better understand the changing empirical contexts we face. These changes include not only the changing policies themselves but also the changing processes, actors, spaces, and relations by which such policies are developed, disseminated, contested, and enacted. It is fair to say that in this contemporary moment, all manner of
Following policy: networks, network ethnography and education policy mobilities
Journal of Education Policy
Mobile policies. .. are not simply travelling across a landscape-they are remaking this landscape, and they are contributing to the interpenetration of distant policymaking sites. (Peck and Theodore, 2010 p. 170) … the new strategic cosmopolitan serves as a nodal agent in the expanding networks of the global economy (Mitchell 2003).
Policy Networks: Empirical Evidence and Theoretical Considerations
The American Political Science Review, 1993
Although network thinking will have considerable impact on future social theory building in general, this chapter is certainly not the place for a general "philosophical" discussion. Based on the assumption that the network perspective will be, indeed, also fruitful for political analysis, we will focus our discussion on the specific use of network concepts in policy analysis. We will try to show that an important advantage of the network concept in this discipline is that it helps us to understand not only formal institutional arrangements but also highly complex informal relationships in the policy process. From a network point of view. modern political decision making cannot adequately be understood by the exclusive focus on formal politico-institutional anangements. Policies are formulated to an increasing degree in informal political infrastructures outside conventional channels such as legislative, executive and administrative organizations. Contemporary policy processes emerge from complex actor constellations and resource interdependencies, and decisions are often made in a highly decentralized and informal manner. example, the policy sector (Benson 1982), the policy domain (Laumann/ Knoke 1987), the policy topic's organization set (see for this concept Olsen 1982), the policy (actor) system (see, for instance, Sabatier 1987), the policy community (Jordan/ Richardson 1983, Mdny 1989), the policy game, the policy arena and also the policy regime. The network concept and all these other policy concepts are variations of a basic theme: the idea of public policies which are not explained by the intentions of one or two central actors, but which are generated within multiple actor-sets in which the individual actors are interrelated in a more or less systematic way. However, each of the different policy concepts emphasizes a special aspect: for example, the institutional structures in decision making processes are highlighted by the arena and regime perspective; the conflictual nature of policy processes, again, is emphasized by the game perspective. The arena concept, in contrast, concentrates on conflict and institutional integration, and the community, system and sector perspec-9 For a more detailed overview of British works with the network concept see also the recent article of Rhodes (1990). l0 Other examples in the application of the network concept in policy making are Zijlstra (1918179:359-389); Rainey/ Milward (1983: 133-146); Trasher/ Dunkerley (1982: 349' 382); Trasher (1983: 375-391). For an overview see also Windhoff-Hdritier (1985: 85-2t2). Cltapter 2 Butt, R. S./ M. J. Minor, 1982: Applied Nenuork Analysis-A Methodological Introduction Beverly Hills/ London: Sage. Callon, Michel, 1986: The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle. In: M. Callon/ H. Law/ A. Rip, Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology. Sociology of Science in the Real World. Houndmills: Macmillan, 19-34.
2021
This article focuses on an emerging phenomenon in Portugal: the most visible and frequent presence of new collective actors in public policy processes. Often linked to philanthropic foundations, these actors call themselves to influence the educational agenda, and even the educational practices, and are highly dependent on expert knowledge. They are intermediary actors who perform cognitive and social operations that connect ideas, individuals and technical devices involved in policy processes. The article analyses the emergence of these intermediary actors and their attempts to influence and reshape the governance of education, through new political networks. Based on earlier empirical-based research inspired by network ethnography, and grounded on the political sociology of public action, the article presents a proposal for mapping these emerging intermediary actors, according to a) the spaces of collective action they use/create; b) their targets; c) their autonomy in the product...
There is More than One Way to Do Political Science: on Different Ways to Study Policy Networks
Political Studies, 2001
Our recent article in this journal has provoked a series of responses to which we reply here. However, these responses are very different in tone and content and this is reflected in the balance of this reply. Dowding attacks our work in the context of a claim that, essentially, there is only one way to do social science. This critique is so fundamental that it is the focus of the first section of this reply. In contrast, Raab is mainly concerned to argue that he and McPherson cannot be classified as taking an anthropological approach to networks; indeed, he claims that their work adopts a position which has similarities with our own. Finally, Evans attempts to build upon our article, using the work of Benson, to develop what he regards as a more adequate dialectical approach. We shall deal with both of these contributions in the second section of this reply, in which we consider Dowding's more specific criticisms of our work.