Despite being traditionally characterized as social democratic welfare states (Esping-Andersen 1994), or as following a Nordic path to privatization (Verger et al 2017), Sweden and Finland have adopted quite different approaches to private actor involvement in public welfare. In Sweden, the public is increasingly depending on private providers to deliver core welfare services, such as elderly care, social services and health care. Education is no exception. In fact, it is a large and expanding market. In 2017, Swedish municipalities spent about 45 billion SEK (appr. 4.3 billion EUR) on purchases from private actors providing education, and this is more than twice as much that municipalities spent on private providers in 2007 (SKL 2019).

In this paper we pursue a largely under-examined perspective in educational research by ‘following the money’ from the public to the private education industry. We analyse a longitudinal dataset covering the flow of public funding to private actors. This data cover all invoices from purchases made by municipalities from private actors in two segments of the education market: i) Private education delivery at the compulsory level and ii) Professional learning, in-service training, consultancy and support services. This paper thereby aims explore issues of who buys what from whom. ‘Who buys’ refers to municipalities as purchasers of education and related services. The ‘what’ is limited to the two segments and the ‘whom’ refer to the main sellers, including their core missions and ownership. Our analytical approach focuses on actors’ formative roles and the interrelatedness of the public and the private, with a particular focus on commercial and business actors (Ball 2015) and political decisions and policy frameworks that enable or constrain private actor involvement in the growing global education industry (Verger et al 2016; Thompson & Parreira do Amaral 2019; Steiner-Khamsi 2018; Au & Ferrare 2015; Ball 2012).

The two national market segments illustrate how political reforms open up markets and invite private education companies to both deliver and profit from education and public funding in different ways. From a wider international and Nordic perspective, the Swedish case offers perspectives on the implications of the blurring of public–private boundaries and the monetary flows these relationships entail. We also discuss a potential  ‘privatization of knowledge’ and argue for the need to further explore the different facets of increasing ‘financialization’ of education (Thompson and Parreira do Amaral 2019:5), nationally as well as globally.

Problematiken med avhopp och hög andel elever med ofullständig gymnasieutbildning står högt på den svenska politiska dagordningen. Reformarbetet på området bedrivs av flera aktörer på olika nivåer, där myndigheter, kommuner, fristående skolhuvudmän och givetvis rektorer och lärare i gymnasieskolor är några av de mest centrala. Här studeras en av dessa policyaktörer, nämligen den statliga myndigheten Skolinspektionen (SI), med syftet att beskriva och analysera SI:s aktiviteter som kan kopplas till att förhindra avhopp och öka genomströmningen från gymnasieskolan. Empiriskt bygger studien på myndighetstexter och på intervjuer med myndighetsledning och skolinspektörer. Teoretiskt utgår studien från ett perspektiv där styrning ses som ett verb (Clarke 2015; Ozga 2016) och analyserar aktiviteter, processer och det arbete som utgör själva görandet av styrning och som sker både inom och mellan olika institutioner och organisatoriska nivåer. Studien visar att SI:s aktiviteter, som de har stor handlingsfrihet att utforma, och inte minst SI:s så kallade kvalitetsgranskningar, kan förstås ur detta perspektiv. SI lägger problemlösningsansvaret för att minska gymnasieavhopp hos rektorer, lärare och skolpersonal. I arbetet rekommenderas och premieras vissa arbetsmetoder, ansatser och kunskapsbaser. Dessa styrningsaktiviteter bygger på vissa föreställningar och kunskaper som görs manifesta och genom inspektörernas arbete i form av ett slags »skuldbeläggandets politik«.

Low completion rate in upper secondary education is seen as a bigproblem in the Nordic countries. School failure has shown todramatically increase the risks for unemployment and  labourmarket exclusion with severe consequences for both society andthe young person. This paper analyses national policy measures tocombat low upper secondary education completion rates inNorway and Sweden, often regarded as representing a socialdemocratic welfare model and a universalistic transition regime.The analysis demonstrates that although this issue has receivedextensive political attention, the two countries display somewhatdifferent policy designs. The Norwegian approach is proactive andtargeted while the Swedish policy is more general and directedtowards reforming organisational structures in upper-secondary education. In sum, our analysis demonstrates that nationalgovernance structures shape and influence policy design in thecontext of an increasingly diversified Nordic social democraticwelfare state regime.

In this chapter, we focus on how education governance can be conceptualized and understood in a context of far-reaching marketization and privatization. We address the challenges and limitations of (political) education governance in times of educational marketization. We argue that the Swedish case is a good starting point for such analytical exploration, since Sweden has experienced quite a far-reaching transformation in this regard, from a strongly centralist and state-led education system to a dispersed, multi-actor and marketized education system, which may be of relevance and importance for additional theorizing in this area. We show that few current political and societal challenges to the dominant policy trajectory exist and that both social democratic and non-socialist governments follow an entrenched policy path, governing largely by preservation and restoration. We argue for the need to critically discuss and unpack the complexities of governing education in a policy context in which market forces have entered, and fundamentally are affecting, education in all policy stages.

This chapter offers an empirical illustration of the governing-evaluation-knowledge nexus by pinpointing a particular situation, a pause between two national evaluation and quality assurance (EQA) reforms, while a new national system was being planned and prepared, but its final design was not yet decided upon. This situation – unusual in the Swedish higher education policy context – adds uncertainty to the situation and opens a potential space for policymakers and higher education institutions (HEIs) to navigate. We draw on interviews and documents collected from four HEIs during this reform interval. We analyse and discuss how the four institutions navigate, coordinate, mobilise, copy, and learn in a situation without a formal national EQA system in place but in which the wider higher education policy context is deeply infused with contemporary trends and international policies and ideas on quality assurance (QA). We found that context and institutional preconditions set their mark on the work undertaken during this interval. We also discerned tendencies of homogenisation and isomorphism. Finally, we highlight the tendency of further expansion of EQA activities.

In this chapter we initially discuss the relation between governing, evaluation, and knowledge. Then we go back to the ideal typical notion of increasingly institutionalised evaluation machinery and locate the important work of what we label as qualocrats and what may be termed the burden of judgements within this overall frame. We finally discuss the expansion and the increasing complexity of evaluation and quality assurance work in higher education and point to some possible implications and problems.

This introductory chapter starts by outlining the aim of the book: to analyse and discuss the interplay between governing, evaluation and knowledge with an empirical focus on Swedish higher education. It then goes on to locate this aim and the intended contribution within the wider research context and in previous studies. The chapter also highlights some important national traits of the Swedish case and Swedish higher education policy development, before presenting the overall conceptual frame employed in the book and the project it builds on. Finally, an outline of the forthcoming chapters is provided.

In this chapter, we draw attention to the important political dimension of the governing-evaluation-knowledge nexus. The aim is to describe and analyse the processes leading up to the two most recent national evaluation and quality assurance (EQA) systems in operation from 2011 to 2014 and from 2016 onwards by analysing the formation of the respective EQA systems and the actors involved in these processes. The chapter outlines political justifications and ideological beliefs and highlights central shifts and continuities in these processes. We explore how formation of EQA systems can be understood within a wider context of the work of governing by contrasting the fast, competitive "shortcut governing" from the 2011–2014 EQA system with the more dialogue- and consensus-oriented process implying a "policy rerouting" later, as manifested in the process leading up to the 2016 EQA system. We also discuss quality assurance expansion in the context of higher education policymaking.

The aim of this chapter is to analyse how results from the 2011 to 2014 national evaluation and quality assurance (EQA) system were communicated to and via the media. First, the analysis focuses on the attempted media framing, as manifested in press releases of national evaluations from the responsible national agencies. Second, the higher education institution-media interactions, in the context of two national quality evaluations from two subject areas (education and specialist nursing), are analysed from the perspective of how four higher education institutions’ attempted framings were (re)presented by the media. The chapter concludes with a discussion pointing to interdependence and possible reinforcement of the media-quality assurance relationship and points to some possible implications for education governing. The chapter also discusses the silences and articulations that could not be detected in the studied data, as situated within the context of reputation management and media display in the contemporary "evaluation society".