Czech Ecology of expertise as a case of simultaneous evading and intervening the state within the European educational governance
Abstract
Czech Ecology of expertise as a case of simultaneous evading and intervening the state within the European educational governance. Identifying problematic relation between the state and civil society in educational governance, illustrated by shifts in Czech legitimation practices, the paper demonstrates creating a new socio-spatial infrastructure for legitimating action.
Through an ethnography of public events and interviews, I indicate how this infrastructure, contrary to other European countries, arises detached from state structures as an ecology of various simultaneously opposing and affirming relations toward the state. By spatio-temporal and symbolical detachment, the actors render themselves non-partisan external experts; by affirming large-scale data and management, they create a "state effect".
I argue that the Czech context of recognising the state as non-public and non-expert and the new trend in the meaning of expertise changes social contract and principle of democratic participation.