The policy trajectory of the EU – Latin America and Caribbean inter-regional project in higher education (1999–2018)

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to analyse the policy trajectory of the inter-regional plans to establish a common space in higher education (HE) involving the European Union (EU) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regions. Although both regions developed different formats of higher education cooperation programmes, it was in 1999 that an institutionalised bi-regional dialogue appeared – and HE was defined as a strategic partnership. In November 2000, ministers of education on both sides of the Atlantic launched the largest HE project to date: the EU-LAC (ALCUE) HE Common Area, involving 60 HE systems. Understanding (inter-)regional HE policies as an expression of global education policies, I conducted a historical analysis of this inter-regional policy from 2000 until 2018 using Roger Dale's framework of pluri-scalar governance of education. The tracing of the events since 1999 helped unveil the mechanisms of changes in this inter-regional policy. As a result, I was able to differentiate between two moments in the policy process: the ALCUE Project (2000–2008) and the EU-CELAC dialogue (2010–2018). Results point to the defining role of the EU in shaping the inter-regional dialogue in terms of regional mandate and actorness. The research shows that the advent of CELAC as a regional actor in Latin America in 2010 has strengthened the role of the EU in defining the inter-regional HE project.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education regionalisms
• education policy
• Latin America and Caribbean
• European Union
• pluri-scalar governance
• inter-regionalism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express thanks to Georgia Cêa, Louis Major, Hannah Moscovitz and Steve Watson for the comments to improve this manuscript. Thank you to Åse Gornitzka, Susan Robertson and Roger Dale for the guidance in shaping this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Aliandra Lazzari Barlete http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1120-5135

Notes

1 Inter-regional and bi-regional are used interchangeably in the text, meaning those projects jointly developed by two or more regions. These concepts differ from the idea of ‘bilateral’, which in this text is used to represent projects planned at the national or institutional level (nor regional). ‘Development’ cooperation will be used to refer to projects with a defined beneficiary. Examples of development cooperation are the EU programmes targeted at Latin American academics.

2 HE policy and HE project are used interchangeably in the text. I define project as the course of achieving an intention, or a goal, rather the outline of a plan, for they denote an intention or a purpose (Dale 1994; Ozga 2000).

3 Because HE is one of the many sectors involved in the bi-regional EU-LAC cooperation, I will consider the HE common area to be a ‘sectoral region’. Regions are mutually constituted, power-filled and meaning-making organisations in which its actors define and implement a specific project with a specific identity (Author 2019; Cammack 2016; Fawn 2009; Robertson, de Azevedo, and Dale 2016).

4 There is a number of institutional arrangements that contribute to the EU and LAC cooperation in HE, such as the Coimbra Group, the Tordesillas Group, and the programmes funded under the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) and the Santander Group (i.e. Fundación Universia).

5 The ALFA programme was an external cooperation programme targeted at Latin American HE. During 1994–2013, three phases of the programme has a total EU funding of 160mi Euros (European Commission 2017). The ALBAN programme was a grant programme destined to Latin American students. It benefited 3319 LA citizens during 5 calls that ran during 2002 and 2005, totalising a EU contribution of 84mi Euros (SGroup 2013).

6 A large portion of the documentation is available through the Catalan Blog ‘Especial Bolonya’ (Especial Bolonya 2009).

7 As of June 2019. Source: http://www.ehea.info/pid34249/members.html.

8 CSUCA was formed by the 6 public universities existing in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and Nicaragua. At the time they were the only institutions in Central America, therefore CSUCA reached the entirety of the HE training in the region. Its objectives included ‘to drive the analysis of the reality and to establish the development of policies in Central American countries’ (CSUCA 1987, 5), also to push to the notion of a ‘Central American Unity’, where the region would bring the cultural, political and economic unity of the region (Arriaza 1996).

9 CELAC replaced the Rio Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development (CALC), the former regional platforms for discussing shared interests. The Rio Group (1986–2010) was a regional mechanism for consultation on democratic and development aspects created at the end of the dictatorial period in Latin America. As a processor of the CELAC, CALC (2008–2011) had the objective to plan and organise a regional response before global challenges such as the 2008 financial crisis.

10 The EU-LAC Foundation was launched as a German institution in 2011 and became an international organisation in October 2016 (Official Journal of the European Union 2019). Its website indicates Member States fund the activities voluntarily, however it does not present details of its annual budget, only that the German government finances and maintains its headquarters in Hamburg.