The policy dispositif: historical formation and method

Abstract

This paper proposes a new way of conceptualising education policy and also begins to develop a new method of policy analysis. In both instances, it draws on the theoretical and conceptual tools of Foucault, and in particular his concept dispositif. It posits an historical and ontological formation – a policy dispositif – with formative roots in historical reflections on ‘how to govern’. This contingent policy formation is comprised of a multiplicity of heterogeneous elements, including material objects, discourses, practices and subjectivities. Although it is argued that hegemonic discourses and rationalities have an ontological effect on the dispositif, as an amorphous polymorphic formation it is not so much determined by these, but is rather engendered by strategic struggles over the meaning and governing of education. In developing a new method of policy analysis, three analytical trajectories are identified for investigating the performative and dispositional ontology of micro-dispositifs – power, truth and subjectivation – and are put to work through an empirical case. Although the paper focuses mainly on the education state in England, this new conceptual and analytical framework has wide applicability for policy research in a range of national and local contexts.