Competitive/comparative governance mechanisms beyond marketization: A refined concept of competition in education governance research

TY - JOUR

T1 - Competitive/comparative governance mechanisms beyond marketization

T2 - A refined concept of competition in education governance research

AU - Madsen, Miriam

PY - 2022/1

Y1 - 2022/1

N2 - Much contemporary scholarship claims that competition has become a key characteristic of educational governance, and that competition occurs in educational governance as a consequence of the comparative turn in education. This article problematizes the widespread application of the concept of competition as a relevant term across (seemingly) all governance contexts, and seeks to overcome this problem by theorizing competition as an entangled phenomenon that takes on a different ontology according to the specific situations in which it occurs. This theorization highlights three dimensions of competition that may affect its ontology: the field of contestants, the rules of the game, and the competition objective. The result is an analytical framework that makes the concept of competition sensitive to different governance contexts across Europe and the Western world, including those with strong remnants of universalistic welfare state models. The analytical framework allows for a distinction between market-based competition and competition as a governance instrument that mediates managerial decision-making in which the contestants fight to avoid top-down reform rather than fighting against their peers. The analytical framework implies that we cannot characterize all European education systems as governed through competition-based mechanisms without caution and further specification.

AB - Much contemporary scholarship claims that competition has become a key characteristic of educational governance, and that competition occurs in educational governance as a consequence of the comparative turn in education. This article problematizes the widespread application of the concept of competition as a relevant term across (seemingly) all governance contexts, and seeks to overcome this problem by theorizing competition as an entangled phenomenon that takes on a different ontology according to the specific situations in which it occurs. This theorization highlights three dimensions of competition that may affect its ontology: the field of contestants, the rules of the game, and the competition objective. The result is an analytical framework that makes the concept of competition sensitive to different governance contexts across Europe and the Western world, including those with strong remnants of universalistic welfare state models. The analytical framework allows for a distinction between market-based competition and competition as a governance instrument that mediates managerial decision-making in which the contestants fight to avoid top-down reform rather than fighting against their peers. The analytical framework implies that we cannot characterize all European education systems as governed through competition-based mechanisms without caution and further specification.

KW - Competition

KW - Education

KW - Governance

KW - Performance measurement

KW - Public administration

KW - Entanglement

KW - Affectivity

KW - SCHOOL

KW - PISA

KW - education

KW - NUMBERS

KW - MARKETS

KW - entanglement

KW - STATE

KW - performance measurement

KW - RANKINGS

KW - FETISH

KW - POLICY

KW - affectivity

KW - public administration

KW - UNIVERSITIES

KW - governance

KW - SOCIOLOGY

U2 - 10.1177/1474904120958922

DO - 10.1177/1474904120958922

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1474-9041

VL - 21

SP - 182

EP - 199

JO - European Educational Research Journal

JF - European Educational Research Journal

IS - 1

ER -