Global governmentality

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

This paper presents detailed methods for constructing a flexible philosophical–analytical model through which to apply the analytic principles of CDA for the interpretation of metaphors across policy texts. Drawing on a theoretical framing from Foucault and the augmentation of Nietzsche’s views on valuation, we sketch a framework for examining ways in which evaluative semantic categories can be linked to sociological theories in order to bring out their relevance for the purpose of critical discourse analysis. This multi-level research framework draws upon a relationship between language analysis, the philosophical study of valuation, and political economy as a composite formulation of values through which neo-liberalism is discursively entwined and progressed through a system of principles of e/valuation.

Este livro celebra o encontro de reflexões sobre o papel do Estado e das Instituições diante dos desafios contemporâneos, visando apresentar perspectivas acerca do futuro do Multilateralismo. Nesta direção, de que maneira a atuação do Estado e das Instituições, bem como as diretrizes da Governança Global, poderiam contribuir para a articulação de políticas públicas em meio à crise contemporânea? Como conduzir, nesse cenário, mecanismos factíveis que sejam condizentes com a plataforma da gestão ambiental e da promoção da sustentabilidade? Estes são alguns dos pontos que especialistas sobre o tema procuram explorar na presente obra.

This paper examines the way the metaphor of diversity provides a moral basis for inequality in Singapore’s meritocratic education system. Based upon a collection of policy texts from 2002 to 2012, our analysis illustrates that the metaphor of diversity in policy texts provides ways for systemic discrimination within the education system and that this inequality is given legitimacy as necessary through various moral discourses. The paper employs a critical discourse analysis that draws upon the relationship between language analysis, the philosophical study of valuation, and political economy as a composite formulation of values to highlight the ways in which an argument for inequality permeates policy from within a frame of meritocracy, and to analyse how changes associated with new modes of value determination serve to legitimize inequality.

1. The article questions and challenges the official meritocratic principle of ‘equal opportunities’ (Wong, 2000) in Singapore's education system. Drawing on Foucault's and Nietzsche's philosophical perspectives, there is an explicit illustration through an in-depth analysis of how inequality is inbuilt in policy report/speech.

2. Discourse builds in/tangible structures in society and greatly determines the possibilities of the now. As such, I am also arguing that it would be more difficult to 'help' any 'community' if the structural discrimination which has been deeply embedded, is not made explicit through national policies, and by this I mean an explicit illustration through an in-depth policy analysis of how inequality is inbuilt in Singapore's education policies. It may be through this that discriminatory structures could be substantially challenged.

An initial analysis of the original 1979 policy on primary school streaming which I conducted illustrates how dichotomous (arbitrary) categorization of pupils, i.e. 'slow' and 'fast' learners legitimates and sustains increasing institutional/structural access (over the years terms like 'talents' have been employed in policy discourse), of who gets privileged knowledge access. Through this, I also ask then to what ends do forms of 'categorization' or conventional designation entail? By this, given that categorization legitimizes structural access, my question is, what is 'Malay/Muslim community' and how is this categorization necessary?

3. Even though the analysis in the article was based on Singapore's education system, it provides possible ways of understanding how inequality is continuously being inbuilt through policies on the basis of the ideology that economic growth is the (only) way forward. A way to critique this ideology is to expose its underlying assumptions. I believe the findings have much resonance with the widening inequality across many developed nations, as Singapore's policies have parallels with that of the U.K., U.S., and international organizations such as the World Bank.

4. Economically considered, the transliteration of meritocratic discourse into the metaphor of diversity pinpoints how the appeal of development for all necessarily also demands the advance of inequity for the sake of the whole, i.e. advancing the 'growth with inequity' principle.

5. The analysis highlights that value judgments are continually at work in the policy discourse and that despite the strong discourse of meritocracy that the Singapore education system promotes, it is argued that it is in the interests of the Singapore people that 'talents' should get privileged access to knowledge as it is through this that more 'opportunities' for the rest of the population are created. The findings demonstrate that although the underlying assumptions of this 'logic' that has been constructed in policies are unsubstantiated, the logic is continuously legitimated through forms of e/valuations.



This article has been featured in websites such as: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150428105815.htm
http://www.eurasiareview.com/28042015-what-is-value-of-inequality-within-singapores-education-system/

Global benchmarks have grown exponentially over the last two decades, having been both applied to and developed by states, international organisations, corporations, and non-governmental organisations. As a consequence, global benchmarking is now firmly established as a distinct mode of transnational governance. Benchmarking chiefly involves the development of comparative metrics of performance, which typically take the form of highly stylised comparisons which are generated by translating complex phenomena into numerical values via simplification and extrapolation, commensuration, reification, and symbolic judgements. This process of translation takes what might otherwise be highly contentious normative agendas and converts them into formats that gain credibility through rhetorical claims to neutral and technocratic assessment. This politics of numbers has far-reaching ramifications for transnational governance, including the dimensions and effects of indirect power, expertise and agenda-setting, coordination, regulation and certification, and norm contestation and activism. This Special Issue draws upon an emerging literature to explore how and why benchmarks both align with and expand upon established models of International Relations theory and scholarship. It does so by critically examining the role of global benchmarks in key areas such as state ‘failure’, global supply chains, disaster management, economic governance, corporate social responsibility, and human development.

By exploring the political strategies that seek to advance and implement a "culture of cybersecurity" in Austria, we argue that the regimes of digital safety and security (DS&S) that are emerging worldwide should not be merely understood as a political reaction to the risks brought about by digitalization. Rather, cybersecu-rity further constitutes an active site where the incipient digital society is collectively (re-)imagined, negotiated, and created. As such, cybersecurity policies present sites of political articulation and intervention where the very contours of an emerging digital society and the socio-technical relationships of power and control deemed necessary to govern its emergence are (re-)assembled. Our research prompts a rethinking of the relationships between cybersecurity and the digital society to the extent that cybersecurity represents a new globalizing form and rationality of security that encodes and enables new forms of control and intervention, but also new responsibilities at the interface between the state, society, and individuals.

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(GERMAN) Regieren durch Cybersicherheit: Nationale Strategien, globalisierte (Un-)Sicherheit und soziotechnische Visionen der digitalen Gesellschaft

Die konzentrierten nationalen Strategien der Schaffung und Implementierung einer "Kultur der Cybersicherheit" müssen als Ausdruck weltweit entstehender globalisierter Regime digitaler Sicherheit verstanden werden. Diese K 116 C. Haddad, C. Binder neuen Cybersicherheitsregime stellen jedoch nicht lediglich eine Reaktion auf zahl-reiche neue Risiken und Unsicherheiten im Kontext der Digitalisierung dar, sondern auch ein Artikulationsfeld entstehender digitaler Gesellschaften. Cybersicherheit ist demnach ein Artikulations-und Experimentierfeld, in dem sowohl die soziotechni-schen Visionen einer wünschenswerten digitalen Gesellschaft als auch das Ensemble von Macht-und Regierungstechniken (neu) entworfen werden, die diese Gesell-schaft hervorbringen und absichern sollen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung soll eine Rekonzeptualisierung des Verhältnisses zwischen Cybersicherheit und digitaler Ge-sellschaft dahingehend anstoßen, dass Cybersicherheit eine neue und globalisierte Form und Rationalität von Sicherheit darstellt, in der die Autoritätsverhältnisse und Verantwortlichkeiten zwischen Staat, Gesellschaft und Individuen neu geordnet wer-den. Schlüsselwörter Cybersicherheit · Digitalisierung · Globale Sicherheit · Gouvernementalität · Soziotechnische Visionen · Sicherheitspolitik