Constructing the European Higher Education Area: Dynamics, Pathways and Enduring Tensions

Abstract

In this panel we are interested in uncovering the processes that facilitate or hinder Europeanisation in the higher education sector and whether, and to what extent, the creation of a European Higher Education Area changes state-higher education relationships, drawing in diverse ways on neo-institutional theories. Constitutionally higher education systems are the responsibility of nation states. But they have the particularity that sectoral actors have traditionally enjoyed a degree of autonomy related to concepts of the universality of knowledge and academic freedom. Higher education scholarship has long recognized that the dynamics that shape higher education developments emerge from the more multi-facetted tensions between state, universities and market (Clark 1983). In creating an EHEA by intergovernmental means, and after a decade’s preparation through the Bologna process, 47 governments on the European continent may have changed the core dynamics. A strand in the literature suggests that as a result of the tightening of transnational linkages and the consolidation of joint policy-making platforms national higher education policies will be reshaped, and in varying degrees, policy and institutional convergence will follow (Witte 2006; Rakic 2001; Martens et al. 2007). But these issues need to be unpacked. Does the fact that 47 governments have signaled their willingness to make changes which are intended to make their systems compatible and comparable change the role of the nation state in higher education systems? Do national governments strengthen their position by using the European platforms and by exploiting a European discourse? Or do they retreat from steering higher education at the national level, especially under the financial pressures of the present crisis, either in favour of common action at European level or by leaving the market to decide? And how does Europeanization affect the non state actors who have a role in the process: Does the creation of new platforms on which stakeholders are represented enhance or constrain the autonomy which derives from commitments to academic freedom among academics? What is the role of the Commission? This panel presents a selection of recent research with a focus on institutionalization on the European dynamics of change, and the possible transformation in the higher education sector in Europe. Two of the papers focus on the European-level policy dynamics. The first traces the somewhat tumultuous pathway to institutionalization of the Bologna Follow up Process, and compares it with EU policymaking modes. The second takes as a research question whether the latest of the ministerial communiqués which steers the EHEA, that was issued at Leuven in 2009, can be simply considered in terms of path dependency. The focus of the other three papers reflects Europe’s national diversity, and the question of whether there are causal differences between systems or within them. The third paper examines whether and to what extent developments in higher education governance in the two eastern European countries of Bulgaria and Lithuania can be attributed to the Bologna reform. The fourth examines possible changes in state/non-state actor relationships in a case study of institutional management change in France in the period 2003 – 2007. The fifth paper investigates the implementation of the Bologna reform in Norway and Sweden.

Title	Details
Analysing the Transformation of Higher Education Governance in Lithuania and Bulgaria	View Paper Details
Network dynamics of the Bologna process: structure, actors and outcomes	View Paper Details
Surprised by Europe: British higher education decision-making in the Bologna Decade, 1999-2009	View Paper Details
The European Higher Education Area in times of recession: pulling back or moving forward?	View Paper Details
Creating a European Platform for Academic Leadership	View Paper Details