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Abstract
The article analyses two processes of higher education regionalisation, MERCOSUR‐Educativo in Latin America and the Bologna Process in Europe, from a comparative perspective. The comparative analysis is centered on the content and the governance of both processes and, specifically, on the reasons of their uneven evolution and implementation. We support the comparison by using theories of governance and globalisation/regionalisation. We also focus on the external and non‐educational influences affecting MERCOSUR‐Educativo and the Bologna Process. In this respect, we conclude that, despite the regional scope of the two processes analysed, both are directly and indirectly affected by economic globalisation.
Notes
1. MERCOSUR stands for Common Market of the South.
2. We define a region as a cluster of different contiguous states that have certain attributes in common (Held Citation1999). In turn, regionalism is a project spearheaded by the states designed to reorganise a given region along certain economic and political lines (Hettne Citation2005).
3. Well‐known examples include the World Higher Education Conferences (1998, 2009) and the Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications.
4. Probably the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is the only global or multilateral instrument that has the power to affect higher education systems on a large scale. Despite this, many countries are avoiding compromising their higher education in this agreement (either because they are cautious when bringing education into the realm of a commercial agreement, or because the WTO‐level negotiations are not moving forward as quickly as expected) (Bizzozero and Hermo Citation2009; Verger Citation2009).
5. See the numerous Regional Conventions on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees in Higher Education at http://www.unesco.org/legal/index.shtml.
6. The same holds true for multiple regional free trade agreements that include higher education in their sphere of action and are approved year after year (as of today, there are around 200 of them in force), thus overshadowing the scope of influence of the WTO/GATS (see http://rtais.wto.org/ui/PublicMaintainRTAHome.aspx). Plus, these regional agreements include more drastic measures for the commercial liberalisation of education than those contained in the same multilateral agreement (Abugattas 2005).
7. In fact, the declaration that preceded the Bologna Declaration, known as the Sorbonne Declaration (1998) and whose contents are quite similar to those of Bologna, was spearheaded and signed by the Ministers of Education of four leading EU countries: the UK, Italy, Germany and France.
8. First, Bologna promotes the standardisation and emulation of prevalent standards in the English‐speaking university system (Hartmann 2009), which is more alien to the southern European universities than the university systems in other points on the continent. Second, the successful implementation of this model requires a more intensive use of resources (economic, human, material), which the crowded southern universities do not usually have.
9. However, it is fair to mention that the Commission’s involvement and interest in higher education go beyond Bologna. In fact, the Commission’s activism and capacity for financing in higher education (which we referred to above) is the main source of power and legitimacy in the eyes of the university community when participating in the governance of Bologna.
11. See Compromiso de Gramado in: http://www.mcye.gov.ar/dnci/.../docs/compromiso_de_gramado.rtf.
12. To date, architecture, nursing and veterinary science.
13. In our explanation we aim to distance ourselves from cultural explanations (e.g., ‘Europeans are more efficient than Latin Americans’), which are often commented behind closed doors.
14. These figures speak for themselves, although to perform a comparison in strictu senso it should be borne in mind that ERASMUS has been operating for almost 20 years longer than MARCA and that it covers all the university degrees (MARCA is only for Agronomy), not to mention a much more extensive geographic area.