Historical Developments and Current Challenges

Abstract

In this book, higher education policy change is conceived as the result of the tug-of-war between historically embedded institutions and the transnational mechanisms of policy convergence and transfer. Although the relationship between HE institutions and the state has been extensively analysed, virtually all existing studies have focussed on this dynamic relationship in western Europe and North America (see McDaniel 1996; van Vught 1989; 1995). This study takes a different geographical focus by focusing on four central and eastern European countries. However, due to the historical alignment of central and eastern European systems with western models, the insights and experiences of western European countries will remain central to the analysis. Despite the artificial division of the continent, both regions not only fall back on common university traditions, but also have undergone interrelated developments in the previous decades such as expansion, the transformation from elite to mass education, and reduced state funding. What now still conceptually divides east from west, though, is the distinction between the gradual system change, which western systems have undergone, and the abrupt change, which has taken shape in the east. In other words, one might argue that certain aspects of the gradual evolution in western HE have taken place at revolution-like speed in the east (see File and Goedegebuure 2003: 227), for example the reduction of state influence, the increase in autonomy, and decentralization.