Politics and Policies of Higher Education: Policy Transfer and the Bologna Process

In this paper, I show how a policy transfer framework can be applied to higher education in Europe, and can provide a different understanding on the relationship between multi-level governance, policy transfer and policy implementation. First, the paper offers an overview of the multi-level-ness of the European Higher Education Area (levels, actors, issues). This is paramount in a time in which discussions about governance and implementation issues are on the verge. Secondly, building on the given context, this paper applies to higher education a framework for analysing policy transfer (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000, p. 9). Thirdly, and most importantly, by combining the policy transfer and policy implementation literature, this paper puts forward a framework for analysing what facilitates or obstructs transfer in multi-level, multi-actor setting. Differentiating between three levels of implementation, namely: adoption, transposition and institutional implementation would reflect into a more appropriate approach for researching the different implementation outcomes, since the Bologna Process relies on national and institutional elements. This is significant because higher education is not an area under EU competencies; however there are similarities with other areas, e.g. the EU social policy, in terms of the method employed (OMC) to achieve the set goals, the role of the EU institutions, etc.