Juridification, new constitutionalism and market reforms to the English NHS

an article by David Ian Benbow (Keele University, UK) published in Capital & Class Volume 43 Issue 2 (June 2019)

Abstract
M
arket reforms to the English National Health Service within the neo-liberal era have diverted money away from patient needs to market bureaucracies and the coffers of private companies and undermine cross subsidy and risk pooling within the National Health Service. Consequently, governments within the neo-liberal era have sought to remove the deleterious effects of their market reforms from political contestation through strategies of depoliticisation.

I assess the success of the strategies of juridification (the increase of formal law) and new constitutionalism (transnational legal rules which restrict national policymaking to the model of liberal democratic capitalism) in depoliticising market reforms to the English National Health Service.

As the National Health Service was increasingly marketised, European Union public procurement and competition laws became increasingly applicable, although scope exists for exceptions. The discretion afforded to commissioners by the regulations passed pursuant to S.75 of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) regarding tendering is disputed. Many commissioners have acted as though their discretion was curtailed in practice. However, there are countervailing forces to competition, such as resource constraints and recent moves towards integration (although this may also afford private sector companies with new opportunities).

I contend that the privatisation that marketisation has facilitated appears highly politicised, as is evidenced by increased campaigning activity in opposition to it.

Recent responses to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and prospective post-Brexit trade deals indicate a heightened awareness of the ability of external constitutional constraints to restrict National Health Service policymaking. This suggests that neither the strategies of juridification nor new constitutionalism have been successful in depoliticising market reforms to the English National Health Service.

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Shifting logics: limitations on the journey from 'state' to 'market' logic in UK higher education

an article by Elizabeth A Alexander (Newcastle University) and Wendy Phillips and Dharm Kapletia (University of the West of England) published in Policy & Politics Volume 46 Number 4 (October 2018)

Abstract

Our study of UK higher education institutions (HEIs) offers insights into the role of institutional logics in the adoption of organisational practices – specifically outsourcing.

We identify two logics prevalent within HEIs: a public service 'state logic' and a 'market logic'.

While adherence to the market logic supports commercial-based practices such as outsourcing, organisations enact competing logics in complex ways. Outsourcing is mainly limited to peripheral activities segmented from the core while a nascent cooperative solution is emerging as HEIs co-opt practices and discourse of outsourcing to justify hybrid relationships that marry competing logics in a process of selective coupling.

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Constructing a national higher education brand for the UK: positional competition and promised capitals

an article by Sylvie Lomer (Northampton University, UK), Vassiliki Papatsiba (University of Sheffield, UK) and Rajani Naidoo (University of Bath, UK) published in Studies in Higher Education Volume 41 Issue 1 (January 2018)

Abstract

This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals.

We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the ‘Education UK’ and subsumed under the broader ‘Britain is GREAT’ campaign of the Coalition Government.

The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment.

The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy.

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The flexible university: higher education and the global production of migrant labor

an article by Yasmin Y. Ortiga (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) published in British Journal of Sociology of Education Volume 38 Issue 4 (2017)

Abstract

This article demonstrates how neoliberal higher education has come to play a distinct role in the global market for migrant labor, where a growing number of developing nations educate its citizens for overseas work in order to maximize future monetary remittances.

Located in the Philippines, this study shows how local colleges and universities attempt to impose an ideal notion of flexibility, quickly shifting academic manpower and resources to programs that would produce the ‘right’ types of workers to address foreign labor demands.

Based on qualitative interviews with Filipino college educators and students, the article then discusses how such ‘flexible’ strategies undermine the job security of college faculty and lead to the constant restructuring of physical space within university campuses. Such changes negatively affect both students and teachers.

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The marketisation of care: Rationales and consequences in Nordic and liberal care regimes

an article by Deborah Brennan and Bettina Cass (University of New South Wales, Australia), Susan Himmelweit (Open University, UK) and Marta Szebehely (Stockholm University, Sweden) published in Journal of European Social Policy Volume 22 Number 4 (October 2012)

Abstract

The use of markets and market mechanisms to deliver care services is growing in both liberal and social democratic welfare states.

This article examines debates and policies concerning the marketisation of eldercare and childcare in Sweden, England and Australia.

It shows how market discourses and practices intersect with, reinforce or challenge traditions and existing policies and examines whether care markets deliver user empowerment and greater efficiency.

Markets for eldercare and childcare have developed in uneven and context specific ways with varying consequences. Both politics and policy history help to shape market outcomes.

Hazel’s comment:
What effect is the marketisation of these services likely to have on the labour which is often seen as menial?
Would it be cynical of me to suggest that wages will get as low as possible in the UK and that terms and conditions of employment will get harsher in order to deliver a profit to the shareholders?

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