Differentiation and academic control over policy in Central and Eastern Europe: The case of Romania

Abstract

This article adds a political perspective to the phenomenon of higher education de-differentiation, by building on Gary Rhoades’ neo-institutionalist account. Diversity is operationalized on a hallmark dimension for Central and Eastern Europe: the public–private divide. Higher education is conceived of as a structured organizational field and its institutionalization in Central and Eastern Europe is surveyed in a comparative approach, focusing on the institutions governing the competition for (tuition paying) students and the normative images of higher education (accreditation, quality assurance, classifications and rankings). Critical junctures are identified in regard to the structuration and re-structuration of higher education in Romania, and the agency of the ministers is traced in relation to their academic background. The article builds on evidence from studies of system-level diversity or differentiation in higher education, the structuration of higher education as an organizational field, and the more recent empirical accounts on the impact of the agency of academics in policy formulation in Central and Eastern Europe (especially those in office as ministers of education).

On the re-institutionalization and diversification of Public Administration education in Central and Eastern Europe: A case study of post-communist Romania

“…After the demise of state socialism, academic PA grew steadily during the first post-communist decade and explosively after 2000—much like, in fact, the rest of Romanian higher education (Andreescu et al, 2012; Proteasa et al, 2017). Economic and Administrative Law was established as a Bachelor of Arts (BA) program in the early 1990s, alongside short-term degrees in Secretarial Work for Local Administration and in Professional Communication (Sora, 2011: 56).…”

“…This phase of “anarchic” differentiation (Miroiu, 1998) in higher education gave birth, in time, to a push towards homogeneity. Throughout this re-institutionalization, the PA education arena was subject to a variety of normative and mimetic isomorphic forces (Andreescu et al, 2012; Proteasa et al, 2017). Accreditation in the 1990s initially consolidated the law-heavy curriculum in PA. Later on, the country’s main accreditation (re-christened “quality assurance”) body took on board the moderate re-orientation away from legalism, while imposing on the PA field an updated but still uniform framework and standards.…”

Characteristics of educational sciences research activity in European post-socialist countries in the period 1996 to 2013: Content analysis approach

“…Among the significant research concerning educational sciences development, mainly comparisons of two or more CEE countries are in papers by Antonowicz et al (2017), Antunes (2016), Dakowska (2017), Dobbins (2017), Dobbins and Kwiek (2017), Grimaldi (2015), Kováts et al (2017), Kushnir (2016), Proteasa et al (2017) and Tarlea (2017). In general, it is possible to conclude that social changes, democratisation and the new political direction that marked education in European post-socialist countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s are also evident in educational sciences.…”

“…European post-socialistic countries, usually called the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, have gone through significant structural, economic and social changes since their independence in the 1990s and the transformation of their social order. As a result of their common socialist legacy, the CEE are often discussed as a group of countries, but most of them have their own peculiarities (Proteasa et al, 2017; Tarlea, 2017). In this respect, Radó (2011) emphasises that explaining social processes on the basis of the common heritage of post-socialist European states is no longer a promising and founded approach.…”