Provided by Institute of Education EPrints
Beyond Networks? A brief response to ‘Which networks matter in education
governance?’
Stephen J Ball
Institute of Education
University of London
Published in Political Studies 2009, 57 (3), pp. 688-691
Goodwin’s commentary on and critique, in this issue, of my 2008 paper in this journal
(Ball 2008) is both pertinent and constructive and indeed I agree with almost all of it.
Goodwin makes the point that the distribution of power and capabilities within policy
networks was not properly addressed in my paper and that as a result I may tend to
over-estimate the looseness of such networks and under-estimate the continuing
prominence of the formal-legal powers of the state in processes of governance. He
also suggests that the existence of, and work done, by the networks I describe should
not in themselves be taken to be indicative of a shift from government to network
governance. These concerns raise very proper and important questions and pose major
challenges for empirical policy network analysis. However, I would want to say that
my 2008 paper represents a first foray into the issues and problems of a grounded
analysis of network governance in education. Many of the points made in Goodwin’s
reply are ones I am engaged in a current ESRC funded project (RES-062-23-1484) on
philanthropy and education policy.
I have two substantive responses to the points made by Goodwin. One is, to put it
very simply, that many of the counsels offered are more easily said than done. In
simple terms the problem is one of specifying what the arrows in a network diagram
mean. There are significant interpretative and analytical problems involved here. That
is to say, it is very difficult to map empirically ‘the structured relationships of power’
(p.x) within policy networks. How do we access and then ‘measure’ or calculate
differential resources and capabilities embedded within the asymmetries in power
relations? How do we relate these to the use of power and the different interests and
goals of participants? (A focus on specific events or crises maybe one way forward). I
believe that we have no existing research methods for addressing these tasks. Among
other difficulties, almost by definition, network relations are opaque, consisting in
good part of informal social exchanges, negotiations and compromises which go on
‘behind the scenes’ (e.g. the role of Andrew Adonis in the Academies Programme).
How are these to be mapped and characterised? There are also concomitant
conceptual and empirical problems arising from the (in)stability and short-term
existence of some networks and network relations. Again almost by definition,
network forms of governance are not fixed, and may contain some fleeting, fragile
and experimental components. How do we capture changes in participation,
capabilities and asymmetries over time? Thisere is both an analytical and
representational problem here. The representational problem arises in as much that
network diagrams are very inadequate and misleading devices for representing
networks. Concomitantly, how do we operationalise the concept of power here? The
empirical analysis of relations of power begs rather hoary but none the less important
questions about how we conceptualise power, as indicated in the example given by
Goodwin of agenda restrictions (p. x). There are also issues involved here in the