The Ontological Rhetorics of Education Policy: A Non-Instrumental Theory

Theoretical approaches to policy have started considering the ontological dimensions of policy. Concern for the ontological work performed by policy has introduced questions about what policy is apart from its instrumentality. There exists some research in policy studies proposing the possibility of non-instrumental and ontological features of policy, but as of yet those possibilities remain suggestions. This article theorises policy in order to elicit the non-instrumental and ontological dimensions of policy. The approach taken here emphasizes the constitutive role of policy over the expressive by introducing ontological rhetorics to policy studies. After describing ontological rhetorics, the article turns to an analysis of US federal education policies as an example illustrating the continuous work of ontological rhetorics in constituting a marketised public education as an excess of the various instrumental expressions of education policy under consideration. Following the analysis, the article concludes with some speculative questions and comments about the status of the critical in non-instrumental policy studies, suggesting a new approach to critique that develops uncertainly and alongside its object.