Education policy and reform in Paraguay: From shadow state to neoliberal bureaucracy

• In Event: Education Reforms in Latin America: conditions for emergency, discourses, and actors in contemporary governance transformations

Proposal

Studies of contemporary education reform in Latin America have drawn attention to the ways in which non-state actors increasingly participate in education policymaking—i.e., what Ball (2012) calls ‘privatization through policymaking’—(Edwards et al., 2020, 2022; Moschetti et al. 2020). Some others have also explored the shift towards ‘network governance’ (Ball, 2009; Klijin & Koppenjan, 2012), wherein non-state actors not only seek to insert themselves in the processes of policymaking, but also seek to reshape the nature of those processes, often in ways that blur the distinction between the public and the private (Tarlau & Moeller, 2020; Montecinos et al., 2020; Caravaca et al., 2021).
Drawing on the much understudied case of Paraguay, we analyze private involvement in education policymaking and implementation in recent years, with a special focus on identifying (a) the transformations that such processes have produced on the state, and (b) the dynamics and forces by means of which such transformations are legitimized and perpetuated. We look at these phenomena from two complementary perspectives novel to the field of Comparative and International Education: William Reno’s (2000) conceptualization of the ‘shadow state’ and Béatrice Hibou’s (2015) notion of ‘neoliberal bureaucratization’ (Hibou, 2015). Data for our insights come from in-depth interviews conducted in Paraguay in 2022 with 47 policymakers and other education stakeholders, including government officials (14), civil society organizations (8), teacher unions (3), international organizations (3), research institutions (7), and school principals and teachers (12).
Our results show how recent policy developments and organizational transformations in the Ministry of Education (MINED) after President Fernando Lugo’s ousting in 2012 have granted private actors formal and privileged access to education planning and policymaking. This has been particularly the case with the creation of the so-called Fund for Excellence in Education and Research (FEEI)—a fund created after the renegotiation of the Itaipú dam treaty with Brazil. This fund is controlled by an Executive Board composed of non-state and state representatives, and is independent of the MINED. Importantly, the fund represents the primary source of investment and innovation in education, that is, beyond recurrent expenditures which remain under the MINED’s oversight. The paper shows how the emergence and influence of FEEI was possible, first, due to the legitimating force exerted by the media and other influential non-state actors—from the business sector—in the context of political turmoil following Lugo’s removal. Second, the paper reveals how the phenomenon of neoliberal bureaucratization has infiltrated the MINED through processes required by the FEEI for approving, implementing, and evaluating its projects. Neoliberal bureaucratization is best depicted by the configuration and functioning of the Project Implementation Unit in charge of the FEEI-funded projects. This unit is formally located within the MINED but represents a hybrid structure under the influence of the FEEI’s Executive Board, and thus is perceived as an alien structure from the perspective of MINED officials. The paper concludes with a discussion of the paths through which the shadow state has become formalized and has facilitated the emergence of neoliberal bureaucratization.

Authors

• Edgar Quilabert, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Mauro C Moschetti, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• D. Brent Edwards, University of Hawaii

• Alejandro Caravaca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Patricia Grillet, University of Hawaii