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

This doctoral dissertation presents an analysis of the complex dynamics emerging from the interactions between global, national, and local actors in policymaking processes in Portugal. It takes the stance of earlier research analysing policy transfer, borrowing, and lending in taking ‘the process of globalisation for granted’ (Steiner- Khamsi, 2004, p. 4) with a context-focused perspective. This line of research recognises 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. the authors in the book edited by Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). Bearing this integration of international elements in local policy processes in mind, this dissertation analyses how 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), rhetorical analysis (Edwards et al., 2004; Leach, 2011), and frame analysis (Entman, 1993) as my research methods, and use the complexity thinking approach as my onto-epistemological background to enable the construction of a theoretical framework composed by several theories to analyse references to international elements (externalisation) in local policymaking processes: 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 share an understanding of social systems and the processes within them as complex and non-linear (Capano, 2009, p. 8). Complexity thinking incorporates a vast array of theories and concepts from diverse research disciplines, enabling 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).
Portugal is the context of this study for two main reasons. First, a broad analysis of the uses of international references in education discussions remains scarce and is non-existent regarding the Portuguese parliamentary context. In addition, I found it interesting that, unlike the many other countries and regions already analysed in previous research, PISA and its results were not incorporated in 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 they were, and why they were chosen. More specifically, I focus on the context of the Portuguese parliamentary debates and print media articles within the timeframe of 2001–2018, because a) parliament, and more specifically its plenary debates, are the main context for policy actors to perform for their policy opponents and the wider national audience (Ilie, 2017), they are open access through parliament’s diary, and they are broadcast on a TV channel; and b) the media is the main venue for citizens to inform themselves about what is happening in the world. The media brings policy issues and a sense that they need to be addressed to the public, influencing public opinion (Luhmann, 1996). The analysis of parliament and the media is complementary, providing a more thorough understanding of the functions of externalisations in education policy discussions in Portugal.

I reached several intertwined conclusions from the various layers of analysis. 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. Furthermore, 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 depoliticisation of the themes being discussed. However, 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 of (de-)legitimation used by political and social actors involved in policy processes. They are used in attempts to manage the contingency of the policy process and thus reduce the process’s complexity, with the aim of initiating social change.

This dissertation offers theoretical and empirical contributions to advance knowledge in the fields of comparative education and policy studies. The applied methodological approach brings 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). More specifically, this multifaceted analysis expands our understanding of the societal features that can lead to the need to use international elements as sources of authority, and what makes these sources authoritative.

The theoretical and methodological pluralism that I adopt in this study also contributes to ongoing research work (e.g. Zahariadis, 1998; Howlett et al., 2016) attempting to demonstrate that methods and theories of different research fields can benefit from being aggregated. Besides theoretically advancing each of the theories used, the combination of complexity thinking with externalisation to world situations, the multiple streams approach, the epistemic governance framework, thematisation theory, and some insights from Luhmann’s theory of social systems sheds light on the policy process from various complementary perspectives, leading to a well-informed understanding of policy processes, and the interactions between the global and local actors within them.