Romanian Higher Education and Party Politics – The Gap between Political Commitments and Policy Reforms

Large scale sweeping reforms have been a characteristic of the higher education policy landscape in South-East European countries, which are confronted with similar challenges. Romania is perhaps one of the countries with most changes in policy and leadership of the higher education sector in the past decade, in the context of a very vivid interest of political parties in this topic. The contribution will analyze the main policy reforms in Romania in 2007-2014, with a focus on the political discourse and ideological elements used to justify policy preferences. Special attention will be paid to how political parties used higher education in their overall political disputes – generally framed as a battle between the concepts of equity and excellence in higher education. Finally, a parallel will be drawn between the general political commitments within the government programmes and the promoted higher education policies.