Education as a hostage of politics: governance and knowledge in a bureaucratic-federalist system

In: Reihe Soziologie / Institut für Höhere Studien, Abt. Soziologie, Band 113

Abstract

Main issues of complexity in a centralised system are explored, taking Austria as a case. The overall argument connects three interrelated topics of governing complexity in education: (1) an analysis of the sources of complexity in a centralised system, showing that centralisation-decentralisation is rather a continuum than a dichotomy; (2) an exploration of relations between structures in a centralised polity and policy and politics in education; (3) the production and use of knowledge and the knowledge flows as a key ingredient of governing complexity.
The existing governance structures mediate between policy making and practice, and their shape depends more on the demands of power politics than on technical policy arguments of how to achieve efficacy and efficiency, at least in a centralised system. In such a system much part of its complexity is hidden behind existing formal regulations that superficially seem to 'rationalise' the practices of policy making. (author's abstract)