ABSTRACT
A globalization of policy discourses has been identified as a feature of the contemporary world by many writers (Edwards 1997; Taylor et al. 1997; Lingard and Rizvi 1998). Explorations of this phenomenon, however, have tended to focus on material conditions encouraging it, rather than on the work of discourse in working it up. Marginson (1997: 35), for example, infers that the human capital view emerged in part as a result of a material relation between economists supportive of that particular view and the work of international bodies during the 1960s.
