Conference Agenda

In this panel we propose to present two new research publications which are approaching the themes of global governance, knowledge production, and international organisations (IOs) from different analytical perspectives, methodologies, and data sources. The idea is to spark a critical discussion of the theme including its most recent developments.

The first publication is Sotiria Grek’s new book, ‘The New Production of Governing Knowledge’ which examines expertise in transnational public policy. Based on the findings of the European Research Council funded project ‘International Organisations and the Rise of a Global Metrological Field’ (METRO, 2017-2022), the book explores the increasing complexity of the production of numbers for policy by offering a new theorisation of these processes, building on the evolution of policy knowledge production from ‘Mode 1’ to ‘Mode 2’: both concepts originated in Science and Technology Studies literature and denoted the move away from disciplinary to interdisciplinary knowledge and the shift from academic to knowledge produced at dispersed sites and by a variety of actors. Through the concept of ‘Mode 3’, Grek will discuss new shifts and further developments in expert knowledge production: taking into account current historical and political phenomena, as well as new discourses, agendas and actors, Grek will briefly describe and explain the ways that knowledge is produced in the current context of the transnational governance of education, global poverty and sustainability.

The second publication is a monograph entitled ‘Global governance of education: The historical and contemporary entanglements of UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank’, co-authored by Maren Elfert and Christian Ydesen. The book offers two novel perspectives: first, it pays close attention to the historical trajectories of how these three IOs, created after World War II as part of a new multilateral world order, have promoted and shaped educational ideas and policies as a fundamental feature of the modernization of society and have contributed to the globalization of educational norms and technologies up to the present time; and second, rather than treating UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank separately, the book examines the way they have collaborated and competed with each other in the global governance of education space. Some of the key findings include that UNESCO, the most democratically governed IO and the one in which developing countries have the most say, was crowded out by the expansion of the OECD and the World Bank, which arguably represent a much smaller circle of rich countries. Another major finding of this book is the homogenizing effect of the global governance of education. Global agendas such as SDG 4 are granted universal global authority that develop a matrix-like effect. IOs develop a behaviour oriented towards survival and expansion, to the extent that the mandate with which the organization has been created takes a back seat. The system of global governance becomes a battleground of organizational competition.

The panel contains an introduction by the chair, Clara Fontdevilla, and three presentations. Sotiria Grek will discuss the rationale and some of the findings of her book ‘The New Production of Governing Knowledge’. Christian Ydesen will present the first two chapters of the book on the “Global Governance of Education”, and Maren Elfert will present the last chapter outlining the main findings.