Critical Policy Studies

In order to understand how exemplary work is done in the complex urban environment of disadvantaged neighborhoods, we studied a group of 43 individuals -civil servants, professionals and active citizens -who make a difference. Various so-called 'exemplary practitioners' were found in the literature and in the neighborhoods of five cities. The working methods of exemplary practitioners show a mix and a dose of entrepreneurialism, strategic networking and empathic engagement that differ from standard bureaucracy but fit very well with what is needed in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Two striking examples illustrate these working methods.

In the current social and governance context, individual responsibility and active citizenship are promoted as democratic innovations by politicians. Citizens indeed are inclined to develop initiatives that aim to improve their living environment and social conditions. Governments however, have not found adequate manners to deal with them. Difficulties and close cooperation alternatively take precedence in the interaction. In this article, we will focus on the strategies of citizen initiatives in achieving their goals and the interaction with other (institutional) actors. This focus on strategies helps to clarify the positioning of and interaction between citizens and governmental organizations. A theoretical framework is provided that puts strategy in an action oriented understanding of an informal and transitional way of organizing a citizens" initiative in a governance context. Two cases of citizens" initiatives will be discussed. The practice of citizens" initiatives will show how strategy, informal and formal organizational aspects and trust in a governance environment are interwoven. This leads to the conclusion that citizens" initiatives deploy different strategies that reflect their internal process and that make them fluid, unpredictable, impalpable and sometimes very powerful. There is no "one size fits all" answer for them in democracy.

Globally, there is a recurring discourse that higher education systems need to transform. In South Africa, this discourse is articulated in the post-apartheid agenda of redress and equity. Before 1994, higher education was racially and linguistically segregated. Although the political change occurred, the linguistic injustice remains ingrained. Much of the transformation narrative has therefore been rhetorical, a pattern that forms the perspective against which more recent policy interventions must be read. This article analyses the 2020 Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions using Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) approach. The analysis examines how multilingualism is problematised in policy discourse and how these problem representations may enable or constrain transformative intent at the level of policy framing. The analysis shows that multilingualism is largely represented as a reparative indication of inclusivity, framed in a policy rationality focused on coordination, planning and conformity. While such a framing may enable administrative accommodation of linguistic diversity, the analysis suggests that it is unlikely, on its own, to generate deeper onto-epistemic decentring, understood here as shifts in what qualifies as acceptable knowledge, how knowledge is produced, and which languages are recognised as vehicles of theory and research.
Contribution: This article offers a critical application of Bacchi’s WPR framework to the higher education language policy framework. Through the WPR analysis, the article argues that multilingualism can function as a transformative praxis when institutions orient themselves towards knowledge production that is not only accessed through, but also conceptualised and theorised in, African languages. This argument is framed as a call for epistemic plurality, that is, the recognition of multiple linguistic and epistemic resources as constitutive of knowledge production.

This policy analysis study examines how education policy research has been framed in recent decades, and its implications for inclusive education. The study draws on Ball’s (1993) conceptualisation of policy effects, which distinguishes between first-order effects that focus on policy outcomes and evaluation, and second-order effects that address unintended consequences and foundational assumptions. Policy research focused on first-order effects takes a rationalist approach, while policy research manifested in second-order effects takes a critical approach. Rationalist approaches, which prioritise evidence and evaluation, have dominated education policy research but fail to challenge the underlying logic of policy frameworks. In contrast, critical policy analysis approaches emphasise problematisation rather than problem-solving. To illustrate this situation, this study employs Bacchi’s (2009) problematisation theory and “What’s the Problem Represented to Be” methodological approach to analyse the inclusive education policy for Malawi. The critical policy analysis asks key questions about problem representation, manifestation, and reframing. The study argues that taking a rationalist approach to analyse policy frameworks leads to constructing inclusive education as a solvable issue rather than a complex socio-political challenge. The study demonstrates how rationalist assumptions obscure deeper systemic inequities and advocates dialectical or transformative policy research approaches that centre learners, teachers, and their ecosystems. The study concludes that reorienting education policy research towards critical perspectives can help to inform and promote more equitable and inclusive education systems.

This study investigates the implementation of restorative justice practices as an alternative to punitive disciplinary actions in K-12 schools. Based on a two-year case study of implementation at a large, urban, and diverse middle school, this study examines the effect of restorative practices on school climate, disciplinary outcomes, and stakeholder relationships in schools. The data, collected through mixed methods at both the school and district levels, including disciplinary referrals (both in-school and out-of-school suspensions), climate surveys, and interviews with students, teachers, and administrators-decisively show significant improvements across several key indicators. These findings include a 47% reduction in suspensions, a 39% reduction in disciplinary referrals, and improved school connectedness indicators among both students and staff. The initial resistance and the consequent need for extensive professional development in the implementation process led to the need for continued administrative support, as well as ongoing mentoring of teachers, in order for the strategy to be successfully adopted. This study offers a framework for school leaders seeking to transform disciplinary systems while addressing implementation challenges.

This chapter presents the results of a systematic literature review related to the way that the state has been explicitly and implicitly conceived, addressed, and ignored in research on education policy in Latin America. The results are based on a review of 177 studies published in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Seven general theoretical approaches are identified in research on Latin America that focuses on education policy and employs the language of "the state." These approaches are grouped under theories of political economy, policy process, governance, institutionalism, poststructuralism, post-/decoloniality, and historical accounts. In addition to delineating the characteristics of these seven general approaches, this chapter also discusses how each approach conceptualizes the state, or does not, as well as the implications of these approaches for the kinds of action that can be taken (or not) so that "the state" or other actors can purposefully and intentionally to guide education systems towards particular ends. The purpose of this chapter is not to be exhaustive but rather to identify trends in how the state is theoretically approached and incorporated into research on education policy in Latin America.

Research on education reform in Latin America does not go far enough when it comes to considering the nature of the state. Rather than focusing on, or clarifying what is meant by, the state, many studies use this term in passing without stopping to address or reflect on its meaning. In response, this chapter, first, discusses the approaches taken by 12 studies of the relationship between the state and education policy in Latin America. These 12 studies form the basis of the book to which this chapter is the
introduction. As is shown, insights from these chapters do not only make a theoretical contribution, they also make an empirical contribution in that they shed light on (a) the contemporary challenges of modern states in Latin America, (b) the nature of modern Latin American states and how their historical foundations continue to impinge on education policy, and (c) the ways that both these challenges and foundations are being resisted and/or avoided through various initiatives within and outside the state. The second half of the chapter offers a deeper and broader consideration of the ways
that this volume builds on and extends four strands of state theory  scholarship. These strands relate to political science, sociology, neo-Marxism, and decolonial studies.

Several studies have documented the over-representation of Black students in school discipline settings dating back to the Children's Defense Fund's seminal report published in 1975. Following decades of research investigating the prevalence of school discipline disproportionality, recent studies have explored Black students' and parents' perceptions of school discipline and its impact on their lives. While existing scholarship confirms that school suspension harms Black students' achievement and contributes to incarceration, few studies have examined how exclusionary discipline extends to parents and advocates. We contribute to the literature on secondary discipline by investigating how school officials respond to families and community activists who advocate for Black children involved in the school discipline process. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a framework, we conducted qualitative interviews with seventeen Black parents and community activists who experienced retaliation for assisting Black children throughout the school discipline process. We also interviewed four Black children who experienced retaliation for their parents' advocacy efforts. Our findings reveal that secondary discipline involves a wide-ranging spectrum of punishments that include being physically escorted off school premises, being banned from school grounds, losing employment, and receiving threatening home visits. Children also reported feelings of being targeted for suspension and the emergence of barriers to graduation following their parents' or activists' advocacy efforts.

In The Policy Sciences of Harold Lasswell, Douglas Torgerson offers a timely interpretation of Harold Lasswell as a progenitor of critical policy studies and champion of radical democracy. In this essay, we consider several concepts central to Torgerson's interpretation of Lasswell, including "latent," "manifest," and "context," in order to call attention to the hermeneutic labor required to produce any image of a "stable" Lasswell. We investigate two lesser-known aspects of Lasswell's career-his teaching at the Chicago Workers School and his NBC radio program Human Nature in Action-to illustrate the degree to which Lasswell's democratic commitments often blended liberal and elitist tendencies, in sometimes uneasy fashion. We ultimately suggest that despite (or perhaps because of) Lasswell's irreducible complexities, if not inconsistencies, he remains uniquely relevant to understanding our current era in which propaganda and insecurity remain central concerns.

In a digital society, shall we be the authors of our own experience, not only during our lifetime but also after we die? We ask this question because dying and bereavement have become even harder, and much less private, in the digital age. New big data-driven digital industries and technologies are on the rise, with promises of interactive 3D avatars and storage of digital memories of the deceased, so they can continue to exist online as the ''living dead'' in a digital afterlife. Famous rock and roll icons like Roy Orbison, Frank Zappa, Ronnie James Dio, and Amy Winehouse have famously been turned into holograms that can once again give ''live'' performances on the touring circuit, often pulling in large audiences. Death studies, dying, and grief have become virtual in the 21st century. We live in truly unprecedented times for human-computer interactions. Thanatology is the scientific study of death, dying, loss, and grief. In contrast to the biological study of biological aging (cellular senescence) and programmed cell death (apoptosis), thanatology employs multiple professional lenses,

In this chapter, I map the field of linguistically informed critical studies of power and governance, identify key trends, and point to future avenues of research. Abuse of power by government officeholders is a perennial concern for critical scholars of political discourse. Discourse analysts have drawn welcome attention to the ways in which policymakers and public administrators use language strategically to manipulate or deceive citizens, create and perpetuate various forms of social inequality, and hold on to power by deflecting blame for harmful policies or failures of government. The research agenda focuses on controversial policies and events, and seeks to explain how governmental discourses shape relations of power via particular genres, such as policy documents, speeches, and social media posts.

Precision/personalized medicine is a hot topic in health care. Often presented with the motto ''the right drug, for the right patient, at the right dose, and the right time,'' precision medicine is a theory for rational therapeutics as well as practice to individualize health interventions (e.g., drugs, food, vaccines, medical devices, and exercise programs) using biomarkers. Yet, an alien visitor to planet Earth reading the contemporary textbooks on diagnostics might think precision medicine requires only two biomolecules omnipresent in the literature: nucleic acids (e.g., DNA) and proteins, known as the first and second alphabet of biology, respectively. However, the precision/personalized medicine community has tended to underappreciate the third alphabet of life, the ''sugar code'' (i.e., the information stored in glycans, glycoproteins, and glycolipids). This article brings together experts in precision/personalized medicine science, pharmacoglycomics, emerging technology governance, cultural studies, contemporary art, and responsible innovation to critically comment on the sociomateriality of the three alphabets of life together. First, the current transformation of targeted therapies with personalized glycomedicine and glycan biomarkers is examined. Next, we discuss the reasons as to why unraveling of the sugar code might have lagged behind the DNA and protein codes. While social scientists have historically noted the importance of constructivism (e.g., how people interpret technology and build their values, hopes, and expectations into emerging technologies), life scientists relied on the material properties of technologies in explaining why some innovations emerge rapidly and are more popular than others. The concept of sociomateriality integrates these two explanations by highlighting the inherent entanglement of the social and the material contributions to knowledge and what is presented to us as reality from everyday laboratory life. Hence, we present a hypothesis based on a sociomaterial conceptual lens: because materiality and synthesis of

The Circle format has been a part of the life of indigenous people for centuries "Circles" refer to a process of facilitating dialogue The Circle symbolizes unity, cooperation, & equality Circles provide a space that allows for all voices to be heard, valued, and respected Circles provide students an opportunity to develop, practice, and enhance prosocial skills, such as active listening, empathy, problem-solving, and decision-making skills Circles provide students an opportunity to engage in restorative conversations when harm has happened-the goal is for the students to work together to repair the harm and to discover solutions to the conflict/problem Circles are difficult to "define" because they are truly a process unique to the way in which they are being utilized; ultimately, people participating in the Circle develop better relationships with others, learn with others, and actively work to better understand others

Process-oriented approaches increasingly gain attention within policy and administrative studies. A process orientation emphasizes the ongoing, dynamic character of policy phenomena, i.e. their becoming. This article reflects upon the methodological particularities and challenges that come with doing process-oriented research. To do so, it draws on experiences with a concrete process study on stakeholders' relating dynamics within a collaborative policymaking process. This article identifies three methodological particularities: (1) the ongoing amplification of realities, (2) the shifting of positionalities of both researchers and participants, through time and across contexts, and (3) the emergence of historical-aware reflexivity. While each of these are common issues in qualitative-interpretive research, we argue how the longitudinal and poly-contextual orientation of a process study amplifies their impact on the research process and poses specific challenges. We conclude that to effectively deal with these particularities and challenges a process researcher benefits from developing and establishing good field relations, as well as from the courage to come to 'temporary' closure(s), against the background of the continuously becoming of the phenomenon under study.

This chapter considers scholarly research on the constellation of actors and movements situated on the right wing of the political spectrum and the strategies, tactics, and narratives they engage in to obstruct climate action. It begins by clarifying conceptual and empirical boundaries around the related terms “conservative,” “neoliberal,” “right-wing,” and “far right,” and then briefly traces the history of these concepts. The chapter then analyzes climate obstruction by the neoliberal and conservative right followed by that of the revolutionary and authoritarian far right. Next, it examines right-wing obstruction in various segments of civil society including think tanks, foundations, conservation organizations, religious groups, and the global Atlas Network, an umbrella group providing an arena for right-wing organizations to unite around common values and projects including climate obstruction. The chapter emphasizes both the multiplicity and interdependencies of conservative reform and the reactionary forces delaying and blocking climate policy and concludes with a call for further research.

Professorships are hard to achieve in most countries for both men and women due to a scarcity of permanent positions in academia . Becoming a professor means entering the academic sphere and then competing for funding and positions to stay in often-precarious job situations for many years. What facilitates and/or hinders researchers' trajectories toward professorships? In this chapter we investigate how men and women professors in Norway and Japan account for their career trajectories with an emphasis on what has helped them persevere and manage to stay in academia. The aim is to contribute insights on what are important inclusion factors and whether, and if so, in what ways, these are gendered and contextual in becoming a professor in Norway and Japan. Whereas increasing numbers of women are entering universities, the proportion of women in full professor positions has remained disproportionately low in most countries, including Norway and Japan. In Norway, women constitute 34% (Tungesvik, 2021) of all full professorships and, in Japan, only 10% (Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office, 2015, p. 87). Clearly, academic careers do not unfold in identical manners across national contexts, and individuals are not independent from local, institutional and national contexts . Thus, it is interesting to explore factors that are emphasised by men and women professors as important for becoming professors in two contexts as different as Norway and Japan. Since there are clearly many potential factors playing in, our study is predominantly an explorative one where we ask: What do men and women professors consider the most important factors for entering and managing their career in academia? We shall start by consulting literature on what has been found to be important for entering and sustaining careers in academia. A substantial part of this literature is from a Western context. However, we shall also outline the main features of the national contexts for Norway and Japan for making an academic career. Then we present our analysis of the empirical

With an emphasis on the adaptation and mediation of Buddhist meditation within Western societies, this study explores the transformative interaction of traditional contemplative practices and modern technologies. By means of an extensive ethnographic investigation carried out in multiple European locations, this study sheds light on the significant influence that digital devices-specifically, smartphone applications-have on the accessibility, practice, and conception of meditation. These digital tools become guides that not only democratize access to meditation but also fundamentally change its nature, making it more individualized, commodified, and integrated into the field of self-care and therapeutic modalities from a deeply philosophical and communal practice. This inquiry critically looks at the two outcomes of this shift: the good that meditation is now more widely available and the bad that it is losing its conventional discipline and philosophical profundity. This paper raises concerns about the integrity of spiritual practices in the digital age and their evolution under the influence of Western epistemologies by arguing that the digital facilitation of meditation practices parallels broader societal tendencies towards personalization and digitization.

Gender mainstreaming is the process of integrating and disseminating a gender equality perspective in all mainstream policies, plans, and programs at all levels. Its distinguishing feature is transforming mainstream policies, not simply integrating women into existing policies or structures. The gender mainstreaming entered the unions' agenda with the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997; after that, it was considered an organizational strategy in a significant number of Western unions. This study aims to understand how gender mainstreaming is implemented in global union federations and whether these practices have a transformative impact on their structures and policies or remain merely at a symbolic level. The main hypothesis of this study is that presenting gender politics as a “showcase” in trade unions, instrumentalizing it, or perceiving it simply as a technocratic process risks losing its transformative and political character. This study argues that the proper mainstreaming of gender equality policies will transform the mainstream policies of unions and make it easier to see inequalities due to power relations. At the same time, this highlights the fact that trade unions, especially, have an essential role in gender mainstreaming. This is an indispensable policy if they wish to transform.

Purpose: Although California school discipline policy changes over the past decade have resulted in significant drops in suspension rates, scholars have found that racial disproportionality in punitive discipline persists for Black, Indigenous, and at times Latinx students. This study utilizes racial capitalism as an analytical framework to examine the mechanisms and justifications for racially disproportionate discipline across three distinct California political economies. Research Methods/Approach: Drawing on a subset of qualitative comparative case study data of five schools taken from a larger 5-year study of 31 schools in 17 California districts with distinct racial and economic composition, we investigate

As we draw closer to the end of 2025, we are marking the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. This is an age of great expectations from science and healthcare innovation as well as polycrisis in world affairs.

For equitable science and healthcare, we need a departure from technocracy and narrow technocratic models and mindsets to account for the political determinants, the causes-of-causes, of planetary health—the elephants in the room that we need to face for an incisive, just, and robust art of critique in the second quarter of the 21st century.

📌 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15578100251379395

Critical policy mobility research has transformed the field of policy
transfer and diffusion studies. Scholars from critical epistemological
traditions in different disciplines such as geography, sociology,
political economy and public policy have examined the politics of
policy transfer for more than a decade. Apart from challenging the
affirmative normative assumptions underlying traditional policy
transfer research (“policy learning”), scholars have taken a wide
variety of policy actors and agencies into account, considered
South-South and South-North policy circulation and recognized
the relevance of policy mutation and failure. While transnational
actors involved in policy mobility and issues of global governance
have moved higher on the agenda in the recent past, opposition
forces and resistance to policy mobility organized across borders
remain on the margins. A new focus on opposition “strategy mobility”
is required to address actors and agencies that aim to roll back
past policy mobility processes, or to prevent new efforts to promote
policy transfers. Examples from diverse and highly contested policy
areas like gender, climate mitigation and public health serve to
illustrate the innovative potential of a new focus on strategy mobility
to enhance the understanding of the contested character of
policy mobility, and to yield a new perspective of global policy
conflict studies.

This study seeks to illuminate how markets and private sector managerial practices, especially strategic performance measurement systems (SPMS) have come to be a central part of the government of the local domain and with what effects, following far-reaching reforms to the New Zealand public sector commencing in the mid 1980s. The study uses Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality to interpret the way people are governed through regimes of practice that present certain ways of being as true and others as false, utilising traditional devices of sovereignty and discipline, as well as technologies of the self. Parliamentary bills to reform New Zealand local government were analysed as was the literature on local government reform. These illuminated the rationalities and technologies underpinning the reforms. Literature on strategic planning and management in the public sector were analysed to provide insights into the discursive formation of SPMS as a technology of government. The researcher also interviewed the city manager, managers of all the units, some non-managerial staff, The Mayor and one councillor of Future City CounciP (FCC), a New Zealand local authority. He also collected and analysed numerous internal documents from the case study. The analysis involved a transcription of all interviews and then identification of common themes from among the interviewees. The individual interviewee's response to a theme were analysed against that of other interviewees and the internal documents so as compare their interpretation of the introduction and effects of markets and SPMS. The results of this analysis were then interpreted employing the concept of governmentality. The aim was to establish the extent to which this concept could explain the changes to local government and their effects.

Britain is needed to meet biodiversity and climate targets. Britain is needed to meet biodiversity and climate targets. Today's fossil fuel intensive and ecologically simplified farming systems are environmentally and socially unsustainable. To meet Britain's commitments under COP21 to keep global heating below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the country must pivot towards ecologically beneficial ways of farming. Britain is also committed to reversing species decline, much of which is caused by conventional agriculture. This requires a transition towards agroecological systems that combine nature regeneration with food production. Public-common partnerships are a suitable institutional form to build food sovereignty in Britain. form to build food sovereignty in Britain. Public-common partnerships -an organizational form that facilitates democratic control over food systems from farm to fork -offer a way to transition towards agroecological food sovereignty. PCPs insulate food provisioning from the vagaries of private finance, land markets, and expensive off-farm inputs that make good quality food unaffordable for low-income households, and which subject Britain's farmworkers to the undemocratic whims of larger corporations up and downstream from them including manufacturers of many off-farm inputs and supermarkets. England's council farm estate provides an already existing institutional form through which to implement PCPs. Unfortunately, however, many cashstrapped local authorities have taken to selling their council farm holdings to fill budgetary deficits for essential public services. This report argues that this is a political choice and that local authorities can and should instead work with local community groups and growers to reimagine England's council farm estate as incubators for an agroecological transition in Britain. Agroecological food sovereignty, implemented through Agroecological food sovereignty, implemented through PCPs, provides numerous social and ecological benefits. PCPs, provides numerous social and ecological benefits. Governing England's council farms as PCPs, in accordance with the principles of agroecological food sovereignty, delivers several key benefits including: nutritious locally produced food, increased biodiversity, employment and training opportunities, ecological goods that can contribute to the green targets of local authorities, and a deepening of community and democratic control.

This paper explores the imaginary of different actors in Paraguay regarding agroecology and whether they contain any similarities. This study used an exploratory, hermeneutic phenomenological approach as its interpretative framework and focused on six key actors: the central government, subgovernmental entities, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), farmers’ associations, and academia. The analysis revealed that there are some similarities of imaginaries regarding agroecology’s role as a holistic, integral paradigm that contributes to the sustainability and resilience of the ecosystem, with it being perceived as a practice aimed at small producers with defined niches. The lack of political or state support for small production systems was also evident. Production costs (high for some, low for others) and market niches were mentioned as controversial issues. The results show that the different actors’ imaginaries are not so divergent as to disrupt agroecological ...

The redesign of educational quasi-market instruments has been gaining traction in response to the negative equity impacts of these policies, with various educational systems introducing adjustments in the design of school-choice schemes and subsidies for private schools. However, the capacity of such policy calibrations to address inequalities remains open to question. This paper develops an analytical framework to understand the effects of redesign initiatives and inform policy action. Drawing on a mechanism-based approach to policy design, we propose and apply a theoretically-driven framework situating the causality between policy problems, instrument design and outcomes at the centre of the analysis. Examining the recent wave of redesign reforms, the paper demonstrates that the equity-enhancing potential of calibrations can be assessed based on their capacity to disrupt the mechanisms connecting quasi-market instruments with educational inequalities. It also finds that some mechanisms prove particularly challenging to affect, inviting reflection on the limits of redesign.

This study examines the one villageone product public policy process by comparing Thailand's OTOP scheme and Japan's OVOP scheme. The specific objectives of this study are 1) to examine the policy process on the OVOP of Japan and OTOP of Thailand and 2) to explore lessons learn for OVOP practices in Myanmar by comparing the OVOP scheme and OTOP scheme. This study conducted the comparative analysis with a backbone of the public process: problem identification, policy formulation, and policy implementation for one village, one product (OVOP) , and one tampon, one product (OTOP). The three diagnosis models analyzed these three phases of the public policy process for each respective stage. Multiple streams such as the iron triangle, and top-down, bottom-up approach models exist. This study adopted documentary analysis techniques such as comparative contextual, and thematic analysis as major research methods. The system extracts the required data and information form relevant textbooks, academic articles periodical journals, and websites. The first findings of this comparative analysis indicate that the 1997 financial crisis was a significant problem for OTOP, while the economic stagnation of Oita Prefecture was a major factor in the agenda-setting of OVOP. In the policy formulation process, Thailand established OTOP by the iron triangle because Thaksin and the TRT party won the election and took the major role in coordinating the iron triangle mechanism. On one side, OVOP is advocated solely by Hiramatsu and is not aligned with an iron triangle. OTOP used the Top-down policy implementation approach, and OVOP used bottom-up approach for policy implementation. According to the result of the comparative analysis, Myanmar can learn lessons from its One village, one product scheme initiatives for forthcomings.

This study examines the one villageone product public policy process by comparing Thailand's OTOP scheme and Japan's OVOP scheme. The specific objectives of this study are 1) to examine the policy process on the OVOP of Japan and OTOP of Thailand and 2) to explore lessons learn for OVOP practices in Myanmar by comparing the OVOP scheme and OTOP scheme. This study conducted the comparative analysis with a backbone of the public process: problem identification, policy formulation, and policy implementation for one village, one product (OVOP) , and one tampon, one product (OTOP). The three diagnosis models analyzed these three phases of the public policy process for each respective stage. Multiple streams such as the iron triangle, and top-down, bottom-up approach models exist. This study adopted documentary analysis techniques such as comparative contextual, and thematic analysis as major research methods. The system extracts the required data and information form relevant textbooks, academic articles periodical journals, and websites. The first findings of this comparative analysis indicate that the 1997 financial crisis was a significant problem for OTOP, while the economic stagnation of Oita Prefecture was a major factor in the agenda-setting of OVOP. In the policy formulation process, Thailand established OTOP by the iron triangle because Thaksin and the TRT party won the election and took the major role in coordinating the iron triangle mechanism. On one side, OVOP is advocated solely by Hiramatsu and is not aligned with an iron triangle. OTOP used the Top-down policy implementation approach, and OVOP used bottom-up approach for policy implementation. According to the result of the comparative analysis, Myanmar can learn lessons from its One village, one product scheme initiatives for forthcomings.

In 2022, the Spanish saltwater lagoon Mar Menor became the first ecosystem in Europe to be granted rights of nature. I understand this granting of legal personhood as one solution to the decades-long environmental pollution of the Mar Menor. To grasp the historical conditions under which this solution emerged, I develop an analytical framework based on the concepts of problematization, problem, and apparatus. The analysis seeks to show how subjective rights for the Mar Menor became possible through historical problematizations, problem work through social campaigns and material effects of the lagoon. The associated thesis is that the formation of the problem itself simultaneously opens up and limits the possibilities of how rights of nature operate.

Disertacni prace se zabýva vztahem mezi spiritualitou a postoji ke smrti. V ramci výzkumu jsem se rozhodla nejen podrobněji prozkoumat vztah mezi spiritualitou a postoji ke smrti, ale i vliv vybraných sociodemografických faktorů (věk, pohlavi, věřici ano/ne, přislusnost k cirkvi ano/ne, partnerský vztah ano/ne, děti ano/ne) a osobnosti měřene pomoci pětifaktoroveho modelu na dane fenomeny. K měřeni spirituality byl použit dotaznik ESI-R. Postoje ke smrti byly měřeny pomoci dotazniku DAP-R. Výzkumu, který byl realizovan na ceske dospěle populaci, se zucastnilo 300 respondentů. Skala strach ze smrti statisticky významně negativně koreluje teměř se vsemi skalami dotazniku ESI-R. Lide, kteři se považuji za spiritualni, proživaji nižsi miru strachu ze smrti. Skala vstřicneho přijeti smrti statisticky významně pozitivně koreluje se vsemi skalami dotazniku ESI-R, nejsilnějsi korelace byly zjistěny u skal kognitivni orientace na spiritualitu (r = 0,59) a religiozita (r = 0,80). Naboženske p...

This dissertation scrutinizes the post-structuralist Essex School of Discourse Theory in the ideology-critical analysis of politics of education and Finnish education policies. In educational research, there is a notable shift of the turning away from theories of ideology and its categories. The use of ideology and hegemony as concepts is also marginal in education policy studies and policy sociology. However, ideologies will not disappear if we turn away from them; the workings of ideology will then remain on an implicit, tacit level in educational institutions and practices. In fact, one of the principal characteristics of ideology is precisely the naturalisation,
decontestation, and normalisation of certain meaning, norm, culture, and order instead of any other alternative.

This dissertation argues that it is indispensable that we theorise the ideological and use concepts of theories of ideology in educational research to grasp these issues. In this undertaking, it will apply the Discourse Theoretic framework and conceptual toolkit in the analyses of empirical case studies and further develop frameworks of ideology-critique while also exploring the advantages, but also some limitations of this framework in educational research.

The dissertation consists of four case studies published as research articles and the integrative chapter summarising and expanding the investigations of the articles. The case studies include: I a cross-section of the education reforms of the Sipilä Government and a comprehensive review of their ideological tenets, II an investigation of inclusion ideology in the Finnish National Curricula, III an analysis of Finnish higher education reforms from the perspective of university workplace ethnography, and IV an investigation into the governance of higher education and science policy futures through the Vision Development for Research and Science 2030 -reform.

The main contribution of this dissertation is the reactivation of the concepts of ideology, ideological and hegemony in educational research and contemporary contexts. These concepts have an explanatory relevance especially when approached from the perspective of Discourse Theory, since they make it possible to explore the explicit normative surface of hegemonic discourse and political ideologies as well as their implicit affective persuasion, the power to speak to one’s desire, which is the
ideological.

This dissertation critically examines the Finnish education policy reforms of the 2000–2010s, enhances the understanding of the ideological features of education, and opens up political value choices to public debate. Furthermore, it contributes to the discussions on ontological, temporal and affective turns in education policy studies and proposes a (re)turn to the ideological in education research in general.

Keywords: Education policy, politics of education, educational theory, Essex school of Discourse Theory, ideology, critical policy studies, policy sociology, social and political theory, theoretical and methodological development

Open access: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-3662-2

Charter schools were originally envisioned as laboratories of innovation, but we have scant empirical evidence of how charter policies and ideas have spread beyond charter walls into the wider educational landscape. The diffusion of knowledge reflects networks of power, and tracing diffusion can unearth the discursive and power dynamics at play. Using a systematic search of publicly-available documents, this study investigated the geographic diffusion of one Charter Management Organization (CMO)-Uncommon Schools-as a case of charter discursive diffusion. Grounded in Critical Policy Analysis (CPA), we found that artifacts were located disproportionately in higher poverty zip codes housing lower percentages of non-Hispanic white people. We argue that our findings reveal how the diffusion of charter school discourse constructs a specific type of education that targets socioeconomically disadvantaged students of Color. Further, this discourse imagines policies that reaffirm inequalities and the production of unjust geographies.

This forum contribution discusses the increasing trend toward academic capitalism and profit-oriented entrepreneurial practices in the fields of education and research. This occurs as universities, in different ways and subject to greater or lesser financial, administrative, and ideological pressures, act less like centers of disinterested education and research and more like economic enterprises that aim to maximize their revenues and/or advance the economic competitiveness of the spaces in which they operate. This development has become more global thanks to intensifying competition among relevant institutions (reflected, inter alia, in international accreditation for teaching and international rankings for research), intensified competition between the wider economic and political spaces in which they are embedded, and the 'me-too-ism' that leads social actors to jump on the latest bandwagon. I also consider the expansion of predatory academic capitalism and, because this is the least familiar type, I use my limited space to illustrate this rather than the more widely discussed examples of academic capitalism and entrepreneurialism (further examples of all case are presented in Jessop 2017).

Employing a realist ontology of discourse, this theoretical paper aims to
clarify some assumptions that form the theoretical backdrop of the
authorised heritage discourse (AHD) that remain under-theorised, parti
cularly its philosophical under-labouring that draws on critical realism (CR)
and critical discourse analysis (CDA). The review conducted for this paper
on studies utilising the concept of the AHD demonstrated that despite the
efforts to examine the ‘extra-discursive’, the emphasis placed on this
concept has resulted in various forms of reductionism. This uncritical use
often blurs our understanding regarding the processes underlying the
reception, contestation, appropriation, hybridisation and domination of
the AHD in different regional settings. The paper advocates for the need
to recontextualise the AHD within a dialectical-relational approach that
would flesh out the agency of non-semiotic entities (e.g. actors and
organisations) in conservation planning and overcome limitations that
arise from nominalisation and presuppositions. Such an approach would
enhance the explanatory scope of the AHD by making more robust
arguments on how heritage practices are crafted, retained and contested.

Campus climate assessment has been an important strategy for improving students’ racialized experiences and racial equity in higher education. But when these assessments lack critical interventions in structural racism, they are easily co-opted to keep white students and faculty centered while exacerbating racial harm. This article responds to the timely question about the role/efficacy of campus climate assessments given the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious admissions and subsequent backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and efforts.
Drawing on University of North Carolina (UNC) data that informed this litigation, the author (an expert witness) demonstrates how a holistic view of campus climate health reflective of structural competency can be achieved with existing climate data sources, when accounting for missing areas
of inquiry identified by student intervenors representing UNC and higher education race scholars.

This forum contribution discusses the increasing trend toward academic capitalism and profit-oriented entrepreneurial practices in the fields of education and research. This occurs as universities, in different ways and subject to greater or lesser financial, administrative, and ideological pressures, act less like centers of disinterested education and research and more like economic enterprises that aim to maximize their revenues and/or advance the economic competitiveness of the spaces in which they operate. This development has become more global thanks to intensifying competition among relevant institutions (reflected, inter alia, in international accreditation for teaching and international rankings for research), intensified competition between the wider economic and political spaces in which they are embedded, and the 'me-too-ism' that leads social actors to jump on the latest bandwagon. I also consider the expansion of predatory academic capitalism and, because this is the least familiar type, I use my limited space to illustrate this rather than the more widely discussed examples of academic capitalism and entrepreneurialism (further examples of all case are presented in Jessop 2017).

In Canada and other western nations there has been an unprecedented expansion of criminal justice systems and a well documented increase of contact between people with mental illness and the police. Canadian police, especially in Vancouver, British Columbia, have been increasingly at the forefront of discourse and regulation specific to mental health. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, this paper explores this claim through a case study of four Vancouver Police Department (VPD) policy reports on "Vancouver's mental health crisis" from 2008-2013, which include recommendations for action. Analyzed is the VPD's role in framing issues of mental health in one urban space. This study is the first analysis to critically examine the VPD reports on mental health in Vancouver, B.C. The reports reproduce negative discourses about deinstitutionalization, mental illness and dangerousness that may contribute to further stigma and discrimination of persons with mental illness. Policing reports are widely drawn upon, thus critical analyses are particularly significant for policy makers and public health professionals in and outside of Canada.

Echoing US President Eisenhower's warning about the rise of a 'military-industrial complex' over 60 years ago, President Biden's farewell address in January 2025 did something similar, stating: "Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, the freedoms and the fair shot for everyone to get ahead". Cautioning against the concentration of wealth and concomitant political influence it brings, Biden's words can be seen as the most visible statement of the growing concern with the implications of an increasingly powerful and power-focused elite. This elite is defined not just by its wealth which has reached astonishing levels but also by the source of this wealth, namely the outputs of science, technology, and innovation. Primarily centred on digital and now algorithmic technoscience, this oligarchy has been described by Julie Cohen (2024) and others as a specifically 'tech oligarchy', marrying together wealth and technology in ways that threaten our collective futures as this oligarchy flexes its political muscles.

Border in and of itself is a wall: The US-Mexico border Prelude: Sitting near the fence at the US-Mexico border, Kafi was waiting with his wife and two kids to cross. With the panopticon of US border guards all around him, he looks at the dreamland wall, picks up his two kids, takes one step forward, gets captured and asked to go back. He was helpless and sapped over the course of a day of COVID-19 on the rampage near the US-Mexico