Transcript Dia 1 - Aarhus Universitet

WP 3
Session 1.1 Scientific training
Policy Travel – Conceptual grammar
for analysing policy movement
Approaches of policy as a subject, and
policy analysis as a field of research
Similarities
• Based on a changed context of policy making, all texts differentiate
themselves from the
– “Orthodox literature” (Peck & Theodore, 2010; Dale & Robertson,
2012)
– “Neopositivist /empirist approach” (Hodgson & Irwing, 2007)
– ‘Objective rational model of research” (Hodgson & Irwing, 2007)
Approaches of policy as a subject, and
policy analysis as a field of research
Differences
• While Peck (2011), Peck & Theodore (2010) and Dale & Robertson (2012)
address “policy transfer/movement/…” from a human geography or
political geography or globalization point of view, Hodgson & Irving (2007)
and Jenkins (2007) look more generally at policy and policy studies and
meaning of policy and policy as meaning respectively.
• Understanding of policy as subject
– Hodgson & Irving (2007) see policy as
“ways of explaining and validating action rather than simply a product
of organizational behavior or governance”
– Jenkins (2007) defines policy as
“processes of representation”
(elements of “comprehensive ideal typical model”)
Differences
• Understanding of policy analysis as a field of research
– Peck (2011) and Peck and Theodore (2010) see
policy formation and transformation as
“(socially) constructed processes, as fields of power. Policy transfer is not reduced
to a more-or-less efficient process for transmitting best (or better) practices, but
is visualized as a field of adaptive connections, deeply structured by enduring
power relations and shifting ideological alignments.
– Dale & Robertson (2012) on the other hand use the critical grammar of
educational policy movements, which is based on the critical political economy to
point at the
• relational, dialectical and co-constitutive nature of educational policy
movements
– Hodgson & Irving (2007)
• interest in cross-disciplinarity
– Jenkins (2007)
• sees policy process and politics as
“(re)producing shared meanings that are at the heart of the culture and
cultural differences”
• Talks about policy and politics
• “symbolic politics” (not acting as acting, regulation being counterproductive)
Author
Paradigm
↔ to the positivist or
postpositivist paradigm
Peck (2011) and Peck Social constructivism?
and Theodore (2010) Postmodernism ?
Dale & Robertson
(2012)
Critical realism
Hodgson & Irving
(2007)
Postmodernism
Jenkins (2007)
Postmodernist/poststructuralist?
Questions
“more-or-less efficient process for transmitting best (or
better) practices” (Peck & Theodore, 2010)
“ ‘How does Bologna work?’ and
 ‘What are its domestic effects?’ “ (Dale & Robertson,
2012)
“explore the ways in which the restructuring of policy
regimes and the mobility of fast policy fixes are jointly
constituted”
“ ‘What work does it do, and for whom?’, and
 ‘what is the framework through which it realises this’? “
 “what kind of work does ‘policy transfer’ do in
constituting social relations and in realising powerful
political projects?”
“Our interest in cross-disciplinarity is simply
 in terms of encounters between the abstract and the
applied,
 in the importance of the generation of questions that
these encounters entail, and
 in the dialogue that is opened up within this process. “
 “what is policy, what does it do, what does it mean?”
“defamiliarisation of the familiar”
To conclude
• There is a need to define policy
• Question “how come some policies work and
others are easily forgotten”
Notes
• The selection of readings might be partial
• ‘Evolution’ of different paradigms