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High Educ (2015) 69:189207
DOI 10.1007/s10734-014-9769-2
Michael Dobbins Susanna Khachatryan
Published online: 22 May 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract The authors examine higher education developments in two peripheral post-communist countriesGeorgia and Armenia, whose education systems have previously received little attention in the literature. They focus on how both countries models of higher education governance have evolved through the phase of political transformation and recent period of geopolitical tensions and more intense Europeanization and internationalization. Based on a series of empirical indicators for three ideal-types of higher governance derived from the previous literature, the authors assess the transformed relationship between the state and higher education institutions. Specically, they focus on the extent to which both systems have converged on a market-oriented model of Anglo-American inspiration. The empirical analysis shows that following western practices has become a common leitmotiv of policy-makers in both countries and that new forms of co-governance between the state and university management have emerged. However, the authors argue that policy learning from the West has taken place in a very selective and tactical manner, as market-oriented steering instruments are only being adopted to the extent that they do not undermine the states means for political control over higher education.
Keywords Higher education governance Armenia Georgia Europeanization
Convergence Post-communist higher education
Introduction
This article examines current developments in higher education (HE) in two post-Soviet countries located at the edge of EuropeGeorgia and Armenia. Not surprisingly, both
M. Dobbins (&)
Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main, Grneburgplatz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germanye-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
S. Khachatryan
Faculty of Sociology, Yerevan State University, 1 Alex Manoogian, 0025 Yerevan, Armenia
Europeanization in the Wild East? Analyzing higher education governance reform in Georgia and Armenia
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countries have attracted little attention in previous research due to their size and peripheral location. Nevertheless, their HE systems have undergone turbulent changes and been shaped by a myriad of conicting factors. After the re-establishment of a new HE framework in the early 1990s, HE policy was profoundly impacted by the economic collapse and fragility of newly established political institutions. At the same time, both countries have been at the apex of a clash of geopolitical interests between...