Governmentality through intertextuality
Strategic planning discourse in the administration of tertiary education
In this chapter I analyse texts composed and exchanged within the New Zealand
tertiary education domain in order to explore the “will to govern” (Miller and
Rose 2008: 29) in its contemporary manifestation. Using intertextuality as the
principle framework, the analysis is grounded in a detailed case study of the use
of strategic planning as a technology of government. The investigation reveals
the considerable extent to which governments can govern through textual
means, notwithstanding a tightening of control over the period studied through
changes in regimes of compliance. Notable also in the universities’ enforced
adoption of strategic planning is the extent to which the discursive practices
that characterise strategic planning in a complex, multi-levelled environment
can enhance a liberal rationality of rule.