In Switzerland, the neoliberal reform package was selectively adopted in two waves: a general New Public Management (NPM) reform and a few years later the SAWA reform. The two reform waves were inextricably linked and in fact advanced by the same politicians (Appius & Nägeli, 2017). The study consists of a multilevel analysis of one canton in Switzerland (Zürich) and investigates two aspects: changes in the governance structure as a result of the reform and the temporal dimension of policy enactment. The authors also reflect on the reform outcomes, which SAWA elements were actually implemented, and which were discarded in the political process. Similar to other countries, (i) school-based management was introduced, (ii) the decision-making authority of the local governance level was strengthened, and the (iii) central level (in Switzerland: the cantonal level) was charged with standard-setting and quality control by means of external school evaluation and standardized testing of students. Strikingly, one of the signposts of Swiss direct democracy - involvement of laypersons into quality assurance of public institutions at the district level - was, abolished to shorten the accountability route between the local and central level. In terms of the temporal dimension, the study shows that focusing on the timing of policy adoption may be misleading because in some cases policy enactment was—due to resistance, lack of financial resources, capacity shortcomings—short-lived or “hollowed out” over time (Zahariadis, 2003 & 2007; Pierson, 2004; Rüb, 2009; Morais de Sá e Silva & Porto de Oliveira, 2023). The study draws on empirical research carried out by Appius and Nägeli in three cantons (Lucerne, St. Gallen, Zürich) in which over 1,200 relevant policy documents were analyzed and interviews were conducted with policy actors and practitioners at different governance level within the three cantons. The empirical study was revisited in 2023 and reframed in terms of the new interpretive framework that draws attention to the complexity of a reform wave, explained in the introductory section of this panel, and takes into the consideration a multi-dimensional definition of time. The main findings of the recent study were published in 2024 (Steiner-Khamsi, Appius, Nägeli, forthcoming).

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