The aim of the paper is to analyse national responses to European initiatives in higher education and the breadth and depth of changes of national policies (both policy outputs and policy outcomes) in Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. The primary rationale lies in the specificities of European initiatives in higher education, primarily in terms of the relatively limited competences of the EU and the voluntary character of the Bologna Process. Furthermore, as is the case in other post-Communist countries, in the three aforementioned countries the overall political and economic transition was marked by the idea of “return to Europe” (Héritier 2005) which potentially makes the European initiatives in higher education relatively more important for changes on the system level than in countries of Western Europe. Implementation of the European initiatives is well under way in these countries, which provides a solid opportunity to explore the outputs and outcomes and a more detailed understanding of the dynamics of the process. The choice of countries, given that they were part of a federal system until early 90s implies a most similar case design although the three countries also differ in terms of their position with respect to the EU and therefore in terms of the possibilities to upload their preferences to the EU level. The theoretical approach in general is built around the neo-institutional theory and includes perspectives on Europeanization through external incentives, social learning and lesson drawing (Börzel and Risse 2003; Cowles et al. 2001; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; Sedelmeier 2011) as well as a more general institutional perspectives on change in higher education (Clark 1983; Gornitzka 1999; Musselin 2005). The data used includes most recent policy documents (legislation, strategies etc.), as well as major policy documents from early 90s (dissolution of former YU) onwards.
