Externalisations in the Portuguese parliament : analysing power struggles and (de-)legitimation with Multiple Streams Approach

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tedp20 Journal of Education Policy ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tedp20 Externalisations in the Portuguese parliament: analysing power struggles and (de-)legitimation with Multiple Streams Approach Íris Santos & Jaakko Kauko To cite this article: Íris Santos & Jaakko Kauko (2020): Externalisations in the Portuguese parliament: analysing power struggles and (de-)legitimation with Multiple Streams Approach, Journal of Education Policy, DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2020.1784465 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1784465 © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 20 Jul 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 251 View related articles View Crossmark data Externalisations in the Portuguese parliament: analysing power struggles and (de-)legitimation with Multiple Streams Approach Íris Santos a,b and Jaakko Kauko a a Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland; b Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal ABSTRACT International organisations’ importance in education policy has been growing in recent years. They have been able to promote their role by providing data and interpreting it through international assessments and guidance, and by highlighting some countries or regions as benchmarks for global improvement, performance, and efficiency. International organisations’ output feeds policy reform arguments in national and regional contexts. We analyse debates on education policy in the Portuguese parliament with the aim of understanding the roles of external references to international organisations, their instruments, and associated countries. We understand the agenda-setting process through political, problem, and policy streams as described by the Multiple Streams Approach. Our analysis shows that external references play a key role in the three streams as extra sources of authority used by policymakers in the attempt to open new policy windows and couple the three streams, resulting in policy change. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 13 December 2019 Accepted 14 June 2020 KEYWORDS Externalisation; external references; reference societies; multiple streams approach; parliament; Portugal Introduction The European Union (EU) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have increasingly fed and supported discourses in favour of and opposed to policy reforms in national and regional contexts in the last fifty years. While these organisations only indirectly influence education legislation, they are increasingly influential through data production, and comparative and guidance instruments. The use of the Open Method of Coordination has strengthened the EU’s and European Commission’s role in the intergovernmental Bologna Process, which aims to harmonise European education also outside the EU (Krejsler, Olsson, and Petersson 2014). The OECD has developed international large-scale learning assessments (ILSAs) like PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment), now widely acknowledged by education policymakers. Using such instruments, these organisations highlight the practices and policies of ‘high-performing’ countries or regions. These have become benchmarks for countries seeking to improve their policies’ effectiveness (e.g. Grek 2009; Bulle 2011; Carvalho 2009, 2012; Carvalho and Costa 2014a). CONTACT Íris Santos [email protected] Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere 33014, Finland JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1784465 © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. In this article we examine references to international organisations, their instruments, and the countries or regions described as successful, aiming to understand the roles these external references play in the agenda-setting process in the Portuguese parliament. Our study focuses on the externalisations to world situations 1 (Schriewer 1990) occurring in the context of the Portuguese parliament’s debates on education. Jürgen Schriewer (1990) identifies the reference to world situations as a commonly used form of externalisation. He defines it as the act of opening the system to what lies beyond its borders, arguing that there is a ‘socio-logic’, based on cultural values or societal conditions and events, that leads to the use of certain world situations as an authority tool for (de-)legitimation of policy ideas struggling to find a consensus (Schriewer 1990; Steiner-Khamsi 2003; Waldow 2012). The study focuses on Portugal, where research on the use of external references in the specific context of the Portuguese parliament’s plenary debates on education remains non-existent. A limited number of studies on the discursive uses of external inputs in the country’s education debates exist. They mainly study the influences and uses of PISA (e.g. Afonso and Costa 2009; Costa 2011; Lemos and Serrão 2015; Carvalho, Costa, and Gonçalves 2017) or the OECD (e.g. Lemos 2014; Teodoro 2019). Research repeatedly describes PISA influencing policymaking in several national and regional arenas (e.g. Afonso and Costa 2009; Carvalho and Costa 2009, 2014b; Breakspear 2012; Morgan 2015; Niemann, Martens, and Teltemann 2017; Morgan and Ibrahim 2019) and its impact on the (re)construction of the reference societies 2 used as a tool to strengthen arguments (de-)legitimising policy change (e.g. Takayama 2009; Sellar and Lingard 2013; Carvalho and Costa 2014a; Takayama, Waldow, and Sung 2013; Rook and Espeña 2018; Waldow and Seiner-Khamsi 2019). However, the results also indicate that PISA does not significantly influence the target (Sung and Lee 2017) or number (Rautalin, Alasuutari, and Vento 2018) of reference societies used in national policy debates. Recent research argues that it is the combination of PISA results, longstanding relationships, and historically constructed images of the top scorers that makes a country or region a positive or negative reference society (e.g. Waldow, Takayama, and Sung 2014; Waldow 2017; Takayama 2018; Waldow and Steiner-Khamsi 2019). Because much of the international and Portuguese research on external references has focused on PISA, 3 PISA’s low impact in Portugal during the survey’s first two cycles is interesting. Following Martens and Niemann (2013, 314) reflection on the impact of ILSAs on national contexts, strong public policy debates emerge when perceiving education as an important topic is combined with a large gap between the country’s expectations and the ILSA’s actual results. It has long been accepted in Portugal that its education system is poor in European comparison (e.g. Gomes 1999; Nóvoa 2005; Lemos 2015; Mendes 2015). Poor PISA results therefore caused no national ‘scandalisation’ (Steiner-Khamsi 2003). We analyse the full spectrum of external references and broaden the perspective beyond PISA. It is important to analyse the external elements used, and why and how they are used in the Portuguese parliamentary discussions on education. We join others in arguing that to understand the policymaking process and the uses of external references within this process, the local context in which this process occurs must be understood (e.g. Schriewer 1990; Steiner-Khamsi 2004). Our premise is that to understand the logic of national policymaking, we must draw on both comparative education and policy process theories. 2Í. SANTOS AND J. KAUKO We utilise the analytical lenses of the multiple streams approach (MSA) to policymaking (Kingdon 2003), which allows an analysis of the dynamic process of policymaking and reveals how external references are used during political struggles. The basic idea of the MSA is the individual analysis of the problem, policy, and political streams, and an understanding of how their combination opens policy windows and enables change. Data and methods The study’s data comprises parliamentary debates between December 2001 and December 2018 (Legislatures IX to XIII 4 ), the period between the release of the first PISA results and the first data collection. The data includes all 81 general or specific education debates, and 34 debates on education-related bills (first reading and discussion of reform proposals) in a total of 115 debates, all occurring in plenary session and selected for their extensive discussion of education. The first education debate during the period occurred in June 2002. The data was collected from the Diários da Assembleia da República (DAR) 5 online (https://www.parlamento.pt/) using a keyword search, 6 which identified more than 150 debates on education topics, some of which were listed but unavailable online. The parliamentary Rules of Procedure identify nine main debate types, described in Appendix 1. They differ in who requests them (e.g. ministers or deputies), their urgency, function (e.g. general discussion or debate on concrete bills), and more importantly, whether they demand the attendance of a government representative. Interestingly, education was not extensively discussed in any debates on the state of the nation. Alongside the debate types, we created a category of ‘other debates’. Apart from the state of the nation and thematic debates, education featured relatively evenly in all types (see Appendix 1). The study focuses on the plenary sessions, because they are the primary public mode of communication between deputies and their electorate (Ilie 2017; Paulo and Cunha 2013; Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier 2019). Deputies deliberately seek to convince policy actors and citizens in general of the relevance of their ideas and proposals, or the insignificance of opponents’, thus propelling their agenda. The plenary is therefore an arena in which policy actors perform to a national audience. Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier (2019) and Green-Pedersen (2010) identify different strategies the deputies and their parties use in public debates to attract attention: party competition; claiming and disclaiming credit; and position taking and questioning to raise favourite issues and solutions and hold the government accountable. In developing our analysis, we consider these elements and the idea that the plenary session constitutes a major performance stage for deputies and parties. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. First, we conducted a qualitative content analysis (Schreier 2014) with the support of the Atlas.ti8 software, developing an inductive and deductive coding system. Deductively, we created eight main categories crucial for answering the research questions, such as ‘function of the reference’. These were complemented by sub-categories inductively interpreted by reading the debates. The result was a coding system that informed us, for example, of whether a reference’s function was legitimation or de-legitimation. We then used the coding to form descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage) to understand who the main speakers JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 3 were, the main external references used, and how they were used. Data analysis was organised by Legislature. The analysis of the policy process as a river with multiple streams The policy process is often seen as chaotic, involving different actors at various levels of governance with multiple interests and frequently opposing aims, interacting both cooperatively and competitively (Sabatier 2007; Cairney, Heikkila, and Wood 2019). Since the 1980's a growing number of approaches has analysed policymaking and governance processes through lenses considering them complicated and non-linear: polycentric governance; punctuated equilibrium theory; the advocacy coalition framework; complexity theory; and the multiple streams approach – to name only some (Cairney, Heikkila, and Wood 2019). We understand politics as the process of reorganising contingency: an attempt to grasp complexity (Kauko 2014; see Edwards 2010). The policymaking process itself is complex and dynamic, and we apply the multiple streams approach (MSA), which adopts this premise, to analyse how policy problems emerge in the Portuguese parliament policies’ formulation, and the role references to world situations play. In the 1980's John Kingdon and his research group developed the MSA to understand US federal policymaking. It understands the policymaking process as involving actors in different governance and policy communities. Policymakers, inserted in contexts characterised as organised anarchies (following Cohen, March, and Olsen 1972), are described as possessing a bounded rational ability: they can only attend to a limited number of issues, face high levels of ambiguity and uncertainty, and have tight time constraints, unclear work processes, and frequent changes in participants. This leads to problematic policy preferences (Zahariadis 2007; Jones et al. 2016; Herweg, Zahariadis, and Zohlnhöfer 2018). The MSA presents the policy process as involving five key elements, three independent streams (politics, problems, and policies), policy windows, and policy entrepreneurs. The political stream concerns the policy process’s context (Kingdon 2003). The problem stream relates to issues emerging from a situation perceived as a problem. The policy stream consists of the different solutions advocated by the various policy actors and thrown into the ‘policy primeval soup’ (Kingdon 2003). Policy windows are moments when different policy advocates are more likely to succeed in gaining attention for their proposals. They are rare, remain open briefly, and can be very predictable (e.g. the approval of government programmes) or unexpected (e.g. a natural disaster) (Zahariadis 2007, 73–74). As policymakers are constantly bombarded with problems of which they can attend only to a few, policy entrepreneurs identify policy windows and attempt to combine the three streams by strategically and convincingly presenting their pet solutions to busy policymakers and earning their support (Zahariadis 2007, 74; Herweg, Zahariadis, and Zohlnhöfer 2018, 28–29). The MSA has been expanded and adapted to allow its use in stages of the policy process besides agenda setting in contexts other than the federal level in presidential systems, and for a comparison among countries or regions (Jones et al. 2016; Zahariadis 2007; Herweg, Zahariadis, and Zohlnhöfer 2018). For example, Novotný and Polášek (2016) use the MSA to analyse change within political parties; and Herweg, Zahariadis, 4Í. SANTOS AND J. KAUKO and Zohlnhöfer (2018) suggest the MSA is suitable for studying parliamentary systems. To enable this analysis Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015) propose adaptations to the original approach to include the role of political parties, noting that different party members incorporate complementary roles in different streams. Whereas party experts belong to policy communities, identify problems, and advocate alternative policy proposals in the problem and policy streams, the party leader works on ‘adopting policies in the political stream’ while ‘taking into account the national mood and the constellation of organized interests when supporting (or not) a proposal’ (Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer 2015, 436). This broadened use of the MSA suits our analysis. The Portuguese political system is characterised by strong party discipline and cohesion (Leston-Bandeira 2004). The policy agenda is planned within parties, and issues are framed as problematic and opportunely raised by party leaderships in parliamentary debates, accompanied by policy proposals. We consider the implications of this in the conclusion. The political stream: the context that matters Kingdon (2003, 145–163) describes the political stream as a broader setting for promoting or inhibiting the agenda. It is the context in which the policymaking process occurs. Four main factors affect the political stream: national mood (institutional and public opinion); organised political forces (the balance between support of and opposition to a policy by different interest and political groups); government (changes in the government itself); and consensus building (coalitions built by concession and bargaining). All these factors are involved in Portugal’s political stream. However, we limit our analysis of the government as a political organ functioning under parliament’s scrutiny, instead of as an administrative constellation. The political stream’s character is embedded in history. Portugal had an authoritarian regime for 48 years until April 1974 but retained external relations with other countries and international organisations despite its hard borders and closed ideology (Barreto 2002; Moreira et al. 2010). For example, Portugal was a founder member of the OECD in 1948 (MNE, in https://www.ocde.missaoportugal.mne.pt). This strongly influenced its economic and education policies (Gomes 1999; Barreto 2002; Teixeira, Amaral, and Rosa 2003). The first stable four-year government (1976–1980) also saw the accession to the EU as essential for the establishment of Portuguese democracy. Having applied in March 1977, the country joined as a EU member state in 1986 (Mateus 1999; Fraga 2001). Under its 1976 constitution Portugal adopted a semi-presidential political system, with power divided between the president of the Republic, parliament, and government. The unicameral parliament has strong legislative power, holds the government to account, and has the power to dismiss it through censure or confidence motions (LestonBandeira 2004; Freire 2005; Goes and Leston-Bandeira 2019). The 230 deputies are elected by electoral districts, using the d’Hondt method. The political and electoral culture results in a multiparty system and usually in majority coalition governments. However, Portuguese governments can also function on a minority basis. 7 The complications to the policymaking process that arise from minority governments and the parties’ central parliamentary role mean that party leaders usually form coalitions with other parties politically close to their own. The parties select JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 5 electoral candidates internally and form parliamentary groups (Leston-Bandeira 2004; Lobo, Pinto, and Magalhães 2015). At the time of writing there were seven parties in parliament (Table 1). Externalisation to world situations is frequent in Portuguese parliamentary education debates. Of the 115 analysed debates, only 18 (16%) contained no external reference. In the other 97 there were 830 quotations with external references. Quotations often have more than one external reference. A total of 173 different targets was identified (Table 2). References most commonly concern actors other than countries. Of the 173 targets of externalisation identified, 36% were reference societies, of which most were to specific countries (n = 45), nine to regions, and nine to unidentified groups of countries. However, these references to individual countries represented a minority in the total of quotations with references. Of the 830 quotations with external references, 434 have reference societies. Of these, 84% include regions or unnamed groups of countries (e.g. ‘European countries’ or ‘developed countries’), and only 26% specific countries (mostly European). Indeed, individual countries are rarely referenced in Portuguese parliamentary education debates. They are scattered among many different countries, and it is rare that any are among the five most used external references apart from Spain, to which there were seven references during Legislature XI (Table 4). Table 1. Main political parties in Portugal, organised by number of seats in parliament (Leg. XIII). Party Political spectrum PS (Partido Socialista – Socialist Party) Centre-left PSD (Partido Social Democrata – Social Democrat Party) Centre-right BE (Bloco de Esquerda – Left Block) Left CDS-PP (Centro democrático Social-Partido Popular – Social Democrat Centre-Popular Party) Right PCP (Partido Comunista Português – Portuguese Communist Party) Left PEV (Partido Ecologista ‘Os Verdes’ – Ecologist Party ‘The Greens’) Left PAN (Pessoas-Animais-Natureza – People-Animals-Environment) Centre-left Table 2. Different external references identified. External references Frequency Reference societies 63 (36%) Countries (mostly European countries) 45 Regions (e.g. EU countries) 9 General references (e.g. several countries) 9 Reference to international actors and instruments 99 (58%) Collective or individual international actors (e.g. EU) 55 Instruments (e.g. PISA, Bologna Declaration) 44 Reference to international events 11 (6%) TOTAL 173 (100%) 6Í. SANTOS AND J. KAUKO However, most external references concern international actors (collective or individual) and instruments, constituting 57% of the 173 targets of externalisation. Slightly more than half (n = 55) were international actors (mostly organisations like the EU or OECD; sporadically, individuals like Nicholas Barr or Tibor Navracsics), and 43 were instruments (e.g. Bologna Declaration or PISA). Of the 830 quotations with external references, 566 have references to international actors or tools. Of these, 59% referred to international actors, and 58% to instruments. The remaining 11 of the 173 identified references (6%) were to international events (e.g. conferences). The data reveals references were generally positive (76%) and used for legitimation (61%) (Figures 1 and 2). The positive tone of external references in the Portuguese parliament (Figure 1) can be analysed following Kingdon (2003) as indicative of a national mood, allowing policymakers leeway to use external institutions, instruments, and other countries and regions as sources of authority to support their arguments. However, the relatively high amount of external referencing used for de-legitimation (Figure 2) prompts an examination of why externalisation often seems connected with conflict between organised political forces: external references are used to attain a balance between support of and opposition to proposals. The support one’s own argument can receive and the extent to which opposition or government arguments and actions can be discredited are equally important. 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Leg. IX Leg. X Leg. XI Leg. XII Leg. XIII Positive Negative Neutral Figure 1. Tone of the external references in each Legislature. 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Leg. IX Leg. X Leg. XI Leg. XII Leg. XIII Legitimation De-legitimation Figure 2. Functions of the external references in each Legislature. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 7 Parliamentary dynamics further explain this de-legitimising use of references. The left-wing parties (PCP, BE, PEV) frequently oppose the government’s proposals, and they regularly use external references to de-legitimise others (Table 3), illustrating the difficulty of consensus building among the various organised forces. Indeed, more references were utilised for de-legitimation during Legislature XII (Figure 2). PS deputies, for example, frequently used references for both delegitimation and legitimation. This was true of other parties like the CDS-PP and the PSD (Table 3), demonstrating the importance of discrediting others in this confrontational political environment. Following Kingdon (2003), we observe the effect of government changes in the political stream. External referencing in the Portuguese parliament differs depending on whether a party is in government or opposition. Government parties often use references for the legitimation of their own arguments, while opposition parties use them to de-legitimise others’ ideas and actions. This variation in the use of external references is especially evident in the arguments of the PS and PSD, which alternate between using external references largely for legitimation in government and de-legitimation in opposition. The problem stream: externalisation as a resource for framing The origins of policy problems lie in the framing of situations as issues needing repair. Situations become problems via various routes. Zahariadis (2007) mentions indicators (e.g. results of ILSAs), focused events (e.g. sudden events and catastrophes), feedback (e.g. assessment of pilot programmes), and load (the policymaker’s workload). International actors and instruments can be used as a source of information and authority for formulating new problems. The most prominent examples in the Portuguese parliament are references to the EU and OECD, the international organisations most used as externalisation targets. These organisations are of constant and equal significance (Table 4). They are transversal references, often accumulating with other external references to reinforce arguments regarding most discussion topics. They Table 3. Functions of the external references used by each party. Speaker Function Legitimation De-legitimation PSD-CDS governments 45 3 PS governments 169 12 PS deputies 93 67 PSD deputies 71 57 CDS-PP deputies 44 39 PCP deputies 13 72 BE deputies 35 64 PEV deputies 16 23 PAN deputies 2 0 Luísa Mesquita (no party, previously PCP) 1 2 President of parliament 1 0 8Í. SANTOS AND J. KAUKO 6. The data was collected in August 2018 and January 2019, using several keywords: ‘educação’ [education]; ‘ensino’ [teaching]; ‘aluno’ [student]; ‘escola’ [school]; ‘educador’ [educator]; and ‘professor’ and ‘docente’ [both meaning teacher in Portuguese]. 7. For example, since 2015 Portugal has had a minority PS government with the pre-agreed parliamentary support of all the left-wing parties in parliament. 8. Also observed by Pi Ferrer, Alasuutari, and Tervonen-Gonçalves (2018) in their analysis of reference to others in Portuguese national policymaking. Acknowledgments We would like to thank the members of the research group Knowledge, Power, and Politics in Education (EduKnow) at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, and Professor Luís Miguel Carvalho at the Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Notes on contributors Íris Santos is a research fellow, a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University, and a PhD student at the Institute of Education at the University of Lisbon. Her research interests concern the dynamics of global education governance and policy. She is a co-author of two chapters of the book Politics of Quality in Education: A Comparative Study of Brazil, China, and Russia (Routledge, 2018). Her current research analyses the use of external references in Portuguese education policymaking. Jaakko Kauko is Professor of Education Policy at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University. His research focuses on the fields of education policy and comparative education. His recent publications include an edited book with Risto Rinne and Tuomas Takala entitled Politics of Quality in Education: A Comparative Study of Brazil, China, and Russia (Routledge 2018) and a chapter on the Finnish comprehensive school in Paul t’ Hart and Mallory E. Compton’s (eds) Great Policy Successes (Oxford University Press, 2019). ORCID Íris Santos http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0136-0863 Jaakko Kauko http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0538-6806 References Afonso, N., and E. Costa. 2009. “Use and Circulation of OECD’s ‘Programme for International Student Assessment’ (PISA) in Portugal.” Project KNOWandPOL, WP 12. 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Accessed 3 August 2019. https://www. ocde.missaoportugal.mne.pt JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 19 Kinds of debate as described in the Portuguese parliament’s Rules of Procedure Kind of debate Quantity Explanation Government representative must be present at the debate Debates of interpellation to the government 10 Requested by one of the PGs to discuss general or specific policy topics with the government. Debates with ministers (in this case of education) 8 Each minister must be present at the plenary session at least once each legislative session (1 year) to answer deputies’ questions on the topics related to his/her area. The president of the parliament sets the date of the debate after discussions with the government and the Conference of Representatives. Debates with the Prime Minister 14 The Prime Minister is required to attend plenary sessions twice a week to answer deputies’ questions concerning one or more topic usually chosen by the Prime Minister. The president of the parliament sets the dates of the debate after discussions with the government and the Conference of Representatives. Urgent debates with the government 10 Both the PGs and the government may request an urgent debate. The request and the reasons for it are analysed by the Conference of Representatives, which sets the date for the debate. Debates on the state of the nation 0 (verified but not included) Regular debates happening at the end of each legislative session arranged by the president of the parliament on a date agreed with the government. During these debates general policy actions and the government’s activities are analysed. Debates do not require the presence of government representatives Legislative initiatives (debates on reforms) 34 Focusing on one or more bills (Law Project – presented by the PGs; Law Proposal – presented by the government or the government of the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores) Actuality debates 12 Requested by one or more PGs on a topic considered relevant. These debates may happen up to twice a month. The presence of a representative of the government is not mandatory. Thematic debates 2 The president of the parliament, the committees, the PGs, or the government can request a thematic debate. The requester must distribute a document beforehand to all the participants introducing the debate, with supporting documents. Political declarations 14 Used by PGs or individual deputies to express opinions on specific situations and events. Each PG has the right to one political declaration a week. Deputies not belonging to a PG may do this up to twice every legislative session, and single deputies belonging to a PG three times in a legislative session. Other debates 11 We created this category to include debates that could not fit in other categories, but which concerned education, such as subjects of relevant interest, congratulatory votes, report appreciations, and government declarations. Appendix 1. 20 Í. SANTOS AND J. KAUKO