| 1. |
- Baek, Chanwoong, et al.
(author)
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"Silent borrowing" and beyond : A comparative analysis of reference societies in Norwegian and Swedish school reform
- 2023
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In: Presented at NERA Conference 2023 15. – 17. March Oslo.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In comparative education, scholars have long tried to understand why and when policy actors make international references. They have found that policy actors often externalize when they need to form alliances or seek for greater legitimacy and that the actual practice is shaped by national political contexts and the institutionalized policy process in each country (Steiner‐Khamsi, 2004). In particular, each country has its own “reference societies” where they borrow policies and practices from or refer to positively and negatively in the policy process (Bendix, 1978).In the Nordic region, it has been perceived that each Nordic country serves as reference society of each other within the region. This perception may have been based on the rich communication and cooperation among the Nordic countries in education. Despite the common perception, little has been empirically examined regarding to what extent policy actors actually make reference to other Nordic countries and why (not). This study looks into the references in the policy documents prepared for the most recent education reforms in two Nordic countries: Norway and Sweden. They are particularly interesting cases to compare because of the similarities with regard to their institutionalized policymaking process as well as geographical and cultural proximity.We examined the bibliographic references in the white papers and green papers (NOUs and SOUs) prepared for the 2016/2020 renewal of the Knowledge Promotion Reform in Norway and the 2015/2018 Knowledge Achievement Reform in Sweden. In total, our sample includes 19 policy documents and 4,260 references. Additionally, we interviewed ten policy experts who participated in the preparation of the policy documents analyzed in this study.The results show that while Norway drew extensively on knowledge from its neighbors, especially from Sweden, Sweden seldom referenced knowledge produced in other Nordic countries. Policy actors in Norway described that using knowledge produced in other Nordic countries is “quite natural” in the policy process while policy actors in Sweden shared that there has been little formal exchange with these countries in the policy process. Building on the concept of “silent borrowing” coined by Waldow (2009), we interpret the difference in the way Norway and Sweden use knowledge produced in their Nordic neighbors within the broader framework on which bodies of knowledge have greater accessibility or legitimacy (Nordin & Wahlström, 2022). Furthermore, we find that the difference was influenced by reform contexts (e.g., timing of the competency-based curriculum adoption) as well as the membership composition of expert commissions (e.g., larger commission vs. one-person commission).
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| 2. |
- Baek, Chanwoong, et al.
(author)
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Understanding implicit reference societies in education policy
- 2023
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In: Journal of education policy. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; , s. 1-19
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study examines the reference societies of Norway and Sweden embedded in their education policy documents. We examined 4,260 bibliographic references in 19 white papers and green papers prepared for the 2016/2020 renewal of the Knowledge Promotion Reform in Norway and the 2015/2018 Knowledge Achievement Reform in Sweden. In addition, we interviewed 10 policy experts who participated in the preparation of the analyzed policy docu-ments. The results show that the reference societies overall reflect the existing knowledge production and dissemination mechanisms in education policy; however, they significantly differed between Norway and Sweden regarding whether and to what extent they reference knowledge produced in other Nordic countries. Specifically, while Norway drew extensively on knowledge from its neighbors, particularly Sweden, Sweden seldom referenced knowl-edge produced in other Nordic countries. Policy actors identified similarity, relevance, accessibility, reform contexts, and institutional arrangements as reasons for (not) referencing neighbors. This study calls for further consideration of the political, social, and cultural embeddedness of the ‘socio-logic’ to understand implicit reference societies.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Steiner-Khamsi, Gita, et al.
(author)
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How Much Is Policy Advice Changed and Lost in Political Translation?
- 2022
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In: Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy. - Cham : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783030919580 - 9783030919597 ; , s. 281-320
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This chapter focuses on government-appointed advisory commissions in Norway and Sweden and investigates how and to what extent their respective governments use the evidence produced in these commissions for education policymaking. Drawing on the concepts of network governance and multi-centric policymaking, it compares reference patterns (a) between Green Papers (GPs) and White Papers (WPs) and (b) between Norwegian and Swedish GPs. The results show that the WPs produced by the ministries share strikingly few references with the GPs produced by their appointed commissions. An in-depth analysis of the references which “made” it to the political level demonstrates how knowledge gets lost, rebalanced, or reinterpreted in the policy process. This chapter situates the findings within discussions on the changing role of advisory commissions in today’s policymaking.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Steiner-Khamsi, Gita, et al.
(author)
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How Much Policy Advice is Changed and Lost in Political Translation?
- 2021
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The shift to knowledge-based regulation and, as a corollary, “the rise of expertocracy” has been documented by many scholars. In comparison, what is studied less is what the government actually uses in terms of policy advice. This study attempts to contribute to the understanding of this gap by examining what the ministries of education and science have actually adopted, learned, or borrowed from their own expert commissions. In doing so, we shed light on the political translation process, the transfer from the scientific level (advisory body) to the political level (decision-making authority). This comparative study on political translation draws on data from Norway and Sweden where the use of policy advice in the form of expert commissions is institutionalized. We identified source documents consisting of texts produced either by the ministries of education and science (white papers) or their appointed commissions (green papers) and examined their bibliographic references. Conducting a bibliometric network analysis has enabled the reference patterns to be visualized, revealing the “upward translation process” manifested in the white papers. Our analysis shows that the assumption that governments are passive recipients of scientific advice provided by the appointed commissions prior to taking or legitimizing political decisions is outdated. In both countries, governments seem to use their commissions primarily to draw on their highly specialized knowledge on particular topics while for justifying broader political decisions, they seem to rely more explicitly on their own knowledge production. In general, the ministries of education and science use only a fraction of the expert knowledge produced by the commissions, indicating an institutionalized “over-production of evidence” (Lubienski, 2019). Although the idea of evidence-based policymaking has gained a lot of attention among scholars and practitioners, the actual use of scientific knowledge by politicians is somewhat underexplored. Against this background, this study contributes to existing scholarship in public policy by reflecting the political translation of scientific knowledge on the larger phenomenon of network governance (Ball & Junemann, 2012) and polycentric governance (Cairney et al., 2019).
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