Unpacking ambiguity in ideational change: the polysemy of the ‘Europe of Knowledge’

Abstract

What is ambiguity, and why does it matter in policy change? Often treated as an exogenous factor, the ambiguity of ideas has been considered a taken for granted entity instrumental to actors’ strategic action. Less attention has been devoted to elucidating the nature and drivers of ambiguity in the policy process. Building on the concept of ‘boundary objects’, originally developed within the sociology of science, this article identifies polysemy as one explanatory factor through which multiple and contradictory meanings are shared across a constellation of different actors. Empirically, the article examines how the idea of the ‘Europe of Knowledge’ in European education policy was first rejected in the mid-1990s and then adopted only a few years later thanks to its polysemy. By ‘objectifying’ an idea into a boundary object, polysemy can thus create entry or exit options in the institutional arena by legitimising actors’ cooperation and enabling (policy) entrepreneurship.

KEYWORDS:

• Ideas
• Ambiguity
• Polysemy
• Knowledge Economy
• Education
• European Union

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the constructive comments provided by the participants of the LSE workshop on ‘The EU paradigm in crisis? Ideas, leadership, and the search of a new référentiel in Europe’ (May 2019), as well as panel participants’ meetings of the International Public Policy Association conference (Montreal 2019) and the Council for European Studies conference (Madrid 2019). Special thanks to Jonathan Kamkhaji, Femke Van Esch, Nicolas Jabko, Waltraud Schelkle, Vincent Caby, Niccolò Durazzi and Mark Thatcher for their fruitful comments on earlier versions of the draft. I am particularly indebted to Claudio Radaelli for his invaluable support in revising the manuscript. I also wish to thank the editors of WEP, and two anonymous referees who kindly reviewed the earlier version of this manuscript and provided extremely helpful and attentive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by a Fellowship Grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC – ES/S011005/1).

Notes

1 Over the last 20 years, the ‘knowledge economy’ has become a powerful notion used very broadly to define processes, ideas, and outputs based on the production, distribution, and use of knowledge and information (OECD 1996). By contrast, the concept of ‘Europe of Knowledge’ possesses a more supranational connotation which refers to the goal of building a European education area, with the Europe of Knowledge considered as “the basis for a knowledge-based economy (or society)” (Chou and Gornitzka 2014: 8). In this respect, the paper uses the two terms interchangeably, as also reflected in the European documents and discourse. I thank the anonymous reviewer who called my attention on this distinction.

2 According to Zahariadis (2008) ambiguity is a key property of the policy process and it is elaborated under three dimensions: participants having unclear goals; fluid participation in multiple venues; opaque organizational technology (Zahariadis 2008: 517). In his perspective, ambiguity is stretched to be a component of the decision-making process in order to explain how policy choices are made under conditions of uncertainty and complexity. By contrast, this article refers to the ‘ideational’ dimension of ambiguity, hence taking the concept beyond the domain of organizations and decision-making.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marina Cino Pagliarello

Marina Cino Pagliarello is Associate Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, University College London (UCL). Her research focuses on European integration, education policy, populism, citizenship, and on the role of political and economic actors in framing public policies. She has recently published her research in Comparative Education and in the Journal of Contemporary European Research. [[email protected]]