Introduction

Institutionalised governance has provided an explanation for how public institutions have a structured and structuring policy relationship with elite private interests, and how they stimulate as well as seek to control those interests. I intend in this chapter to use regimes of practice as an explanatory tool for knowledge production within institutionalised governance. Drawing on regime theory (Harding, 2000) and Bourdieu's (2000) theory of practice, I intend to build regimes of practice as a means of explaining how people position themselves and are positioned in relation to policymaking. I will show how the policymaking landscape had two main regimes under New Labour: the NLPR, which is made up of ministers, civil servants, private-sector entrepreneurs, academics, think tanks and headteachers; and the PRR or research community, made up of academics and headteachers. Located in between is potential School Leadership Regime (SLR) activity, which includes education management knowledge workers (Gunter, 1999) and those such as teachers, children, headteachers and academics that are positioned as outsiders to the NLPR, rather than seeking to position themselves as a regime of practice.

Developing regimes of practice

As Ball (2008b, p 760) argues, studying the New Labour period in office shows that networks ‘are a policy device, a way of trying things out, getting things done, changing things and avoiding established public sector lobbies and interests’. But what is not always clear is why particular people are brought in and others excluded, and how the process of inclusion and exclusion operates. A list of people could be drawn up that includes researchers and educational professionals in schools, universities and local authorities who are not invited in for talks, whose work is not listed on the National College website and whose practice has not been noticed or endorsed as ‘good’. While conceptualisations of governance through networks enables some people to be recognised regarding their various roles in policy design and delivery, what is not clear as yet is which people matter and why (Christopoulos, 2006). Also, analysis has shown that ‘invocation of the idea’ of networks is automatically seen as a good thing (Frankham, 2006, p 674), and so if you look for consultants, advisers and their networks, you will find them, but beyond describing their existence, it is not clear how power works (Goodwin, 2009).