Who is responsible for what? On the governance relationship between ministry and agencies in Austrian and Norwegian higher education

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the governance relationship between the ministry responsible for higher education and the sector agencies against the backdrop of comprehensive sector reforms. The relationship is examined based on autonomy and capacity, which are argued to be decisive in negotiating areas of responsibility. The Austrian and Norwegian ministries responsible for higher education and their interplay with two subordinate agencies exemplify this negotiation process empirically. The findings, based on data derived from organizational figures, policy documents, law texts, and interviews with politicians, bureaucrats, and academics, show that the initial years of a changed modus operandi were characterized by uncertainty about the roles and expectations of the organizations involved. The more time passed the more consolidated and aligned the new governance practices became, although this consolidation and alignment depended on various autonomy and capacity determinants, which played out differently in both national contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance
• public administration
• comparative study
• public policy
• agency

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the HEDWORK research group for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Special thanks to Peter Maassen and Jens Jungblut for their continuous support, patience, and for sharing their thoughtful insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this article, the terms ‘universities’ and ‘higher education institutions’ will be used synonymously, unless stated differently.

2 The abbreviations refer to the Norwegian and the German titles respectively: KD = Kunnskapsdepartementet, SIU = Senter for internasjonalisering av utdanning, NOKUT = Nasjonalt organ for kvalitet i utdanningen, BMBWF = Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung, OeAD = Österreichischer Austauschdienst, AQ Austria = Agentur für Qualitätssicherung und Akkreditierung Austria.

3 SIU was founded in 1993, the OeAD in 1961.

4 The European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) lists all QA agencies that substantially comply with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG). (https://www.eqar.eu/, 14.10.2019)