Download Policy paradigm

Merging scenes and circulation of knowledge
5th Interpretive Policy Analysis Conference
Grenoble, June, 23-25, 2010. Panel 33.
Policy paradigms and
political decision-making
***
the case of the Round Table for
Education and Child Opportunities
Eszter Neumann
University of ELTE, Hungary
Expert networks in education policy…
„ [Social scientists] look at this with the
attitude of the bug collector. They pin up a
bug, now you look at the health and the
education sector, they examine it, and they
say »Yuck!« That’s all, then they leave. (…)
But pedagogy stays.”
(pedagogic expert, 70)
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Structure of the Presentation
1. What do we mean by merging scenes?
2. Cognitive patterns and policy paradigm


Disciplinary discourses performed in the political
sphere
Case study: the Round Table for Education and
Child Opportunities
3. Competing scientific paradigms and political
choices
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Merging Scenes

Public action (Commaille 2004)

multisited approach
→ cognitive dimension: Locations of problematizations

A conceptual tool


Dramaturgical approach: staging alternative policy
paradigms
Classic question: how do scientific understandings
(of education) interact with political rationalities?
[Foucault 1991, Rose 1999, Weingart 1999, Maasen&Weingart 2005, etc.]
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Co-construction: expertise and policy-making
1990’s
 Major Public Actions
 Content regulation
(curricular policies)
Mid 2000’s Major Public Actions
 Steering, quality management
 Educational integration
 Competence development

Expertise
 Value oriented,
„ideological”
 Normative positions

Knowledge centres (R&D)
 State-maintained research
institutes

Expertise
 disciplinary paradigms, truth
claims - Cognitive flows
 International streams

Knowledge centres (R&D)
 Financial cut-backs
 development agencies (EU
funding)
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
The Round Table for Education and
Child Opportunities (2007-2008)
2006- „vacuum situation” in the
field of expertise


governmental programme
of rationalizing public services


State Reform Committee, PM
Core team of economists
Methods: 1 year long non-participant observation;
Interviews with key actors, discourse analysis
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Policy paradigm (Hall, 1990)

Deliberative scene: performative character



What is the content of the propositions?




cognitive streams, competing scientific discourses
Enacted/negotiated/ignored discourses
Expert coalition: economists, sociologists, ‘educational
scientists’, a neuro-psychologist
how different disciplinary approaches merged in the
political sphere?
Policy paradigm (2002-2010): Social inclusion
Policy-core of belief systems (Sabatier&Jenkins-Smith 1999):

improvement of the education of the disadvantaged

discourse of abilities and skills development
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Education science
Pedagogic
autonomy
Skills
assessment
sociology
accountability
Economic
competitiveness
social
integration
System
development
economics
Early
Intervention
compensation
Nurturing
talents
psychology
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Interactions between scenes: when
politics comes back

Multiple scenes, plurality of idea streams





Scenes as resources – multiple postions
Scientific credibility – legitimization of propositions
Policy knowledge entrepreneurism
Government’s political support gradually
decreased…
“New Knowledge” programme (03/2008)


Assembles fragments of the recommendations
…and various idea streams, academic discourses
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Will social sciences stay…?

Political programmes shaped by disciplinary paradigms






2002-2010. lack of strategic centre → equally influential
paradigms from political perspective
Heteroglossia; grand narrative: economic competitiveness,
the accountability of public services
Echange of arguments among disciplines performed as
political;
Yet hardly compatible and commensurable in scientific
terms
2010. elections: scientific paradigms objects of political
negotiation
Shift in the grand narrative:
Social inclusion → Early childhood development
IPA Grenoble 2010. Panel 33.
Thank you for your attention!
Eszter Neumann
ELTE, Faculty of Social Sciences
Budapest, Hungary
[email protected]