CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Mohoric, Melina |
|---|---|
| Title | The Erasmus Programme and EU Leverage on Higher Education Reforms in Croatia |
| Summary | According to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Union can only support and complement member states’ action in the area of education. In reality, the influence of the EU goes well beyond support and complementarity. Moreover, the EU has significant leverage on education policies of some non-member states as well. Of particular relevance is the influence of the EU on national policies and reforms in higher education during the accession process, insufficiently studied to date. The present thesis focuses on the case of Croatia and on the Erasmus programme to illustrate and analyze this reality. The special place of the Erasmus programme in Europe is widely acknowledged. The programme is pronounced as the EU’s flagship initiative in education and training, fostering knowledge, new skills and personal life experience, as well as the European integration through mobility. The research on the EU’s leverage on national higher education policies, an area officially subject to the principle of subsidiarity, is scant, however, substantial. This situation encouraged me to devote this MA thesis to a study of the EU’s passive leverage and Europeanization on Croatia’s higher education reforms during the pre-accession period. My study, focusing on the implementation of the Erasmus programme, shows that as an enthusiastic candidate country, Croatia was very prompt to adopt changes favored by the EU, even when such changes had potential to provoke negative externalities and occasionally even harm for intended beneficiaries due to the lack of adequate capacities. A qualitative survey of seven public universities in Croatia and of Croatian students’ Erasmus experience provided findings about universities’ lack of preparedness for the programme. The decision to implement Erasmus in Croatia was a result of strong EU passive leverage and Europeanization trends, rather than of domestic readiness for the programme and genuine appreciation for the value of the programme itself. |
| Supervisor | Matei, Liviu |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/mohoric_melina.pdf |
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