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23 SES 08 A: Higher education politics and policy
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23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper Building Alternate Policy Realities: Recreating Finnish Higher Education Productivity Policies Through Time Travel 1: University of Nevada, Reno, United States of America; 2: University of Jyväskylä, Finland Presenting Author:Productivity reforms in higher education promise continuous improvement of outcomes, and therefore societies (Kallunki et al., 2015). If productivity reforms work, why have they not worked? After roughly 40 years of productivity reform in Finland, why does productivity reform continue (e.g., Korkeakoululaitoksen Kehittämissuunnitelma, 1987; Grek & Russell, 2024; Nielsen et al., 2023; Yliopistolaki, 1997; Yliopistolaki, 2009)? Productivity promises to produce productivity, but in empirical fact does not produce productivity. If productivity does not work, how else can we understand the work of the university? Productivity logic is “a post-secular belief system” marked by its “capacity to propel activity without recourse to any framework of philosophical purpose” (Gregg, 2018, p. 9). Productivity does not aim to produce a higher education that supports civic participation or any other specific and durable value, productivity aims to produce boundable and measurable stuff. If productivity was never grounded in a public, democratic value of higher education, we should break up with it, humans and others around the world deserve better. If the value of higher education is in expanding the ability of the capacities and possibilities of its denizens, we should study and create higher education policy in a way that aligns with this value. The work of this paper is to present a way of moving through higher education policy discussions that reads public good and other collective and unquantifiable educational values into the reality of discourse and practice. To do so, the methods of this paper necessarily diverge from those recognizable within productivity logic itself. A simpler way to state our research problem is how can we make higher education worthy of the present without resorting to a rationalist take on progress? In the specific language of productivity or economic logic in higher education, we ask how can we improve higher education policy without devolving into worlds made by the logics of improvement, quality control, or productivity? In this work, we explore one real, and fantastic, yet real, option: time travel, or recycling the past and future of higher education policy to return presents (and futures and pasts) that are malleable. Rather than asking how we got to a situation in need of productivity reform, we ask what are all the other places and times that higher education policy is actually in? Our research question is: how does the here of Finnish higher education policy differ, now? By asking what life is like within a history recycling now, we explore how higher education policy is, was, and can become different. The productivity logic of the last generation of capitalist higher education fixes higher education’s past in history to be mined as data, and future in the realm of predictions acted on as if they are real, now (Smithers, 2020; Witzenberger & Gulson, 2021). Predictive policy futures are overcoded by quality assurance regimes at best (Melin et al., 2015), and narratives of inevitability that put the total- in totalitarian at worst. To refuse such futures requires we also refuse the pasts they are built on. In time traveling Finnish higher education policy, we explore not how to live outside of productivity logic, but how to live inside it, through it, and turn it inside out. Productivity reform begets productivity reform. Policy that produces alternative futures requires alternative orientations to policy. Time travel searches for the spirit of the times that produces particular policies (Ball, 2015; or a chrono-topological Lingard and Sellar, 2014). We therefore portal around through time and space to policies of all kinds, and from the upside-down of productivity logic, build alternate pasts, presents, and futures of Finnish higher education policy. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used Our methodology is time travel: we portal through time and space to re/construct formative points in the ascendance of productivity logic. This methodology is a form of broadly poststructural policy analysis, including related queer theory, all guided by the noted theorist Doctor Who (Ahmed, 2006; Davies et al., 1963-present; Foucault, 1986; Webb & Gulson, 2015). With time travel as our method, the device we use to do this work is (of course) a TARDIS, Doctor Who’s transporter through Time and Relative Dimension in Space. The TARDIS of policy time travel moves for the same reasons as Doctor Who’s: we try to go to a fun place to show the world to people, end up in the middle of a mess, and save the world in the end. Here, our fun places are moments where success outside of capitalism, production, or quality is thinkable. Propelled by endless questions and a sense of wonder (Smithers, 2023), we portal to policy moments that might express the value of higher education as expansion of possibility. This type of fun place exists across time and space. Portals take us to heterotopias and heterochronies across time and space. The path of the tardis traces a queer line of hope, subversion, and counterconducts, or the times and spaces where productivity did not, does not, and will not quite hold (Ahmed, 2006; Foucault, 1986). We do this in search of how higher education policy is different and how we might be moved to be different ourselves. Our portals collapse connected policy presuppositions. In this queer movement, portaling breaks the sense that policy is a tool to produce progress. Policy links practices across ages and in some way attempts to change them. Presuppositions are links of a specific form: they declare or infer a world that has been, and therefore is (Saarinen, 2008). They treat as stable and unquestioned a world that has become (it is not the product of a stable past), is becoming (it is a totalizing statement in an untotalizable world), and has yet to become (the image presuppositions project into the future are only a bit of what could become). Our portaling across Finnish productivity policy documents collapses presuppositions across documents that speak to each other. This is a non-linear recycling of history, as history comes back around into the present (or: presents project themselves into the future) - as recognizable but not identical. (Saarinen, 2020). Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The output of portaling policies is the creation of alterhistories, alterfactuals, and alterfuturities. This is an extension of counterfactual theorizing that emphasizes the reality of the pasts, presents, and futures we create (Wenzlhuemer, 2009). Alters are as real as the past, present, and future that normative policy writing constructs. The truth of reality is field tested: not does it make sense, but can it make sense. Alters do not create truths, they create senses of the world in which real things can be apprehended. In our findings, they create the imagination for the nonplaces of higher education that are here, that have been, and that will be lived outside of the grip of economic logics (Smithers, 2023). We have begun our portaling with the Finnish Ministry of Education’s 1995-2000 Development Plan (Opetusministeriö, 1996) to get a look at the emergence of economic success as an imperative of higher education. From here, we begin our queer path in search of connections to moments, latent or expressed, of alter-success. This target cannot become its own straight line; it shifts as we question. Time traveling recycled the 1995-2000 Development Plan into the present. From here, our travels will likely include other laws, development plans, other Ministry documents, and government programmes of the last several decades and writings on policy from Finnish research symposium proceedings. We have begun with a major entry point of economic logic into Finnish higher education policy, and we will wonder through time and space from there. We expect our findings will construct a new world, or rather, a world that exists now (and then, and to come) that is buried under the inevitability of economic logic. Our time-traveling will result in a non-linear composition of spaces and times wherein expansive logics of the value of Finnish higher education lives. References Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Objects, orientations, others. Duke. Ball, S. J. (2015). What is policy? 21 years later: reflections on the possibilities of policy research. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(3), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2015.1015279 Davies, R. T., Gardner, J., Tranter, J., Collins, J., & Collinson, P. (Executive Producers). Doctor Who [TV series]. BBC. Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22–27. https://www.jstor.org/stable/464648 Gregg, M. (2018). Counterproductive: Time management in the knowledge economy. Duke. Grek, S., & Russell, I. (2024). Beyond Bologna? Infrastructuring quality in European higher education. European Educational Research Journal, 23(2), 215–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041231170518 Kallunki, J., Koriseva, S., & Saarela, H. (2015). Suomalaista yliopistopolitiikkaa ohjaavat perustelut tuloksellisuuden aikakaudella [The rationale behind Finnish university policy in an era of performance]. Kasvatus Aika, 9(3), 117-133. https://journal.fi/kasvatusjaaika/article/view/68541 Korkeakoululaitoksen Kehittämissuunnitelma Vuosille 1987-1992 [Higher education development act] (1987). https://www.finna.fi/Record/arto.012491632 Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2014). Representing your country: Scotland, PISA and new spatialities of educational governance. Scottish Educational Review, 46(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1163/27730840-04601002 Melin, G., Zuijdam, F., Good, B., Angelis, J., Enberg, J., Fikkers, D. J., Puukka, J., Swenning, A., Kosk, K., Lastunen, J., & Zegel, S. (2015). Towards a future proof system for higher education and research in Finland. Ministry of Education and Culture. Nielsen, K., Javorka, Z., Halme, K., Järvelin, A.-M., Evers, G., Berger, F., & Bengtsson, A. (2023). Evaluation of the governance and funding practices used by the Ministry of Education and Culture for steering Finnish Higher Education Institutions. Technopolis Group. Opetusministeriö. (1996). Koulutuksen ja korkeakouluissa harjoitettavan tutkimuksen kehittämissuunnitelma vuosille 1995-2000 [Development plan for education and research in higher education institutions, 1995-2000]. Opetusministeriö. Saarinen, T. (2008). Persuasive presuppositions in OECD and EU higher education policy documents. Discourse Studies, 10(3), 341–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445608089915 Saarinen, T. (2020). Higher education, language and new nationalism in Finland: Recycled histories. Springer. Smithers, L. (2020). Student success as preemption: Predictive constructions of futures-to-never-come. Futures, 124, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102639 Smithers, L. E. (2023). The production of alter-competence: Wonder in Graduate Preparation Program coursework. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 60(4), 521–536. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2022.2111520 Webb, P. T., & Gulson, K. N. (2015). Policy, geophilosophy and education. SensePublishers. Wenzlhuemer, R. (2009). Counterfactual thinking as a scientific method. Historical Social Research, 34(2), 27–54. Witzenberger, K., & Gulson, K. N. (2021). Why EdTech is always right: Students, data and machines in pre-emptive configurations. Learning, Media and Technology, 46(4), 420–434. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1913181 Yliopistolaki [Universities Act], 645/1997 (1997). https://finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/saadoskokoelma/1997/645 Yliopistolaki [Universities Act], 558/2009 (2009). https://finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/saadoskokoelma/2009/558 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper Internationalisation Policies in Portuguese Higher Education: A Decolonial Perspective 1: University of Porto, Portugal; 2: Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE) of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences (FPCEUP) Presenting Author:IInternationalisation has become a central policy agenda in European higher education, often linked to global competitiveness, participation in the knowledge economy, and institutional prestige (de Wit et al., 2017; Robertson, 2010). In Portugal, these developments unfold within a historically situated context shaped by colonial legacies (Araújo & Maeso, 2012; Santos, 2014). This raises questions about how national and institutional policies conceptualise academic integration and social inclusion within internationalisation efforts. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used This paper undertakes a reflexive thematic analysis to examine how internationalisation and inclusion are addressed within Portuguese higher education policy at both national and institutional levels. The dataset includes national legislation and regulatory documents (2014–2025), as well as strategic plans from five public universities selected for their significant enrolment of international students. The analysis is guided by a decolonial framework attentive to coloniality, epistemic hierarchies, and relations of knowledge and power (Quijano, 2000; Santos, 2014; Stein, 2019). Using NVivo, a hybrid coding strategy was applied, combining theoretically informed categories, such as epistemic justice and stratified mobility, with inductively generated codes (Braun & Clarke, 2021). Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Findings indicate that national-level internationalisation policies are primarily driven by economic rationales, global visibility, and competitiveness, while references to academic integration and social inclusion remain limited. Institutional strategic plans, in contrast, include more explicit references to inclusion through support services, intercultural initiatives, and international partnerships. These references are often framed in general terms and remain secondary to prestige-oriented objectives, reflecting selective constructions of the “international student” and reinforcing existing hierarchies within global academic mobility. By examining the Portuguese higher education system, this study contributes to European policy debates on how national systems navigate tensions between the European Higher Education Area's competitiveness goals and the need for epistemic justice and social inclusion. The analysis offers insights relevant to NW23’s focus on the politics of education by showing how a decolonial perspective illuminates the structural conditions shaping inclusive internationalisation. References Araújo, M., & Maeso, S. R. (2012). History textbooks, racism and the critique of Eurocentrism: Beyond rectification or compensation. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(7), 1266–1286. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2011.600767 Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. London: SAGE. de Wit, H., Hunter, F., Howard, L., & Egron-Polak, E. (2017). Internationalisation of higher education. Brussels: European Parliament. Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 533–580. Robertson, S. L. (2010). Globalisation, education governance and the state. In M. Apple, S. Ball, & L. Gandin (Eds.), International handbook of the sociology of education (pp. 41–51). London: Routledge. Santos, B. de S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. London: Routledge. Stein, S. (2019). A colonial history of the higher education present. Postcolonial Studies, 22(1), 7–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2019.1630025 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper Democratic Imagination in Universities across Political Change: A Historically Informed Analysis Vilnius University Presenting Author:Recent debates in education research highlight growing concern about how changing political conditions are reshaping the ways in which knowledge is produced and recognised in universities. These shifts raise important questions about academic autonomy, pluralism, and the conditions under which democratic imagination — understood as the capacity to articulate, contest, and sustain alternative democratic possibilities through knowledge — can be sustained within academic life. However, prevailing narratives often depict these political and governance changes as steps towards greater openness or pluralism, obscuring the normalisation of new regulatory logics and frameworks that permeate everyday academic and institutional practices. This risks ignoring how political change not only affects governance structures or formal academic freedom, but also the contingent epistemic conditions through which democratic possibilities are imagined, debated, and gradually stabilised within universities. This paper addresses this gap by offering a theoretically grounded, historically informed analysis of how political change reconfigures the epistemic conditions of university life. It asks how political transformations shape the conditions of knowledge production, and how these shifts can both open up and constrain democratic imagination over time. The paper approaches universities not as neutral instruments for achieving specific political, economic, or civic outcomes, but as contested institutional spaces in which democratic possibilities depend on historical and political dynamics of authority, knowledge, and contestation. The analysis is grounded in the Lithuanian case, where a series of political transformations has unfolded within a relatively compressed historical timeframe. This trajectory makes visible how contrasting political regimes shape universities over time, revealing broader dynamics of continuity and change that extend beyond this specific context. Empirically, the paper examines key moments in the development of universities across different political eras, including early democratic formations, Soviet governance, post-Soviet reorientation, and contemporary policy configurations shaped by broader European and global agendas. Instead of focusing solely on moments of rupture or reform, this analysis traces how evolving political conditions have gradually transformed epistemic expectations, academic authority, and the boundaries of legitimate knowledge, as reforms are mediated through institutional routines and policy infrastructures that structure daily academic practices. In this way, the paper illustrates how governance arrangements become stabilised over time through their incorporation into everyday academic and institutional routines, often well after initial political changes have occurred. The analysis shows how political change frequently involves not the elimination of epistemic constraints, but their reorganisation. Older forms of closure are supplanted by new modes of regulation tied to policy relevance, performance metrics, and instrumental rationalities. Shifts typically regarded as democratising or liberalising can generate new tensions for academic freedom and democratic life within the university. By situating debates on academic autonomy and democratic imagination within a longer trajectory of political and epistemic transformation, this paper challenges linear and thus simplistic narratives of democratisation in higher education. It demonstrates that political change reworks — not just simply expands — the conditions for openness and academic freedom, underscoring the historical contingencies that underpin the present arrangements of the university. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The study employs a historically informed sociological approach to political change by analysing how shifts in governance are translated into reconfigurations of the existing boundaries of legitimate knowledge and academic authority in universities. The analysis traces how political transformations have reshaped the conditions under which knowledge is produced, recognised, and legitimised, focusing on epistemic reconfiguration rather than institutional chronology. Political change is approached not as a sequence of linear transformations, but as a process in which different regimes rearticulate these conditions in ways that persist, overlap, and are reworked within contemporary university arrangements. This approach is oriented toward understanding how present university conditions are constituted through layered and historically situated governance arrangements that coexist within contemporary universities. Attention is paid not only to moments of political rupture or reform, but also to the longer-term processes through which reforms are mediated, stabilised, and incorporated into institutional routines. By foregrounding processes of mediation and stabilisation, the analysis resists reform-centred readings of political change. The study adopts a case-based design centred on Lithuania. The case was selected for its analytical value in tracing how successive political regimes reconfigure epistemic authority within a single higher education system. Lithuania is treated as a diagnostic site for examining how universities have been shaped across successive political regimes, including periods of democratic independence, Soviet rule, post-socialist transformation, and the contemporary neoliberal policy environment. Because these transformations unfolded within a relatively compressed historical timeframe, the Lithuanian case makes particularly visible how different political regimes reshape epistemic authority and academic legitimacy in universities. These dynamics are analytically relevant for understanding similar transformations taking place in higher education systems beyond Lithuania, especially in the contemporary European and global context. The analysis draws on secondary historical and sociological scholarship on higher education, alongside higher education policy documents. These materials are examined as institutional artefacts through which political priorities and epistemic expectations are articulated, mediated, and embedded, shaping the conditions under which academic practices take place and democratic imagination becomes institutionally structured. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The analysis shows that the democratic significance of political change cannot be inferred from formal reforms or governance shifts alone, but depends on how reforms quietly reshape epistemic authority and redefine legitimate knowledge within universities. Common indicators of democratisation can be misleading, as reforms may expand formal freedoms while narrowing the space for critique, dissent, and collective imagination. Seen in this light, political transitions do not have uniform democratic effects. They can create opportunities for plurality and intellectual renewal, but may also establish new regulatory forms that become stabilised through institutional practices. Across different periods, moments of rupture have sometimes enabled efforts to reimagine the university’s democratic possibilities, while at other times reconfigured control in subtle, enduring ways. Rather than replacing one governance regime with another, political change has sometimes also involved mediation and reorganisation of epistemic expectations through policy, organisational routines, and shifting understandings of academic authority. The analysis suggests that such constraints cannot be attributed to authoritarian regimes alone, but also take shape in democracies through the everyday organisation of epistemic authority — including how priorities are set and knowledge is validated. Viewed through this lens, the Lithuanian case is not an exception but a revealing analytical site where these dynamics are especially visible. Contemporary regulation operates not through overt coercion, but through reform-oriented governance practices framed as progressive and inevitable. These modes of regulation appear less restrictive because they are embedded in routine procedures rather than imposed directly. In the current global moment — marked by democratic erosion alongside mounting political and institutional pressures on universities — this underscores a central insight of the paper: the democratic stakes of higher education lie not only in formal autonomy or reform agendas, but in whether universities retain the epistemic openness needed to question prevailing rationalities and to imagine alternatives at all. References Appel, H., & Orenstein, M. A. (2016). Why did neoliberalism triumph and endure in the post-communist world? Comparative Politics, 48(3), 313–331. https://doi.org/10.5129/001041516818254862 Jungblut, J., Vukasović, M., & Stensaker, B. (2020). Change in higher education: The impact of policy shifts. European Journal of Higher Education, 10(2), 145–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2019.1688850 Marginson, S. (2016). Higher education and the common good. Melbourne University Publishing. Matei, L., & Iwinska, J. (2018). Diverging paths? Institutional autonomy and academic freedom in the European Higher Education Area. In A. Curaj, L. Deca, & R. Pricopie (Eds.), European higher education area: The impact of past and future policies (pp. 345–369). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77407-7_22 Snyder, T. (2018). The road to unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. Tim Duggan Books. Veiga, A., & Amaral, A. (2006). The European policy on higher education: An analysis from the perspective of soft law. European Journal of Education, 41(3–4), 321–337. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2006.00270.x Želvys, R., Leišytė, L., Peksen, S., Bružienė, R., & Rose, A.-L. (2021). From collegiality to managerialism in Lithuanian higher education. Acta Paedagogica Vilnensia, 46, 27–42. https://doi.org/10.15388/ActPaed.46.2021.2 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper Policy as discourse or bureaucracy? A Comparative Analysis of Policy Enactment in Chinese and English Universities University of Bath, United Kingdom Presenting Author:Research Objective and Research Questions: This study aims to comparatively examine how different national HE governance regimes, institutional bureaucracy, and different disciplinary contexts influence the dynamics of policy enactment and related reforms, and by exploring how policy actors at different levels interpret policy discourse and how such interpretations, in interaction with bureaucratic structures, shape policy enactment in practice. Furthermore, this research has been guided by the following research questions: RQ1: How do policy actors’ interpretations and translations shape the enactment of educational reform policies in Chinese and English universities? RQ2: How do national, institutional and disciplinary contexts influence the process of policy enactment and related reforms in Chinese and English universities? RQ3: How do policy discourses interact with bureaucratic structures to influence policy enactment in Chinese and English universities? RQ4: What insights from cross-national comparisons can advance theoretical understandings of policy as both discourse and bureaucracy, particularly regarding policy actorhood, agency, and processes of policy change？ Theoretical Framework: This study is based on two existing theoretical frameworks, policy as discourse and policy as bureaucracy, to explain the complexity of the policy enactment process within Chinese and England higher education contexts. Based on Foucault (1975), and Ball (1993), and Bacchi’s (1999) post-structural policy analysis theory, on the one hand, this study aims to move beyond the traditional policy structural analysis view, present the origin of the policy discourse and argue that policy enactment is a dynamic and evolving process, which involves real-time policy adaptation based on policy actors’ different interpretations and understandings. On the other hand, this research is based on another framework of policy as bureaucracy, drawing on Weber’s (1978) classical theory of bureaucracy, which conceptualises policy as a process of structured administration and hierarchical implementation grounded in standardised documents and rational procedures. It further incorporates Nash’s (2019) notions of marketising and Lipsky’s (2010) concept of street-level bureaucracy, to explore how academics struggle within the ‘iron cage’ of performance metrics and exercise professional discretion to escape from it. Furthermore, this research is also grounded in Clark’s (1986) triangular model of higher education governance and Baggini’s (2018) philosophy theory to discuss how to understand the differences across countries in various national, institutional, and disciplinary contexts, focusing on the curriculum reform policy in universities. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used In addressing the three research questions posited in this study, an exploratory qualitative research approach has been adopted, which is firmly rooted in the interpretative philosophical framework. Two empirical case studies has been conducted, beginning with a comprehensive document analysis of policy artefacts, including university and national policy documents, university websites, and university blogs related to ongoing educational reforms in the selected universities. Subsequently, 42 interviews were conducted with key policy actors at different levels, including university staff involved in the curriculum reform, faculty leaders responsible for teaching and learning, directors of studies and unit convenors within departments. Moreover, thematic analysis approach has been adopted to analyse all the data. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Firstly, policy actors at the university and faculty levels interpret and respond to curriculum reform differently from those at the departmental level, with senior-level actors demonstrating a more unified and positive orientation towards reform. Second, national and institutional contexts in China and England exert a stronger influence on curriculum reform than disciplinary contexts. The English curriculum change is closely aligned with market logics and employment demands, framing education as a product and students as consumers. By contrast, while market-oriented mechanisms are incorporated into Chinese university governance, curriculum reform remains primarily oriented towards education as a public good serving both individual development and national progress. Third, although academics in England have greater discursive spaces to negotiate and contest policy, they are more tightly constrained by bureaucratic administrative requirements, who are encouraged to interalise the legitimacy of reform, particularly through the expectation to demonstrate reform through formal paperwork. In contrast, Chinese academics tend to enact policy in quieter forms of discourse, yet exercise greater practical agency within bureaucratic structures, as successful enactment depends less on internal endorsement than on the appearance of effective implementation. Overall, the policy enactment functions as a show at both universities and not as successful as advertised. In both contexts, a shared logic of ‘reform must not fail’ was constructed, whereby reforms had to be narrated as continuously advanced and accompanied by visible markers of progress although not all courses were actually redesigned. Therefore, policy reform ceases to function as a genuine mechanism for problem-solving and instead becomes a mechanism for institutional self-reproduction. Policy actors are compelled to complete administrative tasks primarily to demonstrate they are ‘reforming’, thereby enhancing institutional reputation and pursuing personal promotion. This leads to policy fabrications and performative compliance where actors prioritise superficial adherence and the appearance of success over genuine engagement with the reform process. References Bacchi, C. L. (1999) Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems. Ball, S. J. (1993) What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes, The Australian Journal of Education Studies, 13(2), pp. 10-17. Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., and Hoskins, K. (2011) Policy actors: doing policy work in schools, Discourse (Abingdon, England), 32(4), pp. 625-639. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.601565. Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., and Braun, A. (2012) How Schools Do Policy: Policy Enactments in Secondary Schools, 1(148), pp. 175-179. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203153185. Baggini, J. (2018) How the world thinks: a global history of philosophy. Granta Books. Clark, B. R. (1986) The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Univ of California Press. Foucoult, M. (1975) Discipline and punish. A. Sheridan, Tr., Paris, FR, Gallimard. Lipsky, M. (2010) Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public service. Russell sage foundation. Nash, K. (2019) Neo-liberalisation, universities and the values of bureaucracy, The Sociological Review, 67(1), pp. 178-193. Weber, M. (1978) Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. 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