Etapas del direccionamiento o planeación estratégica

One of the first things to make clear before moving onto a discussion of the various policy analysis methodologies is how this thesis uses the term “policy”. There are different interpretations in the literature about what constitutes a policy. One of the more important debates related to this question is when does a trend or initiative actually

are hidden dimensions to policy that are often overlooked at the expense of government action. There are all kinds of questions related to power that need to be addressed in any interpretation of policy. It is discouraging to note the conclusion of Berkhout and

Wielemans (1999) that policy is really only a symbolic performance of popular values and not a provider of solutions or a change maker. Hence, although while Berkhout and Wielemans are correct in that there are hidden dimensions to a policy, their position that policy is only symbolic is in contrast to the position held in this thesis which is that policy has very concrete effects on individuals and systems.

A preferable interpretation is put forth by Pal (2006). He feels that policy has enjoyed a resurgence in the public arena and this has been matched by an increasing international interest in developing policy capacity. Interestingly, Pal calls it "public policy" rather than just policy. This is a contrast to other authors, such as Berkhout and Wielemans, who only ever refer to policy. The use of the adjective “public” says a lot about the way Pal views the ownership of policy. Pal (2006) defines public policy as, "a course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities to address a given problem or interrelated set of problems" (p. 2). It is this interpretation that best corresponds to the understanding of policy used in this thesis.

One important element of Pal's definition is that he does not make a separation between policy makers and policy receivers. Bowe et al. (1992) also deride the trend to separate policy makers and policy receivers. People expect something from policy makers and vice versa and when those expectations are not met there are political and/or social consequences. Therefore, a policy will impact multiple groups in society, although these effects may be different from group to group. This is particularly important when looking at the influence of multinational groups on national education policy in a post-conflict country such as Cambodia. For this

thesis, one of the elements I am exploring is who exactly are the policy makers and receivers. Is the Cambodian national government the policy maker and its population the policy receiver or are the multinational financial organizations the policy makers with the conditional loans? Therefore, the distinction between policy receivers and policy makers is an important distinction to think through in the definition of terms in this thesis.

When a policy is created, there are three elements that impact its manifestation into reality according to Pal (2006). These are: problem definition (the policy makers define a problem or set of problems they are seeking to address through the creation of the text); policy goals (what the policy makers are hoping to achieve with this policy); and policy instruments (what mechanisms are in place to aid in implementing the policy). These elements are incorporated into the research design for this thesis.

Like Pal, Ball (1993) has stated that often times researchers do not clearly identify what they understand policy to be in their research. He perceives policy as two major characterizations. These are policy as text and discourse. Ball suggests that policy is both text and discourse and researchers need to be aware of both in their understanding of policy. Policy as text holds that policies are representations which are encoded and

decoded in complex ways. Policy is not stable. It is always changing depending on who is reading the text and within what context. This is a similar idea to Steiner-Khamsi’s (2006) focus on how policies are taken up on the ground and interpreted differently by different individuals in different contexts. The text, the reader, and the context all have histories and how those histories meld is very unpredictable. As a result, a researcher has to be aware of the historical, social, and cultural environments into which policy is introduced.

On the other hand, a policy is also a discourse and, as shall be discussed below, it is this view of policy that is most relevant to this thesis. This is based on the work of Foucault (1977) and it holds that policies and policy makers exercise power through a production of what they deem to be truth and knowledge. People take up social positions constructed for them within policies. Ball's work is important because it forces a

researcher to understand that policy is much more than the physical document. To get a true understanding of policy, a researcher must see it as a piece of social history with multiple layers of development and understanding. A policy analysis must try to

understand as many of these levels as possible but to also understand that any reading of that policy will be very much rooted in the researcher’s own social and cultural

positioning. In trying to get at these multiple layers, many researchers employ varying policy analysis methodologies. An examination of several of these methodologies follows in the next section in order to justify the approach used in this thesis.