Flickr/Phil Gradwell. Some rights reserved.
The words ‘special measures’ are often uttered with some foreboding. If you are being put under special measures you are failing. The only way to turn things around is to give you some very clear and measurable targets. Special measures is a term that is still widely used today, its blunt heftiness still provokes fear, but in an age of ubiquitous measurement it serves a largely symbolic function. We have moved from the threat of intermittent extra measures to the ongoing, inescapable and constant measures that come with neoliberal competition.
Special measures were originally referred to as ‘special’ precisely because it was unusual to be treated to such overt metric based judgments and actions. But such measurement is now a prevalent and embedded part of the organisation, ordering and governance of the social world. It is no longer the threat of potentially being exposed to extra measures that counts, but rather power now operates through our unceasing exposure to them.
