Social Agents, National States and International Institutions: Educational Policies of Europeanisation and the Restructuring of Higher Education in Turkey through the Bologna Process

  • Abstract:

    The ongoing processes of political, economic, and social globalisation have yielded a shift from government to governance, leading to increasingly transnationalised networks among public and private actors. Closely related to this emergent form of governing, the nature and functioning of the nation state have undergone a transformation in its conventional rhetoric of rule making, requiring a deeper analysis of the fundamental administrative and economic issues such as regulation, financing, or coordination in policy-making and steering processes in a wide range of policy fields, including education and training. In the light of its theoretical background upon transnational governance, the present paper argues that the efforts to build a European higher education area (EHEA) through the Bologna Process, aimed to converge higher education structures across as well as beyond Europe, could pose remarkable implications for a closer study into the (neo)institutional dynamics of governance concerning the educational policies of Europeanisation. Hence, such a conceptual and organisational framework of European integration initiatives in view of the restructuring of higher education systems as a response to the transformation processes in the nature and/or interactions of the national and international organisations could provide a more thorough understanding into the roles of the key actors involved in the Bologna implementations with particular reference to social agents, national states and international institutions. In this context, the study aims to address the architecture of transnational governance in the restructuring process of higher education in Turkey, which has been engaged in the Bologna objectives as a signatory country since 2001. Particular attention will be drawn to the changing dynamics and if any, new challenges of multilayered governance sites in the transformation of higher education institutions as far as the Bologna implementations are concerned.