The transnational grip on Scandinavian education reforms - The open method of coordination challenging national policy-making

Abstract

This article reveals how templates that emerge from opaque albeit often inclusive policy processes in transnational forums (EU, OECD & the Bologna Process) affect education reform policy in Scandinavian countries, such as Denmark and Sweden. The open method of coordination is the mother template of the political technologies (standards, performance indicators, scorecards, best practices) that are instrumental in fashioning reforms. This template commits countries in consensus-making ways to comparison, and normalizes the competitive incentive of mutual peer pressure. The authors draw on post-Foucauldian governmentality-studies to scrutinize policy documents and literature on policy reform to display the forces make up reforms, which to date have not figured prominently in national debates.