| 內容簡介 | What are the principal drivers of recent higher education reforms? This study investigates whether the soft governance mechanism of transnational communication has evoked cross-national policy harmonization. Results suggest that the Bologna Process has triggered substantial policy harmonization beyond general policy convergence. Political interest in higher education provision and research has risen remarkably. From a European perspective, changes in higher education program structures can be related to the Bologna Process, but we still lack knowledge regarding whether this process had a direct impact on higher education policy convergence. This book investigates whether the soft governance mechanism of transnational communication evoked cross-national policy harmonization, exploring the relational patterns between this policy convergence and domestic factors conditioning the degree of convergence. Empirically, convergence processes are measured on the basis of undirected dyadic data, assessing changes in higher education policies of 20 OECD countries between 1996 and 2008. Results suggest that the Bologna Process, even though it rests on voluntariness, has triggered substantial policy harmonization beyond both general policy convergence and its European members. |