The implementation of the Bologna Process has been hailed as the most important political reform of the European higher education systems. However, some of a more cynical inclination may see Bologna as a heaven-inspired opportunity to bolster the standing of the ministers of education, who in general hold a rather low position in the internal rankings of cabinets, while others, like Martens and Wolf (2009), see Bologna as the European Commissionâs golden opportunity to increase its creeping competence in this area of national sensitivity protected by the subsidiarity principle.
For a number of years following the signature of the Declaration, the implementation of Bologna was marketed as a triumphal march towards the convergence of the European national higher education systems and the building up of a European Higher Education Area (EHEA), with marvellous worldwide capacity for attracting foreign students. In the 2010 Budapest-Vienna Ministerial Conference, along with the celebration of the Bologna Processâ decade anniversary, the ministers solemnly declared that the creation of the EHEA had become a reality. However, the general tone of the ministersâ declaration was no longer an expression of unfettered enthusiasm, as the progress reports contained observations that smudged the effulgence of the end product. The following ministerial meetings (Bucharest in 2012 and Yerevan in 2015) reinforced the idea that âsome of the Bologna aims and reforms had not been properly implemented and explainedâ (Budapest and Vienna CommuniquĂ© 2010). Indeed, in Yerevan more than 50 % of the ministers were conspicuously absent and no innovations were introduced, giving the impression that the Bologna Process, once a flagship project of European higher education, was fast losing its dynamism (Vukasovic et al. 2015).
For the European Union, Bologna became an instrument in its Lisbon strategy, the ambition of which was to transform Europe into âthe most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion and respect for the environmentâ (European Council 2000). The adoption of the Lisbon strategy made higher education an essential ingredient of economic competition and opened the way to a closer link between the Bologna Process and the Lisbon strategy thus strengthening the intervention of the European Commission in higher education.
However, Wim Kokâs report in 2004 already referred to the disappointing delivery of the Lisbon strategy âdue to an overloaded agenda, poor coordination and conflicting priorities. Still, a key issue has been the lack of determined political actionâ (Wim Kok 2004: 6). The failure of the Lisbon strategy was admitted in the Commissionâs communication Europe 2020: âThe steady gains in economic growth and job creation witnessed over the last decade have been wiped out ⊠and 23 million peopleâor 10 % of our active populationâare now unemployed. The crisis ⊠has exposed some fundamental weaknesses of our economyâ (European Commission 2010: 7).
Today, Europe is a less attractive project than when its founding fathers were still active and seems those working on it are apparently unable to deal with its economic problems. Contrary to the ambitions of both the Bologna Process and the Lisbon strategy, there are millions of unemployed people, especially among the young population, a paradox when one thinks that this is the better-educated generation. Instead of solidarity, there is rampant individualism and the Union does not show the capacity to deal in a timely fashion with any new emerging problem. The recent examples of Greece and of the refugees from Syria and Iraq are just two visible examples of the difficulties of governing Europe and of the progressive loss of its values in a Europe led by a political elite where statesmen are more and more absent.
With few exceptions (see Schomburg and Teichler 2011 or CHEPS and INCHER-Kassel and ECOTEC consortium 2010), there were hardly any critical analyses of the fulfilment of the major objectives of Bologna, including enhanced employability, increased attractiveness of the EHEA, increased mobility and the relevance of first cycle degrees in the labour market, and no public debate of the outcomes of Bologna was held before embarking on a new phase until 2020. These developments make a strong case in favour of the need for further assessments of the implementation of Bologna, its difficulties and successes, and how they relate to the characteristics of European policy making and implementation. This book sets out to provide a critical account of the difficulties that follow from implementing European policies in areas of national sensitivity, as is the case with higher education, and especially so when soft law-type mechanisms are the only means available to steer policy implementation towards its intended objectives. In principle, soft law mechanisms, as for example the Open Method of Coordination, produce integration but in practice generate eclectic, divergent, unpredictable or perverse outcomes. The book uses Portugal as a case study to analyse the fulfilment of some of the most important operational objectives of the Bologna Process (employability, mobility and attractiveness of the European higher education system). The country also serves as a conjunctural diagnostic instrument for identifying issues that are shared in similar forms in other European countries.
The first part of the book discusses the problems of European policies in general and of education policies in particular, including the Bologna implementation process. Chapter 2, after the Introduction, looks at the broad issues posed by European policy. A short presentation of the delegation theory is presented as it allows for analysing the problems of partial delegation of sovereignty into the European Commission. European construction is based on cooperation between states which leads to setting up supranational models of governance and institutions potentially undermining the importance of the nation-state. The ultimate goal of an integration process is political union. This perspective assumes a progressive transfer of power to supranational institutions bypassing national governments. However, the conception of decision-making processes has been demonstrating that the national governments retain a dominant decision-making role. In fact, consensus generated in the 80s and 90s saw the evolution of the European Economic Community from the Single European Act (European Union 1986) to the Treaty of European Union (1992) and to the Treaty of Amsterdam (European Parliament 1997) and these rested on intergovernmental cooperation between Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Then, the differentiated integration theory is analysed as it allows for an interpretation of the flexibility mechanisms used to accommodate the diverse interests of the member states. The process of differentiated integration allows member states to move forward at different speeds towards different objectives that would ensure more integration in the longer run. At last, the traditional community method and soft law are critically compared, and the role of the European Court of Justice is considered vis-Ă -vis the reinforcement of the creeping competence of the Commission (Amaral and Neave 2009).
Chapter 3 provides an overview of European policies as they bear directly on higher education, or which, in an indirect manner, have an impact on this sector. We aim to offer a broader picture of the higher education policy context in which the Bologna Process has unfolded, the place of the Bologna reforms within it, and Bolognaâs relationship with this broader policy context. Starting with European law, we first examine the provisions of the treaties on the functioning of the European Union, particularly the subsidiarity principle applicable to education. This places education firmly under the competence of member states and limits the Unionâs contribution to encouraging cooperation between them and to supporting and supplementing their action. Then, the Services Directive adopted in 2006 with a view to deregulating and liberalising service provision within the internal market of the European Union, is presented as an example of erosion of national competences. Considering education as a service has major consequences for the authority of the nation-states for organising and regulating their education systems.
Next, the communications issued by the European Commission are discussed for their relevance in that they represent the main vehicle for setting out the Commissionâs vision for higher education as a driving force of the growth and development envisaged by the Lisbon strategy. Given the Commissionâs limited capacity for statutory intervention, the communications stand as a vehicle by which the Commission takes position and exerts influence on higher education.
Last but not least, the Bologna Process is considered against this broader context. Its uniqueness resides in its emergence as an initiative among national governments and in its non-statutory nature (discussed in Chap. 4). However, since 2003 when the European Commission became a member of the Bologna Follow-Up Group, with the same voting rights as the member states, the Bologna Process has been harnessed to serve the Commissionâs political agenda outlined in the Lisbon strategy. Ever since, the Commission has been wielding influence over the progress of the reforms. Thus, despite its initial independence of the European Commission, the Bologna Process has become increasingly tied in to the Commissionâs ambitions of European integration and is viewed as an instrument to fulfil the more wide-ranging objectives of the Lisbon strategy.
Chapter 4 analyses the implementation problems of the Bologna Process in relation to the steering mechanisms based on the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). European higher education policies are to be advanced by the use of soft law instruments embedded in the OMC (De la Porte 2002; Dehousse 2002; BorrĂĄs and Jacobsson 2004; De la Porte and Nanz 2004; Goetschy 2004; Gornitzka 2007). The OMC is an instrument of the Lisbon strategy and is employed in areas of member statesâ competence (e.g. employment, social protection, social inclusion, education, youth, and training). The OMC involves soft law measures based on voluntary binding arrangements, because measures never take the form of regulations, directives or decisions (i.e. hard law). The Council of the European Union defines objectives; establishes instruments to measure performance based on indicators, statistics and guidelines; and promotes benchmarking activities monitored by the European Commission.
The implementation of the Bologna Process, aiming at establishing the EHEA, is driven by policy convergence. Different levels in higher-education policy makingâand very certainly so in the Bologna Processâshape the outcome in the form of countervailing legitimacies driving towards common objectives. Certainly, it cannot be presumed that policies âmove from government to objects of implementation unaffected by the road they travelâ (Gornitzka et al. 2005: 53). Implementation may be seen as âmutual adaptation and a learning process, and ⊠as negotiation and interactionâ (Gornitzka et al. 2005: 45). But much depends on the clarity of what is to be achieved. Yet key policy statements often appear distressingly abstract, vague in nature, if not devoid of real substanceâa characteristic qualified by recent scholarship as âweasel wordsâ (Amaral and Neave 2009). Faced with such calculated imprecision, it is more necessary than ever to take closer scrutiny of the visions, various and particular, that the various decision-making levelsâEuropean, member state and institutionalâassociate with higher education. For despite the setting of an eleven-year deadline for completionâitself a curious faith in the linearity of cross-national decision-makingârecent research into the implementation of Bologna quickly revealed both the complexity of the interaction between levels (Veiga 2012, 2014; Sin 2014) and the reiterative nature of the bargaining process as it worked its way down through those same decision-making levels (Neave and Veiga 2013). In short, the linearity assumed by the setting of schedules took little account of the crucial significance which different actorsâ interests and views could bring to bear when putting policy into practice.
Nor is the situation made any less complex in constructing the EHEA. Tying the Bologna Process in with the Lisbon strategy, which from the Commissionâs point of view the OMC was intended to forward, in effect changed the nature of the Bologna Process. Seen from this broader perspective, both Bologna and the OMC were vehicles to advance what, from the Commissionâs standpoint, amounted to a new and wider-ranging end in which higher education was but one dimension. The OMC implementation process, which resorted to naming and shaming mechanisms, put pressure on member states to demonstrate that they were implementing the Bologna tools (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, or ECTS, degree structure, Diploma Supplement, etc.). As a result, the ...