A Comparative Analysis of New Governance Instruments in the Transnational Educational Space: a shift to knowledge-based instruments?

In recent years, the ongoing development towards a knowledge-based society - associated with globalization, an aging population, new technologies and organizational changes - has led to a more intensive analysis of education and learning throughout life with regard to quantitative, qualitative and financial aspects. In this framework, education policy is no longer merely an affair of the nation state; on the contrary, a range of significant actors (international, supranational and nongovernmental organizations) play an important role in policy formation and construct a transnational educational space. In a research project being carried out at the University of Tubingen, the education policy initiatives of an international (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]) and supranational (European Union [EU]) organization concerning the concept of lifelong learning are being examined with emphasis on its implementation into national forms of monitoring and reporting systems. A part of the study concerns issues regarding the influence of the OECD and EU on national policy formation and their managing capacity. This article focuses on the emergence of new governance instruments used by the OECD and EU in the transnational educational space, their characteristics and their impacts, applying, as a conceptual tool, Willke's analytical distinction of regulative media into power, money and knowledge.