Externalisations in the Portuguese Parliament and Print Media: A complexity approach to education policymaking processes

• In Event: Rethinking Educational Policy Diffusion, Borrowing and Transfer

Proposal

This paper presents a meta-analysis of the findings of three earlier inter-related publications analysing the complex dynamics emerging from the interactions between global, national, and local actors in policymaking processes in Portugal. It aligns with the stance of earlier research which recognize the importance of local features and societal conditions, and that at the national and local levels global trends are received, interpreted, and used in very diverse ways (e.g., Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). Bearing this integration of international elements in local policy processes in mind, this paper analyses how externalisations (Schriewer, 1990), or in other words, references to international organisations (such as the OECD), their tools of assessment and guidance (such as PISA), and practices of other countries are used in discussions of education in Portugal.

I apply qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2014), as my analytical method, and use the complexity thinking approach (Cilliers, 1998) as my onto-epistemological background. Complexity thinking enables an examination of the interactions and dynamics between the elements of a system to understand the complexities that are manifested at the system level (Cilliers, 1998, pp. 2–3). Each of the three analyses presented in the earlier publications here analysed applied different theoretical lenses: the multiple streams approach (Kingdon, 2003), the epistemic governance framework (Alasuutari & Qadir, 2019), and thematisation theory (Saperas, 1987; Luhmann, 1996; Pissarra Esteves, 2016). These theories complement each other and share an understanding of social systems and the processes within them as complex and non-linear (Capano, 2009, p. 8).

Portugal is the context of this study (more specifically the parliamentary debates in education and the print media) for two main reasons. Firstly, a broad analysis of the uses of international references in education discussions remains scarce and was non-existent regarding the Portuguese parliamentary context. Secondly, I found it interesting that, unlike many other countries and regions already analysed in earlier research, PISA and its results were not incorporated in the education discussions until later rounds of the survey (after 2005), which led me to wonder if other international elements were used by political and social actors in education discussions, what were they, and why were they chosen. The analyses of parliament and the media complement each other, providing a more thorough understanding of the functions of externalisations in education policy discussions in Portugal.

This meta-analysis reached several intertwined conclusions:
- The selection of the international elements used in education policy discussions is influenced by several factors, which are largely context-related, as initially suggested by Schriewer (1990) in his externalisation to world situations thesis. These factors tend to emerge from the national or local socio-logic: externalisations are contingent on national and local historical paths, and the interactions and selections of political and social actors.
- The epistemic work (Alasuutari & Qadir, 2019) developed by the actors involved in policy processes leads to emerging needs for authoritative elements to strengthen their arguments and sustain appeals to the audiences’ reasoning and emotions, which may change their understandings and decisions. References to international elements bring such authoritative elements to the discussions, as these elements can be used as knowledge and evidence claims, allowing the depoliticization of the themes being discussed.
- To be useful, international elements must be considered authoritative by the audiences the speaker is addressing. Hence, political and social actors need to constantly observe their audiences and make assumptions about what they think are the major issues that need to be fixed, which entities or institutions are perceived as helping to address the relevant issue, and what the audiences understand to be desired outcomes. Externalisations to international elements are therefore important tools used by political and social actors involved in policy processes for the (de)-legitimation of policy ideas and proposals that are struggling to achieve the necessary consensus to initiate social change.
- International elements also constitute useful projection screens onto which political and social actors can project their ideas and proposals. This conclusion expands the previous literature, which identified other countries as projection screens (e.g., Waldow, 2017, 2019) by considering that any international
element could thus be used. The OECD and EU are organisations with which Portugal has maintained enduring cooperation, work as a common ground to which the country proudly belongs, and which is considered fundamental to promoting the continuity of the country’s development.
- Referencing broad and blurred international elements such as ‘OECD countries’ is helpful not only because of their historical authority, but also because they seem to allow the projection of a large diversity of policy ideas and proposals, without allowing great scope for contestation.
- In sum, externalisations to international elements are used in attempts to manage the contingency of the policy process and thus reduce the process’s complexity. However, in the Portuguese context it seems that the frequent use of the same international elements by different actors, often advocating contradictory ideas and proposals, has sustained the complexity of policymaking processes, leading to the failure of several attempts to advance comprehensive reform plans. This study therefore contributes to the understanding that processes of education policymaking are more complex than is often assumed, and that contrary to the original policymakers’ intentions, attempts to reduce this complexity can actually increase it.

This meta-analysis offers theoretical and empirical contributions to advance knowledge in the fields of comparative education and policy studies, bringing to light patterns of externalisation that unveil the complexities of both the policy process and the flows of global-national-local interrelations by investigating multiple facets of actors’ interactions beyond ‘facts, figures and stable (causal) relations’ (Teisman & Klijn, 2008, p. 288).

Author

• Iris Santos, Tampere University