Skip to main content

Disciplinary Measures

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Evaluation and Governing in the 21st Century

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Science, Knowledge and Policy ((SKP))

  • 280 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter explores the use of evaluation in governing. Adopting a critical sociological lens, the chapter considers how evaluation produces governed policy subjects. The chapter applies the work of Michel Foucault (on discipline) and Gilles Deleuze (on control), using these theorists’ writing to demonstrate how evaluation is mobilised by elites. The chapter supports and expands these theoretical arguments using examples of the application of evaluation in the context of youth work. It also draws on evaluation in UK Higher Education—specifically the National Student Survey—to demonstrate how evaluation is used to govern subjects through manipulating emotional registers. This discussion provokes a consideration of evaluation’s relationship with governing beyond rational politics or EBPM.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Ahmed, Sara. 2004. Affective economies. Social Text 22 (2): 117–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bevan, Gwyn, and Christopher Hood. 2006. What’s measured is what matters: Targets and gaming in the English public health care system. Public Administration 84 (3): 517–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cabinet Office. 2016. Government announces new clause to be inserted into grant agreements—Press releases. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-new-clause-to-be-inserted-into-grant-agreements. Accessed 30 May 2016.

  • Carmel, Emma, and Jenny Harlock. 2008. Instituting the ‘third sector’ as a governable terrain: partnership, procurement and performance in the UK. Policy & Politics 36 (2): 155–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, John. 2004. Changing welfare, changing states: New directions in social policy. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, Bernard. 2005. Youth work: a manifesto for our times. Youth and policy (88): 5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles, 1986. Foucault. Paris: Minuit.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles. 1992. Postscript on the Societies of Control. October (59): 3–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dean, Mitchell. 2010. Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles. 2004. Logic of sense. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles, and Constantin V. Boundas. 1991. Empiricism and subjectivity: An essay on Hume’s theory of human nature. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1988. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denzin, Norman K. 2009. The elephant in the living room: Or extending the conversation about the politics of evidence. Qualitative Research 9 (2): 139–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Department for Education and Skills. 2002. Transforming youth work—Resourcing excellent youth services. London: Department for Education and Skills/Connexions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duff, Cameron. 2014. Assemblages of health: Deleuze’s empiricism and the ethology of life. London: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duggan, Lisa. 2002. The new homonormativity: the sexual politics of neoliberalism. In Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics, ed. R. Castronovo and D. Nelson, 175–194. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ereaut, Gill, and Nat Segnit. 2006. Warm words: How we are telling the climate story and can we tell it better. London: Institute for Public Policy Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel. 1997. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984, ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel, and James D. Faubion. 1994. Power. City of Westminster: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel, Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller. 1991. The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gane, Nicholas. 2012. The governmentalities of neoliberalism: Panopticism, post-panopticism and beyond. The Sociological Review 60 (4): 611–634.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garland, David. 1997. ‘Governmentality’ and the problem of crime: Foucault, criminology, sociology. Theoretical criminology 1 (2): 173–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James Jerome. 1966. The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth. 2010. The affect theory reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Hemmings, Clare. 2005. Invoking affect: Cultural theory and the ontological turn. Cultural Studies 19 (5): 548–567.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hood, Christopher. 2006. Gaming in targetworld: The targets approach to managing British public services. Public Administration Review 66 (4): 515–521.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • House of Commons Education Committee. 2011. Services for young people: Third report of the session 201012, vol. 1, HC 755-1. London: HM Stationery Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunter, Shona. 2015. Power, politics and the emotions: Impossible governance? Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Issitt, Mary, and Jean Spence. 2005. Practitioner knowledge and the problem of evidence based research policy and practice. Youth and Policy 88: 63–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, Peter. 1995. Reflections on performance measurement in public service organizations. In Measures for success in the public sector, 1–18. London: Public Finance Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeffries, J. 2012. Pattern, Patterning. In Inventive methods: The happening of the social, ed. Celia Lury and Nina Wakeford, 125–135. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, Rhys, Jessica Pykett, and Mark Whitehead. 2011. Governing temptation: Changing behaviour in an age of libertarian paternalism. Progress in Human Geography 35 (4): 483–501.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, Rhys, Jessica Pykett, and Mark Whitehead. 2013. Changing behaviours: On the rise of the psychological state. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kippin, Henry, Gerry Stoker, and Simon Griffiths, eds. 2013. Public Services: A new reform agenda. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lather, Patti. 2005. Scientism and scientificity in the rage for accountability: A feminist deconstruction. In American Educational Research Association Annual Conference.

    Google Scholar 

  • Law, John. 2004. After method: Mess in social science research. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leder, Drew. 1990. The absent body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massumi, Brian. 2005. Fear (the spectrum said). positions: east asia cultures critique 13 (1): 31–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman, Janet. 2001. Modernizing governance: New Labour, policy and society. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ocean, Jude, and Andrew Skourdoumbis. 2015. Who’s counting? Legitimating measurement in the audit culture. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: 1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ord, Jon. 2014. Aristotle’s phronesis and youth work: Beyond instrumentality. Youth & Policy 112: 56–73.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paterson, Mark. 2006. Feel the presence: Technologies of touch and distance. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24 (5): 691–708.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paterson, Mark. 2009. Haptic geographies: Ethnography, haptic knowledges and sensuous dispositions. Progress in Human Geography 33 (6): 766–788.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pawson, Ray. 2013. The science of evaluation: A realist manifesto. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pimlott‐Wilson, Helena. 2015. Individualising the future: the emotional geographies of neoliberal governance in young people's aspirations. Area.

    Google Scholar 

  • Power, Michael. 1997. The audit society: Rituals of verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, Nikolas. 2000. Government and control. British Journal of Criminology 40 (2): 321–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sabri, Duna. 2013. Student evaluations of teaching as' fact-totems': The case of the UK National Student Survey. Sociological Research Online 18 (4): 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sellar, Sam. 2015. A feel for numbers: Affect, data and education policy. Critical Studies in Education 56 (1): 131–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sercombe, Howard. 2010. Youth work ethics. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, Jonathan. 1995. Foucault and the Political. London, New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Squires, Peter, and Lynda Measor. 2005. Below decks on the youth justice flagship: The politics of evaluation. In The Politics of Evaluation: Participation and Policy Implementation, ed. David Taylor and Susan Balloch, 21–40. Bristol: Policy Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sunstein, Cass R., and Richard Thaler. 2008. Nudge: The politics of libertarian paternalism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, David, and Susan Balloch. 2005. The politics of evaluation: Participation and policy implementation. Bristol: Policy Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Terranova, Tiziana. 2007. Futurepublic on information warfare, bio-racism and hegemony as noopolitics. Theory, Culture & Society 24 (3): 125–145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Treasury H.M. 2011. The magenta book. London: The Stationery Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb, P. Taylor, and Kalervo N. Gulson. 2012. Policy prolepsis in education: Encounters, becomings, and phantasms. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 33 (1): 87–99.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Deirdre Niamh Duffy .

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Duffy, D.N. (2017). Disciplinary Measures. In: Evaluation and Governing in the 21st Century. Palgrave Studies in Science, Knowledge and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54513-8_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54513-8_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54512-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54513-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics