Making the case for policy – persuasiveness in higher education, science and technology policy discourse

ABSTRACT

Policy texts present problems, propose solutions to those problems and persuade multiple audiences of the legitimacy of the proposed problems and solutions. The rhetorical analysis of two decades of higher education and science and technology discourse in Finland, Germany, UK, Portugal and USA highlights the discursive elements that contribute to persuasiveness of policy, construe it as rational and logical, and create a sense of urgency in bringing it about. I argue that the analytical and hortatory registers of policy discourse foreground competitive and hierarchical relations of countries and their higher education systems. By construing certain state of affairs and courses of action as self-evidently desirable and true, they contribute to the emergence and reproduction of the neoliberal political rationality proposed by the Foucauldian governmentality theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy discourse
• persuasiveness
• higher education policy
• science and technology policy
• governmentality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Terhi Nokkala is a Senior Researcher at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research (FIER), University of Jyväskylä. Her research focuses on the interplay between higher education policy, technological developments, organizational parameters and networks, and individual experiences in various aspects of higher education, with specific interest in internationalization, research collaboration, academic careers and university autonomy.

Notes

1. I use the concept of semiotic instance to distinguish the ‘meaning-making, -carrying and –interpreting’ elements of policy from the notion of policies as implemented or internalized practices.

2. The full list is presented in Nokkala, forthcoming; here I have listed only the ones explicitly quoted in the text.

3. These are mainly textual elements, but can also be numerical or for example, visual. I have paid attention to numerical representation in the form of statistics but not to the visual elements, for example, images.

4. The general and national stories about Knowledge Society and higher education have been reported in Nokkala, forthcoming.

5. I am aware of the Thatcherian connotation here, see also Fairclough (2000, viii).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 139098] and the European Science Foundation [grant number 08-EuroHESC-FP-006].