The European Semester and education policy in times of ‘integrated surveillance’

• In Event: New Agendas of Global Governance of Education

Proposal

This contribution examines the modus operandi of the European Semester (ES) (i.e. an economic policy cycle that builds on the principle of ‘integrated surveillance’ of states’ budgetary and structural policies), and how it blends hard and soft law mechanisms, thereof contributing to policy coordination in education, among other policy domains, within the European Union (EU). It is part of a collaborative research aimed at expounding the development, process and practice of EU policy coordination, and their possible effects for domestic adaptations in the field of adult education and learning.

The backdrop for this collaborative research is that in the wake of the 2009 global financial crisis, policy coordination within the EU has been strengthened thanks to various complex intergovernmental policies agreed among EU institutions and its member states (Milana & Klatt, in print; Milana, Tronca & Klatt, 2018; Milana, Klatt & Tronca, 2018).

The ES is just one such policy aimed at attaining the strategic objectives set in Europe 2020 regarding employment, social inclusion, research and innovation, education, energy and climate change, but consistently with the macro-fiscal constrains set by the Union’s Stability and Growth Pact (Milana, 2016). Accordingly, all countries’ macroeconomic policies are put under yearly scrutiny and EU institutions issue Country Specific Recommendations which, as evidenced by a recent study (Stevenson, Hagger-Vaughan, Milner & Winchip, 2017), increasingly relate to general education and to skills and lifelong learning; yet are predominantly influenced by economic issues.

Nonetheless, attention to the ES by educationalists is spare (Stevenson, Milner & Winchip, 2017; Stevenson, Milner, Winchip & Hagger-Vaughan, in print), despite increasing attention by political scientists on its implications for European economic governance (Bekker, 2018; Eihmanis, 2018, Gros & Alcidi, 2015; Hauptman, 2017; Verdun & Zeitlin, 2018), social policies (Copeland & Daly, 2018; Costamagna, 2013), and the changing role of EU institutions (Cisotta, 2013; Crum, 2018), national parliaments (Hallerberg, Marzinotto & Wolff, 2018) and social partners (Sabato & Vanhercke, 2017) in multi-level governance.

The theorethical foundation for our collaborative research, and to this contibution, is that different mechanisms, instruments and tools are key for the act of governing education among other policy domains (Dill, 2000; Dill & Beerkens, 2010; Jordan et al., 2005; Kassim & Le Gales, 2010; Erkkila, 2016). But the apparatuses for multi-level governance and effective policy coordination within the EU hold some peculiarity. In fact, Europeanization points not only at the process of creating a European policy space (Lawn & Grek, 2012) but, most importantly, to an all-encompassing process of ‘domestic adaptation to European regional integration’ (Graziano & Vink, 2008, p. 7), which occurs through a ‘joint decision mode’ as much as regulatory politics (Kohler-Koch & Rittberger, 2006).

To understand the nature and the effects of policy instruments some scholars propose focusing on an array of variables affecting each stage of policy implementation (Bressers & Klok, 1987, Bruijn & Heuvelhof, 1998), hence recognizing the environment and the actors that may support or hamper effectiveness of a specific instrument. Others (Linder & Peters, 1998) point at the mutual constituency between the selection of instruments and politics, hence call for attention to the subjective meanings (symbolic, ethical, etc.) of policy instruments, and how these are interpreted and mediated through different values and perceptions of the actors involved. Finally, scholars of policy design studies (Del Rio & Howlett, 2013; Barton, Ring & Rusch, 2017) also point at existing conflicts or synergies between different policy instruments employed in the same bundle of more complex policy mixes.

We borrow from Del Rio & Howlett (2013) the concept of ‘policy mixes’ that embeds ‘horizontal’ complexity – as each mix relates to different policy instruments and actors within a level of policy-making, as well as ‘vertical’ complexity – as each mix addresses a number of policy goals, domains and/or governments. In the case of the ES, the ‘horizontal’ dimension relates to a number of instruments (e.g. Stability and Convergence Programmes, National Reforms Programs) and relationships existing between them within a single level of policy-making (e.g. European). At the same time its ‘vertical’ dimension refers to the involvement of multiple goals (economic growth, sustainable growth, etc.), policy domains (economy, labor, education, etc.) and governments (e.g. national, regional and local governments in EU’s members states).

Enabling a better understanding of the ES as a policy mix, however, we build on Lascoumes and Le Galès’ (2007) take on policy ‘instrumentation’. Accordingly, we define the concept of governance mechanism as a policy process aimed at reaching specific policy objective(s) that naturalizes these objectives and the effects it produces. Empirically, it focuses on power and interests, or the debates surrounding the creation and introduction of policy objectives, the ways they were modified, and their controversies. Moreover, we define the concept of policy instrument as the means used to reach policy outcome(s), in the sense of more or less stable frameworks that structure collective action. Finally, we define a policy tool as the micro device through which instruments concretize.

Drawing on the above heuristic model, in this contribution I examine the historical development of the ES, and how it bundles together various hard and soft governance mechanisms, policy instruments, and social actors to govern education, among other policy domains.

My data consists of a set of policy documents, reports, and other written information publically available through the official websites of the EU and its institutions.
Unfortunately, the analysis is ongoing at the time of writing this abstract, so no results are yet available, but the analysis will be finalized in time to deliver a complete paper prior to the conference.
This contribution is of relevance to the Globalization & Education SIG as it builds on knowledge in sociology, political science and education to shed lights on recent shifts in European governance and the tighter links these creates between the economy and education. It contributes also to comparative and international education as it depicts new conditionalities on education faced by European countries. In so doing, it addresses also the conference theme, though less evidently, by addressing issues of education for economic viz. social sustainability.

Author

• Marcella Milana, University of Verona