A Flight over the Evolving Evaluative State

Abstract

In weighing up the impact that the Evaluative State has on institutional autonomy, three systems of higher education in particular have been scrutinized, two of them in considerable detail. Not surprisingly, the way in which the saga of the Evaluative State has unfolded in France, Spain and Portugal shows immense variety. It is different in chronology. It differs in the stances taken by the principal actors. It differs too in terms of the degree of continuity and the readiness of the Evaluative State to build upon or to break with those earlier conventions and observed practices that underpinned the triangular relationship between government, higher education and society.