Opening the ‘Black-Box’ of Political Actors in the Europe of Knowledge

Abstract

Actors promote ideas and interests, and finally adopt policies in the Europe of Knowledge, but actor constellations shaping and emerging due to the overlapping boundaries of education and research remain very much a ‘black-box’. This panel invites papers to examine the role of politics and actors in the Europe of Knowledge. Potential contributions could address the following: Is there a dominant set of actors who are the driving force in the process of creating the Europe of Knowledge? Who are these actors on an individual or organisational level, what politics do they represent, and how do they reconcile the overlapping boundaries between education and research? Are they moving between the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area? If so, are EU knowledge policies more coherent as a result of these actors’ stable interests? Or are these policies lacking coherence because these actors’ interests are in flux due to struggles in different fields? To what extent do the outcomes reflect these tensions? From another angle, contributions could also investigate: how are party politics, coalitions, political cleavages, social forces, and/or actor networks affecting policy? How do political changes over time within the member states impact EU policy formation? Papers might also take a more methodological approach: Is the world of policy making in the Europe of Knowledge virtually unknowable? How can we reveal these hidden processes? Are there prevailing ideas, interests, instruments and institutions (4Is) that political actors represent or stand for? How can we identify them and make them analytically operational?