António M. Magalhães

The Emergent Role of External Stakeholders in European Higher Education Governance

Over the last few decades, higher education institutions have been confronted with increasing outside pressures aimed at institutional change. The conceptual frameworks that are used to envision, and to a certain extent legitimise, change are increasingly influenced by organisational sciences and theories. In this type of approach, concepts such as ‘adaptiveness’, ‘environmental awareness’, ‘responsiveness’, etc., become central, both as analytical devices and as values to be pursued.

Epidemiology and the Bologna Saga

This paper discusses the driving forces behind the Bologna process, its advantages and possible negative effects. It also analyses the dangers that may result in commoditisation of the European higher education systems, in emergence of rigid accreditation systems and of a centralised bureaucracy that will impair innovation and creativity.The paper develops the idea that the Bologna process may be interpreted as a step in the neo-liberal movement to decrease the social responsibility of the state by shortening the length of pre-graduate studies and transferring responsibility for supporting employability to individuals through graduate studies.Consideration is also given to the mechanisms and forces behind the Bologna process that try to present an apparent climate of consensus despite some obvious difficulties and disagreements at the level of implementation.

The Rise of Academic Managerialism in Portugal

Under the convergent effects of financial restrictions resulting partly from the rolling-back of the welfare state, rising expectations and social demand, mandates of the new economy and a weakening of its symbolic capital, higher education has been exposed to the influence of strong outside pressures, only paralleled by those of the Napoleonic and Humboldtian reforms in the 19th century.

On Markets, Autonomy and Regulation the Janus Head Revisited.

The relationship between governments and higher education institutions has been changing in Europe over the last few decades. The mechanisms of steering and regulation have moved away from the model of centralised control by allowing more institutional autonomy. Even if the government has been using an increasing array of market and market-like mechanisms instead of more traditional regulation mechanisms, the state has not really stepped back in favour of the market, and this has led to a hybrid situation where increased institutional autonomy is still facing significant government regulation — the Janus Head effect. It is our opinion that the regulation of higher education cannot be left in the sole hands of the market, and for this reason hybridism can play a very important role.

European universities as complete organizations? Understanding identity, hierarchy and rationality in public organizations

Abstract This article investigates the form of European universities to determine the extent to which they resemble the characteristics of complete organizations and whether the forms are associated with modernization policy pressure, national institutional frames and organizational characteristics. An original data set of twenty-six universities from eight countries was used. Specialist universities have a stronger identity, whereas the level of hierarchy and rationality is clearly associated with the intensity of modernization policies. At the same time, evidence suggests limitations for universities to become complete, as mechanisms allowing the development of some dimensions seemingly constrain the capability to develop others.

Equity, Access and Institutional Competition

In 1974, when a successful revolution had overthrown a dictatorial regime, Portugal had an elite higher education system with low participation rates. In the decades following the revolution, the state developed policies aimed at increasing student participation to European levels. However, higher education policies have been through frequent changes and adaptations as they were confronted by successive managing paradoxes and contradictions between political steering, social demand, economic relevance and institutional attitudes and reactions. This paper presents an analysis of the political drivers that justified and legitimised the changing policies of access to higher education.

Education, knowledge and the network society

The ‘development of individual capacities’, in addition to the ‘education of responsible citizens’ and the ‘preparation for work’, constitutes one of the most important objectives to be achieved by education systems and, in this sense, makes up one of the main planks of that which Dale terms ‘mandates for the education system’, i.e. projects for education based on ‘conceptions of what it is desirable and legitimate for the education system to bring about’. In a previous work we tried to map out, on the basis of the objectives ‘preparation for work’ and ‘education of responsible citizens’, the outlines of a new mandate for European education policy that appears to be in the making in accord with recent socio‐economic, political and educational developments. In this article, we centre our attention on the ‘development of individual capacities’ in an attempt to map out the effects of the simultaneous pressure, top‐down and bottom‐up, that has been increasingly brought to bear on the nation state and on the education system. With regard to the first, it is argued that what is at stake is the transformation of knowledge itself into money (i.e. pure performance), while with regard to the second, there appears to be taking place a movement of knowledge from the school (national level) to the local community in which this latter is interpreted as the ‘educative city’ (where a ‘transparent’ communicational pedagogy holds sway). This work aims at challenging the dichotomy constructed by way of an analysis of the implications, for both pedagogy and the development of individual capacities, of the development and consolidation of a network state and society.

Implementation of Higher Education Policies: A Portuguese Example

In this chapter we present the Portuguese national case by analysing at the macro level some higher education policies and the effects of their implementation on the higher education system, over the period 1974 to the present. The first part of the chapter presents the historical context in which the reforms were implemented, and this is very relevant as Portugal went through a revolutionary process that overthrew the previous dictatorship. The 1974 Revolution initiated a transformation of Portuguese society and its political organisation that impinged strongly on education policies. After the revolution, increasing the rate of participation to European standards became one major aim of education policies in Portugal. In this chapter we use Cerych and Sabatier’s (1986) framework, together with the three aspects of higher education policy mentioned by Bleiklie, Høstaker and Vabø (2000), namely the ideological aspect, the organisational aspect and the educational and research policy aspects, to examine the Portuguese policies aimed at increasing access to higher education, with special reference to the development of private higher education and the implementation of a binary system.

Higher Education Research Between Policy and Practice

Higher education research as an area of study is quite recent and it developed first in the U.S. and only later in Europe (Amaral & Magalhaes, 2007). Massification of higher education and concerns about the quality of its provision has certainly contributed to this expansion, as higher education became a major financial and political issue (Tight, 2007; Scott, 1995; Teichler, 2007; Clark, 1973).

Governance, Public Management and Administration of Higher Education in Portugal

This chapter identifies higher education governance models in Portugal over the past three decades. Public management and public administration perspectives show how governance models have unfolded against the general development of the Portuguese higher education system as a whole.