Re-conceptualising the paradox in policy implementation: a post-modernist conceptual approach

Abstract

A review of education policy and practice indicates a paradox in policy implementation. Policy outcomes most often differ significantly from intended purposes and provisions enacted. This paper re-conceptualises this policy phenomenon, drawing on the post-modernist conception of policy as both ‘text’ and ‘discourse’ as an approach for understanding and unmasking the messiness and contested nature of education policy processes. The choice of approach is based on three factors. First, the choice is grounded in its efficacy in explicating and legitimatising the issues of power within the policy arena. Second, the choice is based on the potential of the approach in integrating social and political theories of discourse with more linguistically oriented approaches to the study of policy. Third, the preference of approach follows from its potential to draw on language as a resource for reading into and/or analysing complex social issues.

Keywords:

• policy paradox
• change management
• post-modern
• policy as ‘text’ and ‘discourse’

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for awarding me the research fellowship award for the dissemination of my PhD research from which this paper emanated. I am also thankful to Professor Donald Christie for being my mentor and a critical friend.

Notes

1. What in the context of this paper is described as ‘the policy implementation paradox’ arguably has two facets. In a sense, the phenomenon implies policy is not implemented as policy makers expect. In a different and much broader sense, the label explicates the view that policy information is not used by different policy actors to achieve policy intentions and/or aims. While both of these views have been major themes for fundamental discussions within policy studies over a considerable period of time, for the purposes of this paper, the focus is on exploring the perspectives advanced in the policy literature to explain the apparent disjuncture between policy intentions and purpose in theory and outcomes in practice.

2. The distinction between policy as ‘text’ and ‘discourse’ is implied here and elsewhere in the paper as if they are different positions. This is not so in the literature. In fact, Ball (1994), Corbitt (1997), Trowler (1998), Rist (2000), Walford (2000), Fontana (2002), and Olssen et al. (2004) have brought these together, as have others.

3. It needs to be acknowledged that the argument (about policy as discourse) is portrayed rather narrowly here to seem or look as if policy merely produces discourses and is not itself a product of discourse. This in fact is an oversimplification of the conception. Taking the discourse on/of ‘policy of targets’ in education as an example, proponents of the conception of policy as ‘text’ and ‘discourse’ would argue that this emerged out of wider discourses about standards and school improvement which are themselves derivations of discourses mobilized out of research literature on school effectiveness and improvement appropriated in a highly selective manner to serve particular political interests.

4. Again, see Note 3 for a grounded and much broader illustration of the conception of policy as ‘discourse’.

5. It is worth adding that not only are language and power foregrounded from the perspective of policy as both ‘text’ and ‘discourse’; equally important, the conception points to the significance of context(s) and how discourses are produced out of particular historical and material contexts. (See, for example, Fairclough, 2001b,2001c,2003; Lauder, Brown, & Halsey, 2004; Lingard, Rawolle, & Taylor, 2005, for a detailed discussion of this equally significant argument.)

6. The strength of this paper is seen particularly in its ability to draw on and/or conceptualise perspectives from disjointed policy sources to explain and/or unravel the paradox in policy implementation. Having said that, it needs to be acknowledged however that its key argument is not particularly new as it is the basis of the new policy sociology which has been around in education for some time now. It also needs to be acknowledged that poststructuralist accounts of policy as ‘text’ and ‘discourse’ using Foucault has now moved into considerations of how Bourdieu and, in particular, feminist approaches can be used. While this does not negate the value of Foucault, and in fact the ideas contained in this paper, it does suggest the need for the literature on this new policy sociology to be acknowledged. (See, for example, Ladwig, 1994; Taylor, Rizvi, Lingard, & Henry, 1997; Bacchi, 1999; Henry, Lingard, Rizvi, & Taylor, 2001; Lauder et al., 2004; Lingard et al., 2005, for detailed accounts about how the field has moved.)