Power and Politics in the Higher Education Policy Arena. ASHE Annual Meeting Paper.

The purpose of this paper, the initial report of an ongoing study, is threefold. One is to present and demonstrate the use of the sociology of translation as a methodological framework for the study of power within the higher education policy arena. The second is to define the boundaries and shape of that arena, and the third is to define the meaning of power within this context. The paper notes that the nation's Executive branch has forfeited its role as a policy participant and become a policy barrier, leaving Congress to look for an intersection of policy interests that can be negotiated or forced past the Executive. Through an examination of the student financial aid reauthorization process, the paper reveals the importance of knowledge, communications, coalition building, and grounding policy proposals in the history and culture of the policy arena. The social relationships that foster the exchange and interaction between the Congress and the associations it deals with in policymaking constitute a communication community. The power of this type of community is the product of a common language, cooperative activities, mutual needs, shared history and values, and widely understood signs and symbols. (Contains over 170 references.) (GLR)