I. For the last two decades, in several “emerging countries” members of the OECD, different adjustments have been implemented to transform political and governmental schemes of thinking and action in the realm of education. New sets of concepts, ideas and procedures have arrived, trying to reorient conversations and practices, boosting ideas around quality, efficacy, public participation, and accountability. This paper emerges in the context of an ongoing long-term research project designed to study this process of change from an empirical and theoretical perspective.

II. In this paper I present an initial discussion on the significance of political ontology to think about the assumptions, orientations and implications of some contemporary educational policies. Ontology is a key component in philosophy and during the last decades, it has been strongly articulated to the political thinking resulting in the re-emergence of “onto-political” discussions in Europe and the Americas. Contemporary onto-political ideas emerge at the intersection of dialogues on the ontological difference (Stavrakakis, 1999; Palonen, 2007), and on the post-marxist (Laclau and Mouffe, 2005; Mouffe, 2005) and post-foundational projects (Marchart, 2007; Stavrakakis, 2007).

III. Political ontology (PO) can be understood as the sort of thinking oriented to elucidate the difference and function of: the political, policy and politics (Mouffe, 1999; Rancière, 1999; Critchley & Marchart, 2004). One basic assumption in some perspectives is that we can provide a political explanation of the "being", and this would be possible because reality has an absent ground that can only be formally indicated (Marchart, 2007). PO provides elements to think about discourses, structures, inclusion and exclusion in different realms. PO seems useful to question logics, concepts, representations, even aspirations introduced in contemporary educational discourses, particularly in the political process.

IV. As I mentioned, I am conducting a research oriented to analyze the policy making and implementation process in the field of Higher Education (HE). The study is organized into two axes: in one of them I analyze how specific policies are constructed in the governmental domain and implemented along the institutional fabric. During the analysis of specific policies attention has been devoted to the influence of international trends and recommendations, and the use of evidence based on research to guide the political process. Along the second axis, I analyze theoretical and political assumptions and frameworks guiding the policy process, with particularly attention in the incidence of globally adopted approaches such as: new public management, strategic planning, public policy and neo-institutionalism (Simons, Olsen & Peters, 2009).

V. The onto-political discussion is transversal to both axes, since I am asking how policy and policies “think of” and “produce” reality, problems, solutions; the educational subjects and their relationships. I want to know about the kind of values, concepts and aspirations included/excluded in the design and implementation of a policy. Such interrogations are at the same time philosophical, political, educational, theoretical and empirical. They relate not only to the consequences of predominant theoretical frameworks within contemporary education or political thinking, but also to the way in which we interrogate them.

Birklan, A. (2011). An Introduction to the Policy Process. Sharp: New York. Bologna Process (2010) BOLOGNA beyond 2010. Report on the development of the European Higher Education Area. At: http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/Irina/Bologna%20beyond%202010.pdf CONACYT (2001) Programa Especial de Ciencia y Tecnología 2001-2006. México: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Critchley, C. and Marchart, O. (eds) (2004) Laclau: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge. Fisher, F. (2003). Reframing Public Policy. Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices. Oxford U.P.: NY. Laclau, E. and Mouffe, Ch. (2001). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Marchart, O. (2007). Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Miller, P. and N. Rose (2008). Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Mouffe, Ch. (1999). The Challenge of Carl Schmitt. New York: Verso. Mouffe, Ch. (2005). On the Political. London: Routledge. OECD. (2005). OECD e-Government Studies: Mexico. Paris: OECD. OECD-SEP. (2006). Thematic Review of Tertiary Education. Country Background. México; OECD-SEP. Palonen, K. (2007). "Politics or the Political? An Historical Perspective on a Contemporary Non-Debate." European Political Science 6: 69-78. Parsons, W. (1995). Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pettit, P. (2005) Rawls’s political ontology, Politics, philosophy & economics, June, vol. 4 no. 2: 157-174. Rancière, J. (1999). Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Simons, M., Olssen, M., & Peters, M. (Eds.) (2009). Re-Reading Education Policies. The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Stavrakakis, Y. (2007). The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, Politics. Albany: SUNY Press. Stavrakakis, Y. (1999). Lacan and the Political. London and New York: Routledge. SEP. (2007). Programa Sectorial de Educación. México: Secretaría de Educación Pública. Torfing, J. (1999) New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek. Oxford: Blackwell.