The spaces in between: Mobile policy and the topographies and topologies of the technocracy

Abstract

This paper considers how the technocracy contributes to the mobilisation of policy, and in doing so suggests that this allows for a systematic explanation for policy mobility that is based on a particular form of expert practice rather than ideologies such as neoliberalism. It argues that the technocracy has topographies through which different places are materially connected and through which policy knowledge flows in various forms. But it also has topologies that emerge from the practice of measurement through which often distant places can be made to loom much larger, or nearby places fade into insignificance. Together they help to materialise the spaces 'in between' policy-making sites through which policy is often transferred. Considering the technocracy in this way demonstrates how apparently autonomous political-economic contexts shape patterns of policy mobility and state change.

Assemblage thinking as methodology: commitments and practices for critical policy research

“…An assemblage "claims a territory", according to Wise (2005: 77), and is realised through ongoing processes of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, such that assemblages are continually in the process of being made and remade. The topographic spatiality of territory is underwritten by topologic spatialities, defined not by physical proximity or nested hierarchy but by variously distanciated associations that produce relational proximities (Prince 2015). With its emphasis on active composition-fitting, connecting, combining, and aligning relations between heterogeneous elements within and across space-the popularity of assemblage results in large part from its understanding of the social as "materially heterogeneous, practice-based, emergent and processual" (McFarlane 2009: 561).…”

“…These viewpoints chime with recent thinking in critical policy research which, in a number of ways, has grappled with the implications of similarly relational, socially constructed, and less presumptive understandings of space in studies of policy (Bulkeley 2005;Allen and Cochrane 2007;Legg 2009;McCann and Ward 2010;Baker and Ruming 2015; Peck and Theodore 2015). Prince's (2015) assemblage-inspired account, for example, demonstrates how policy is embroiled in the unfolding actions of policy actors and the circulation of various materials across multiple spatialities. For him, "a 'policy world' does not have a predefined geographical constitution: its geography depends on what and where the policy touches in order to cohere recognisably as policy" (5).…”

Circulating planning ideas from the metropole to the colonies: understanding South Africa's segregated cities through policy mobilities

“…A second justification for employing a policy mobilities lens is to understand how policy shapes, and is shaped by, the adopting/espousing/importing locality. Prince (: 424) in particular appeals to geographers to ‘avoid overly fetishizing the actual movement of policy’ and instead ‘pay more careful attention to the specific circumstances in which policy is adopted’. And Wood () furthers the need to understand the role of local policy actors accepting circulated notions within the mobilization of bus rapid transit.…”

The limits of technocracy and local encounters: The European Union and peacebuilding

“…Technocracy amounts to a belief system -an ideology no less -that is mainstreamed and internalised to the extent that the privileging of bureaucratic systems and justifications is axiomatic (Abbinett 2006;Box 1999;Centeno 1993). It works well alongside neoliberalism and new public management in producing an often unassailable narrative of value for money, objectivity and transparency (Prince 2016). The supposed advantage of technocratic institutions in ethically contested contexts such as Kosovo is that they can treat populations objectively.…”