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Jana Bacevic provides an innovative analysis of education policy-making in the processes of social transformation and post-conflict development in the Western Balkans. Based on case studies of educational reform in the former Yugoslavia - from the decade before its violent breakup to contemporary efforts in post-conflict reconstruction - From Class to Identity tells the story of the political processes and motivations underlying each reform.The book moves away from technical-rational or prescriptive approaches that dominate the literature on education policy-making during social transformation, and offers an example on how to include the social, political and cultural context in the understanding of policy reforms. It connects education policy at a particular time in a particular place with broader questions such as: What is the role of education in society? What kind of education is needed for a 'good' society? Who are the 'targets' of education policies (individuals/citizens, ethnic/religious/linguistic groups, societies)? Bacevic shows how different answers to these questions influence the contents and outcomes of policies

This article examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts. The performativity of knowledge claims is here analysed through the prism of 'sociological excuses': the idea that sociological explanations can act as 'excuses' for otherwise unacceptable behaviour. The article builds on Austin's distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary effects to discuss the relationship between sociological explanation, sociological justification and sociological critique. It argues that understanding how (and if) sociological explanations can act requires paying attention to social and political conditions of performativity and their transformation in late liberalism.

This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker's stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more likely speakers will be denied recognition or credit. The four types of epistemic positioning – bounding (reducing a knowledge claim to elements of personal identity), domaining (reducing a knowledge claim to discipline or field associated with identity), non-attribution (using the claim without recognizing the author) and appropriation (presenting the claim as one's own) – are mutually reinforcing. Given the growing importance of visibility and recognition in the context of increasing competition and insecurity in academic employment, these practices play a role in the ability of underrepresented groups to remain in the academic profession.

It is a testament to the lasting influence of Karl Popper and Richard Rorty that their work continues to provide inspiration for debates concerning the role and purpose of knowledge, democracy, and intellectuals in society. Alternatively, it is a testament to the recurrence of the problem that continues to lurk under the glossy analytical surface or occasional normative consensus of these debates: the impossibility to reconcile the concepts of liberal and epistemic democracy. Essays collected under the title Democratic Problem-Solving (Cruickshank and Sassower 2017) offer grounds for both assumptions, so this is what my review will focus on.

This thesis contributes to sociological accounts of critique and, more broadly, to accounts of the relationship between knowledge and the social conditions of its production. It begins with a theoretical exploration of the tension between Bourdieu's concept of sociological reflexivity and Boltanski's sociology of critique, including the epistemic and political position from which knowledge claims in social sciences can be made and justified. This question becomes particularly important when the authority of such claims rests on the possibility of a conceptual distinction between the subject of knowledge (the 'knower') and their object (the 'social'). The empirical part of the thesis provides an analysis of this process through the case of the critique of neoliberalism in UK higher education and research between 1997 and 2017. Intellectual interventions (books, articles, and other public statements) offering critical accounts of the transformation of universities are interpreted as forms of intellectual positioning, speech-acts that assign properties to objects and actors in the social realm. Through a qualitative analysis of interventions and interviews, the thesis reconstructs ontological assumptions entailed in forms of positioning, particularly those pertaining to the justification of epistemic authority of academics in the political and historical context of post-WWII Britain. The thesis uses these findings to situate the questions of knowledge, critique, and the role of social sciences within the longer discussion about the relationship between 'thinking' and 'doing'. Focusing on the relationship between positionality and positioning, the thesis shows how subject-object relationships form a fundamental part of the production of both critique and knowledge about its object. ; Cambridge Commonwealth, European, and International Trust, PhD scholarship, 2015-2018

Agenda setting is one of key concepts in the critical or interpretative approaches in the study of policy development. Developed in response to positivist paradigms, which saw policies as largely technical solutions to objectively existing problems, critical or interpretive analysis emphasises the constructed, contingent, and processual nature of policies, in particular the role of differently positioned actors in bringing specific issues to the fore (Fischer, 2003). In this sense, the use of agenda setting in the research on higher education policy is fundamentally related to the questions of political power and influence, and thus to the relationship between longer-term structural change and stability, on the one hand, and individual or collective agency, on the other. In broad terms, agenda setting refers to the capacity of an actor (individual, group, organisation, institution) to define or influence issues on the public agenda. This occurs in two ways: on the one hand, selecting issues seen as important or relevant (thematisation or problematisation); on the other, shaping the way these issues are framed, discussed and interpreted (framing or interpretation). While policy processes normally involve elements of both, their analysis can be traced to two relatively distinct disciplinary traditions, one largely reliant on political science, and the other on communication and media studies. This article summarises the main elements of both traditions, and then delineates their convergences and implications for higher education policy research. ; peerReviewed

This article analyses the ways in which a policy actor constructs its agency through the production of knowledge. Taking the example of the concept of 'autonomy' as constructed in the discourse of the European University Association (EUA), the article draws on the theory of discursive framing and agenda setting, as well as on Meyer and Jepperson's heuristic of agentic actors, to show how the practice of knowledge production can shape the European higher education policy. The article offers a contribution to the debate aiming to develop a more critical perspective on the development of the European Higher Education Area, which sees the process as constituted through the activities of, and the negotiations between, different political actors. ; peerReviewed