Last week, our readings dealt with higher education regionalism, with a particular emphasis on Europe. We read, for instance, the introduction to European Integration and the Governance of Higher Education and Research. There, Peter Maassen and Christine Musselin introduced the various processes of European integration and mused on their effects on policy at the national and university levels. In particular, Maasen & Musselin were interested in the effects of the Bologna process, noteworthy because it’s product, the Bologna Declaration, was the first affirmation by EU member states that an integrated higher education environment was a goal of the wider effort to integrate Europe.

Maassen & Musselin emphasize that the path to the Bologna Declaration was an arduous one, though in 1999, when the Declaration was signed, many of the states which typically prove controversial in debates regarding EU expansion had yet to be admitted (I’m thinking here of Eastern Europe and the Balkans- most of which did not join until after 2004). Because the Bologna declaration has grown to include non-EU member states, I was curious to know more about how less ‘Western’ countries aiming to align with the EU accommodate the integration process in the higher education sector. As recently as 24 January 2017, the comparative education journal Compare published a piece by Ozge Onursal-Besgul titled “Translating norms from Europe to Turkey: Turkey in the Bologna Process.”

Onursal-Besgul examines the process undertook by Turkey to integrate itself within the European educational space through the Bologna Process, from 2001 to 2012. The author raises two questions: first, what is being transferred from the European higher education space into the Turkish space? Second, how is the transfer being conducted? Ultimately, Onursal-Besgul concludes that the process of integration for Turkey has been delayed by the relative paucity of actors working towards the goal and by certain effects stemming from that. Specifically, Onursal-Besgul observes that too much of the responsibility for managing Turkey’s integration has been placed in one office, the Council of Higher Education. As a result, there is little buy-in from elsewhere in Turkish government or society, and the reformation process has been largely conducted from the top-down. The Turkish experience is different, therefore, from the wider European experience, which relied on horizontal cooperation between universities and national governments, instead of Turkey’s more authoritative approach.

The piece raises a number of questions relevant to our readings and about the challenges that policymakers face in regionalizing higher education. One question I still have is whether it is wise for established regional education spaces, like the European Higher Education Area, to accept that states are using the regionalization process as a catalyst for long overdue domestic reforms? This question has plagued the EU in a number of policy areas as it has expanded south and east  over the years.