The ghosts of higher education reform: on the organisational processes surrounding policy borrowing

Abstract

The Bologna Process is one of the most extensive examples of policy borrowing processes. Based on qualitative data, this article argues in favour of studying part of this process as ‘global smallness’, centring on the organisational effects of the implementation of a globalised curriculum. Through Derrida's notion on hauntology, Fenwick and Edward's analysis of multiple reals, and Barad's understanding of entanglement and time, this article explores how the implementation processes evoke simultaneously existing worlds of practices propelled by the agency of the past troubling present higher education reform. Finally, this article addresses how ongoing reforms tend to increase the stretch between ‘what is performed on the outside’ and ‘what is practiced on the inside’.

Keywords:

• globalisation
• higher education
• the Bologna Process as policy borrowing
• curriculum
• organisational change
• hauntology and ‘entanglement and time’

Acknowledgements

This article draws on papers presented at the University of Bath and the University of Bristol in Spring 2012. I would like to thank the people at The School of Management, University of Bath and the Centre for Research on Globalisation, Education and Societies, University of Bristol for sharpening the understanding of my research field. I would also like to thank Dorthe Staunæs, Sue Wright and the reviewers for their insightful comments that have helped improve the manuscript. The title of the concluding paragraph is inspired by a Dana Spiotta novel.