Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

conclusions and recommendations are a matter of policymaking it was interesting to
analyse and to reflect upon what had happened. With for me as a researcher and
adviser an important note, namely that we had drawn recommendations and conclusions
in which at least partly I could not find me, but still had agreed to. Moreover, I
already had some serious doubts about the meaningfulness and attainability of this
sort of projects. Apparently the recommendations and conclusions had organized
themselves.
To explain why after 10 weeks we shared recommendations and conclusions I went
into psychology. Concepts like social contagion and the avoidance of cognitive dissonance
clarified how in cooperation among people something common evolves without
control or planning of the people involved. Moreover, one can speak of interdependency
which stimulates to make compromises, in which is calculated what will be
attainable for the others involved and more specific for the client (in this case the
Executive Board). Social contagion and cognitive dissonance clarified what is to be
found about responsivity and interdependency in the work of Elias and Mead. The
recommendations and conclusions entail traces of micro-political processes; they
testify from ongoing negotiations about what would be presented as ‘the truth’.
For me a question about the nature of my position became a hot issue. After all, I had
some doubts about the project, I had some strong opinions about how to develop
policy and I - despite ‘myself’- participated in this project and agreed to a lot of things.
Reflecting on these questions it appeared that everybody, neither I, despite my cocreative
intentions, do not control interactions nor control why I am asked to do some
tasks. A complex responsive process-perspective helped to clarify what is happening.
The question was raised whether I functioned as a corporate jester within the UAS,
the one who combines being recalcitrant and flexible and thus employable in certain
projects. A next project helped to clarify this issue.
Drawing up performance agreements
Together with a colleague I was asked to organize the drawing up of performance
agreements. Performance agreements are agreements which every UAS had to make
with the Secretary of State of Education in 2012. Under pain of a budgetary reduction
every UAS had to formulate (and realize) an amount of ambitions with regard to the
quality of education, the personnel and the profiling of the UAS within the own region.
As such these performance agreements are rather coercive with regard to the policymaking
of a UAS.
In the narrative (in chapter 5) about the months in which the performance agreements
were drawn up, I recount the internal political - sometimes Babylonian - process
within senior management, as far as experienced by me. Moreover, it becomes
apparent in which way the organization with regard to the available information and
the existing policy related to what was demanded by the performance agreements. In
the way these topics were handled mutual relations and the process of decision ma-
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