CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Torotcoi, Simona |
|---|---|
| Title | From International Commitments to Institutional Reality ??? The Case of Higher Education Policy in Europe |
| Summary | This dissertation aimed to address the implementation gap of the Bologna Process (BP) as a transnational, voluntary higher education policy framework. Established 20 years ago as a voluntary cooperation initiative on higher education cooperation in Europe, the BP has set important policy objectives for national higher education systems and Europe at large. While government representatives, through the ministerial meetings constantly agree on what they should implement in their national higher education systems, implementation reports show considerable differences between countries and higher education institutions (HEIs) with regard to implementation. Starting with the early stages of the BP scholarly work has demonstrated that there is an increasing interest in studying the different dimensions of BP implementation. A considerable amount of these studies has focused on assessing and explaining the different levels of BP implementation yet there is a gap in addressing the implementation of the BP from an integrated perspective. This dissertation aimed to fill this gap and asked What are the factors explaining the different levels of implementation of higher education policies within the Bologna Process? First of all, this dissertation seeks address the research gap by focusing on specific policy areas within the BP (quality assurance and the social dimension), diverse county contexts and higher education institutions within such contexts (Moldova, Portugal, and Romania). Secondly, it aims to contribute to the broader policy implementation literature by providing a conceptual understanding of policy implementation, by breaking it into adoption, transposition and practical implementation, and by putting forward an integrated set of factors for each of the three implementation stages, and empirically test them through semi-structured interviews. The dissertation hypothesizes three causal mechanisms for each of the implementation levels. Firstly, is hypothesized that adoption is the result of policy fit between commonly agreed policies at the BP level and national preferences and interests, as resulted through national representatives’ participation in BP. The causal model predicts that if BP policies have the support of top domestic actors and structures, this may push the national policies closer to the ones promoted by the BP. As a result, BP structures prefer to collaborate with those domestic actors who are in favor of its policies. Secondly, specific to the transposition stage it can be hypothesized that mutual learning and other socialization processes equip governmental agencies and bodies, societal actors, and the academic community with information about the main developments at the EHEA level and contribute to national level policy-making by feeding back national policy makers, affecting the choice for specific policy instruments and implementation mechanisms. Last but not least, at the HEIs level rectors and top-managers, academic and administrative staff, and students develop institutional plans and policies in line with the national level policies or the BP depending on their participation as stakeholders in the policy-making processes, autonomy and the added value of the policies in question. First of all, this dissertation highlighted the complex relationship between the BP, national, and institutional policy-making and the importance of national and institutional (interest) structures, actors (coalitions) and processes in connecting these levels. While it is assumed that that there is a “filter” when it comes to the implementation the BP commitments, with each level and layer of policy-making preconditioning the following (adopting the necessary legislation, transposition and institutional practices) this dissertation has shown that this is very much dependent on the policy in question. Quality assurance (QA) is a rather structural and technical area, with clear conceptualizations and operationalizations, with structures and bodies at the European, national and institutional level, whereas the social dimension (SD) is underdeveloped in this respect. HEIs implement QA policies because of the competitive environment they have to operate in but also because of the existent monitoring mechanisms (at the institutional, national and BP level). The SD is a rather sensitive area, with most of the universities putting forward their preferred approaches on how to deal with such issues. If in the case of QA in most of the country cases there is a national level agency which pushes for implementation at the HEIs level, in the case of SD the situation is loose. |
| Supervisor | Liviu Dumitru Matei |
| Department | Public Policy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/torotcoi_simona.pdf |
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