Towards a pedagogical state? Summoning the ‘empowered’ citizen

After critically reviewing the apparent ‘turn’ from welfare states to pedagogic states, I focus on forms of pedagogy evident in notions of citizen empowerment. Issues raised through documentary analysis of key UK policy texts are examined through frameworks offered by Aradhana Sharma's work on women's empowerment in India in order to widen the analytical lens, opening up issues and questions that might be helpful in analysing new configurations of governance in the UK. These include the problem of multiplicity in the identification of strategies and technologies; the idea of pedagogy as a gendered domain, both in terms of the subjects targeted and in those involved in pedagogical work; and the problem of conceptualising ‘the state’ in formulations such as the ‘pedagogical state’. Although questioning the idea of a ‘pedgagogic turn’, I conclude by addressing the forms of politics and political subjects called forth by pedagogic projects. The paper was written before the 2010 election but the analysis has much to offer to the politics of Cameron's Big Society.