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HIGHER EDUCATION FINANCE POLICY:

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF Two DYNAMICS OF

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HIGHER EDUCATION FINANCE POLICY:
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TWO DYNAMICS OF
SOCIAL CONTRACT IN THREE BOLOGNA PROCESS COUNTRIES
By

Margaret Sampson Edgell

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education

2009

ABSTRACT
HIGHER EDUCATION FINANCE POLICY:
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TWO DYNAMICS OF
SOCIAL CONTRACT IN THREE BOLOGNA PROCESS COUNTRIES
By
Margaret Sampson Edgell

This ﬁrst detailed map of the topography of social contract in comparative
higher education ﬁnance policy laid out a research design and methodology that proved
viable for comparative case study analysis. Its research design, based on Qualitative
Comparative Analysis, addressed three initial Challenges to the study of a macro level
social phenomenon: the inherent subjectivity of\study of a social construct; a lack of
deﬁnition of social contract terms; and the multiplicity of social contracts.

A review of the literature on social contract included literature in politics of
education, educational policy, educational equity, educational ﬁnance, educational trends,
and educational change, but the review resulted in no generally accepted deﬁnition or
conceptualization. The current study was designed to clarify at its outset a generalizable
deﬁnition of social contract based on historical interpretation, as the expected roles of
stakeholders in higher education (Neave, 2006). The literature on social contract
indicated that social Contract is a phenomenon that can exist at national, supranational, or
global levels. It also suggested that there may exist three universal types of social
contract (Kezar, 2004: Neave, 2006; Zumeta, 1996). Neave’s (2006) typology may best
describe social contract using terms grounded in political theory as follow: Hobbes type

(govemment-oriented), Smith type (market-oriented, also referred to as marketization or

privatization), or Locke type (intentional mixtures of the other two types).

The current study applied deﬁnitions, conceptualizations, or methodologies from
political theory, comparative research (Of foreign countries), economics Of education,
ﬁnance policy analysis, and content analysis in the ﬁeld of higher (or postsecondary)
education. Three countries were chosen as case studies due to their Classiﬁcation as
welfare states with strong government orientations: Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

. Described as a supranational initiative, the Bologna Process in Europe afforded an
opportunity to study the social contract implicit within it, along with the social contracts
implicit in national policies. Along these lines, two research questions were explored:
First, is there a relationship between a supranational social contract regarding academic
research and the allocation of funds to research projects at national levels? Analysis of
the ﬁrst research question was primarily analysis of resource allocation toward economic
development via research and development (R & D) with industry. Second, is there a
relationship between a supranational social contract regarding student ﬁnancial support
and the allocation of funds to student ﬁnancial support at national levels? This second
question, in the cases of the three welfare states studied, was an analysis of state ﬁnancial
support in payment of the net costs to students for higher education.

Conclusions based on the results were, ﬁrst, for student ﬁnancial support policy,
that, absent supranational social contract, the national social contract was a stronger
determinant of ﬁmding in the three countries studied than the shifts in social contracts in
other European countries. For academic research funding, national social contract was the

driving factor, over supranational social contract.

Copyright by
MARGARET SAMPSON EDGELL
2009

To John, my marvelous husband

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The sustained work of a dissertation depends on high support. My husband, John
Edgell, has carried me with strength and joy. I am also grateful for my mother, who
manages my Care Page; for the faithful prayer support of family and ﬁ'iends; for the
superlative care of Dr. Kevin Brader and the Lacks Cancer Center; and for the wisdom,
caring, and expertise of my advisor and Doctoral Committee Chair, Dr. Marilyn Amey.

Thanks to my “Dream Team” Doctoral Committee: Dr. MaryLee Davis, Dr.
James Fairweather, and Dr. Rob Glew; my supportive colleagues at Calvin College
Economics Department and Business Department, as well as the Provost and the Alumni
Association; praying friends at Bellevue Christian School, Sherman Street CRC, Faith
Bible Church, Gull Lake Bible Church, Westminster Chapel, and Seattle First Free
Methodist Church; and especially to Martha Sampson, my amazing mother, for
accompanying me with happy alacrity to Oxford, Paris, and Enschede. For their generous
expertise and time, thanks to members Of the CHEPS team: Dr. Ben Jongbloed, Prof. Dr.
Jurgen Enders, Dr. Harry de Boer, Dr. Franz Kaiser and Dr. Egbert de Weert; Dr. Guy
Neave, Dr. William Zumeta, Dr. David Arsen, Dr. John Schwille, Dr. D. Bruce
J ohnstone, Dr. Barbara Schneider, and Dr. David Chapman. A special hurrah to the
excellent Michigan State University Higher, Adult, and Lifelong. Education faculty, my
fellow HALE students, and the “Three Musketeers,” who are always in my prayers. For
ﬁnal edits, thanks to my dear friend, Agnes “Flawless” Lawless, and to Diana Savage.

Almost last in order but high in importance, thanks to Dr. Albert Greene and to
Dr. Shirley Roels for unstinting mentoring with wisdom, encouragement, and prayer.

Finally, most importantly, all praise to God, from whom all blessings ﬂow.

vi

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................. x
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 1
PURPOSES OF THE CURRENT STUDY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ............................. 7
Social Contract in Academic Research ....................................................................... 8
Social Contract in Student Financial Support Policy .................................................. 8
Relation to Higher Education Purpose ...................................................................... 11
The Bologna Process ................................................................................................. 12
Challenges to Empirical Study of Social Contract Addressed in This Study ........... 16
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................................................................ 19
Origins in Political Theory ........................................................................................ 19
Deﬁnitions and Conceptualizations in Higher Education... ..................................... 20
Social Charter... ......................................................................................... 22
Public Good and Purposes of Higher Education ................... ' ..................... 25
Contractualization ...................................................................................... 27
Limitations of Literature on Social Contract and Public Good ................................ 27
Economic Development as a Public Good ................................................. 30
Three Universal Types of Social Contract ................................................................ 37
Macro Level (Federal and Supranational) Social Contracts ..................................... 40
Social Contract Regarding Academic Research ....................................................... 46
Social Contract, Public Good, and Funding to Research and Student Support ........ 49
Student Financial Support Policy. . . .......................................................................... 55
Dynamism as Addressed by Conflict Theory ........................................................... 56
Two Models of Student Support Social Contract ..................................................... 62
Warrant for the Current Study Based on the Literature Review ............................... 64
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH DESIGN... ................................................................................................... 66
Disciplinary Orientation ............................................................................................ 66
Qualitative Empirical Research Design .................................................................... 70
Conceptualization: Academic Research Dynamic .................................................... 71
Corresponding Factors and Indicators: Academic Research Dynamrc72
Conceptualization: Student Support Dynamic. . . ...................................................... 75
Corresponding Factors and Indicators: Student Support Dynamic ........................... 76
Sampling: Choice of Country Case Studies .............................................................. 78
Units of Analysis ........................................................................................ 78

vii

\

Finland ....................................................................................................... 80

Norway. . . ................................................................................................... 85
Sweden ....................................................................................................... 90
Conclusions Regarding Choice of Country Cases .................................................... 95
Data and Analysis ..................................................................................................... 98
CHAPTER 4
RESULTS ........................................................................................................................ 102
Bologna Process Social Contract ............................................................................ 104
Three Country Cases: Academic Research Dynamic ............................................. 107
Three Country Cases: Student Support Dynamic ................................................... 117
Added Step of Analysis .......................................................................................... 119
Nordic Commonalities. . . ........................................................................................ 122 p
The Bologna Process as a Bottom-Up, International/Multinational Process .......... 123
Limitations .............................................................................................................. 125
Conclusions Based on Results ................................................................................ 127
Future Research ...................................................................................................... 130
Beneﬁts of the Study ............................................................................................... 131
Epilogue: Implications ............................................................................................ 132
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................. 139
Appendix A: Key Policy Documents Produced by the Bologna Process ............... 139
Appendix B: Important Research Policy Documents ............................................. 140
Appendix C: Lists of Key Research Projects Funded ............................................. 144
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 147

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Concepts, Factors, and Indicators for the Academic Research Dynamic ............ 74
Table 2: Concepts, Factors, and Indicators for the Student Financial Support Dynamic...78

Table 3: Gross Domestic Expenditure on R & D by Source of Funds, Percent Financed by
Government ....................................................................................................... 112

Table 4: R & D Expenditure by Sectors of Performance, as Percent of GDP, Higher

Education Only ................................................................................................. 113
Table 5: Gross Domestic Expenditure on R & D (% of GDP) ........................................ 114
Table 6: Academic Research Social Contract (SC) ......................................................... 117
Table 7: Student Support Social Contract (SC) ............................................................... 119

Table A (Appendix A): Key Policy Documents Produced by the Bologna Process ....... 139

Table B1 (Appendix B): Important Research Policy Documents: Finland ..................... 140
Table B2 (Appendix B): Important Research Policy Documents: Norway.....................142
Table B3 (Appendix B): Important Research Policy Documents: Sweden ..................... 143
Table C1 (Appendix C): List of Key Research Projects Funded: Finland ...................... 144
Table C2 (Appendix C): List of Key Research Projects Funded: Norway ...................... 145
Table C3 (Appendix C): List of Key Research Projects Funded: Sweden ...................... 146

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Conceptualization of Dynamics of Social Contracts Regarding Academic

Research Funding ................................................................................................ 72
Figure 2: Conceptualization Of Dynamics of Social Contracts Regarding Student

Support Funding .................................................................................................. 76
Figure 3: Supranational Inﬂuences, Social Contracts, and Policies ................................ 103

Figure 4: Hypothesized Conceptualization of Academic Research Dynamic of Social
Contract ............................................................................................................. 122

Figure 5: Conceptualization of Academic Research Dynamics of Social Contract after
This Study Was Conducted ............................................................................... 122

Introduction

Social contract (Neave, 2006), also termed social charter (Kezar, 2004), as
applied in higher education policy, is most generally described as the implicit contract
between society and higher education (Kezar, 2004). For the purpose of clarity in the
current study, however, social contract is deﬁned as the expected roles of stakeholders in
higher education. In essence, social contract constitutes society’s mandate to, and
expectations of, higher education. Scholars in higher education think that social contract
inﬂuences the values and missions of institutions of higher education (Gumport, 2001;
Kezar, 2004). It is also assumed that changes in the social contract involve and affect all
, stakeholders in higher education (Gumport, 2001; Kezar, 2004; Veysey, 1970). The
assumed effects of a shift in social contract are often ﬁnancial: If the social contract
weakens, perhaps due to reduced public appreciation among stakeholders for the public
beneﬁts of higher education, public sector funding shifts to other priorities (Johnstone,
2006; Kezar, 2004).

Stakeholders in higher education are typically deﬁned as all of the groups in a
sOciety with a stake, or interest, in higher education (Maassen, 2000). Scholars in higher
education studies may include on their lists of stakeholders such actors as ministries of
education, universities, faculty unions, student unions, private enterprises, ministries of
ﬁnance, political parties, researchers in higher education policy, and other occasional
actors, either independent or local, which a study in Finland found to be the case in that
country’s spheres of higher education policy (V alimaa, 2005). For the purposes of the
current study, the stakeholders studied are limited to ministries of education, the private

sector, and students. This choice was based on the triple helix thesis of innovation, which

speciﬁes the three core parties in innovation to be the university, industry, and
government (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). This choice was also based on the main
stakeholders analyzed in a study of the inﬂuenCe of stakeholders in higher education on
legislation in the late 1960s in Europe (Daalder & Shils, 1982). I

The stakeholder society, one in which society challenges the traditional autonomy
Of higher education, is changing higher education in Europe (Maassen, 2000). Olsen
(2007) observed that today we are in a period of potentially transformational change in
higher education, with implications for the reshaping of institutional purposes that may
involve enough change to jeopardize the identity, legitimacy, and distinctive features of
academic institutions. Current trends dominating higher education challenge the
autonomy of the university, the academic freedom of faculty in teaching and research,
and, even more importantly, who controls bodies of knowledge, the deﬁnition and criteria
Of academic excellence, and the relationship between teaching and research. This period
of transformational change raises questions regarding social contract in higher education,
such as: “What kind of University for what kind of society? What do the University and
society expect from each other? How is the University assumed to ﬁt into the democratic
polity and society? To what extent and how, are the University, government and society
supposed to inﬂuence each other?” (Olsen, 2007, p. 25)

Europe is also currently affected by a second trend, cost sharing, which
speciﬁcally impacts ﬁnance. Pressures for cost sharing, or shifting the cost of higher
education toward students, has increased in Europe in recent years, mainly due to rising
demand for public monies by a range of competing public goods,‘such as education,

health, and security (V ossensteyn, 2005). Cost sharing is a global trend, exacerbated in

some countries by a growing youth demographic (Johnstone, 2006). The results of this
studynthat none of the countries studied moved toward cost sharingnbegs the question of
why these countries go against the global trend.
Austerity is the climate created by these two trends in higher education ﬁnance.

Since the 19703, higher education in Europe experienced an austerity that could be best
described as an increasing need to make tough budget decisions requiringtrade-Offs even
in the context of continuing expansion to meet demand (Johnstone et al., 2006). Demand
for higher education in Europe grew due to several inﬂuences, but salient among them
were public and private willingness to make investments in human capital and the
political responses to rising socioeconomic expectations. Scholars debate whether or not
demand for higher education is still on the rise, but the question is moot in the face of
rapidly increasing per-student costs, driven by the labor intensity of education.
Technology has driven costs down and increased productivity in other sectors of the
economy, but costs in higher education are primarily labor costs, which usually rise at
rates above inﬂation. Pressure to keep taxes low to attract economic development
prevents solving the budget problem by raising tax rates. Competing priorities for
government spending, such as public health, social security, energy, and the environment,
have increased rather than decreased over the same decades. Deﬁcit ﬁnancing is limited
in the EU monetary regime. The options for ﬁnancing higher education amount to cutting
costs or ﬁnding new sources of revenue.

This study will argue that these trends have rearranged stakeholder roles in ways
that amount to a shift in the social contract regarding higher education ﬁnance policy.

. Several scholars consider the current shift of social contract to have narrowed the

purposes of higher education to economic development (Gumport, 2001; Kezar, 2004;
Neave, 2006; Rhoades & Slaughter, 2006). Kezar (2004) states, “According to critics,
higher education is foregoing its role as a social institution and is functioning
increasingly as an industry with ﬂuctuating, predominantly economic goals and market-
oriented values” (p. 430).

Concerns about the narrowing of the purposes of higher education to economic
development cannot deny the many beneﬁts of an economic emphasis. Concerns about
linkages with industry are primarily about eroding other purposes of higher education.
For example, Fairweather (1988) made a detailed analysis of the beneﬁts of linkages
between higher education and industry. He focused on linkages to industry that were
highly compatible with academic institutions. He gave caveats that the economic beneﬁts
of linkages are usually long-term rather than short-term; that institutional capacity and -
' capability must match the purposes of the liaison; and that academic institutions are
vibrant because their distance ﬁ'om market forces preserves their distinctiveness.
Fairweather suggested that “above all, universities should retain the capacity to do what
no other organization does as wellunamely, provide broad liberal education for the
populace, train future professionals, and combine research and instruction in the search
for knowledge. Relationships with industry that enhance other goals without banning
these basic ﬁmctions may prove beneﬁcial. The social costs of industry-university
relationships that diminish the capacity of academic institutions to address fundamental,
distinctive missions may exceed the sum of their beneﬁts, however” (p. vii).

Any narrowing of mission imposes a fundamental opportunity cost (Kezar, 2004).

Kezar cites three scholarly critics (Slaughter, Soley, and Sperber) who are concerned that

“the current charter encourages ethical and educational compromises that are potentially
harmful for higher education and the general public, especially as that charter relates to
the historic mission of fostering democracy and such important values as equality,
academic freedom, or the pursuit of knowledge” (Kezar, 2004, p. 430). Sea changes are
taking place in higher education, assumedly due to what is termed a shift in social
contract, with potential ill effects unlikely to be outweighed by beneﬁts (Kezar, 2004) or,
at best, balanced by beneﬁts (F airweather, 1988). If social contract is an inﬂuential and
fundamental force in higher education policy, it deserves systematic, empirical research
(Kezar, 2004).

The term social contract is rarely invoked in higher education. It arises in policy
discussions that attempt to describe the changing terrain of the political economy of
higher education in the US. context (Duderstadt, 2000; Gumport, 2001) and in the
European context (Neave, 2006). Duderstadt (2000) and Gumport (2001) carefully deﬁne
other terms relevant to the discussion, but without deﬁning social contract. Two higher
education scholars have delineated taxonomies of social contract: Neave (2006) in
Europe, and Kezar (2004) in the US. These two have been only rarely cited on the topic.
Yet, discussions by respected policy scholars are framed within a context of the
overriding inﬂuence of social contract. Thus, the existence and inﬂuence of the
phenomenon of social contract are for the most part assumed in the limited literature on
social contract. They are assumed even though social contract has not been proven
empirically. Often, commentators on social contract do not even cite current social

contract theory. Hence, it is not surprising that the dynamics of its operation in the

political economy of higher education also have not been tested empirically in a
systematic way (Kezar, 2004).

’ One European higher education policy scholar is the exception. Neave (2006) has
taken pains to describe social contract speciﬁcally in terms of the expected roles Of
national governments vis-a-vis other stakeholders in higher education. Such discussion of
roles includes which stakeholders perform which roles, and why they are given such roles
in higher education. As editor of a European journal Of higher education policy, Neave
(2006) devoted an issue to the conceptualization and application of social contract. The
issue included one country case study (Gounko & Smale, 2006), one sectoral study in
academic research (Tadmor, 2006), and one conceptual study of global networking as it
relates to changing social contract on a global scale (Stouer, 2006). This single journal
issue carries the lion’s share of careful description and deﬁnitional, conceptual, and case
study work on social contract in the higher education policy literature.

In his preface to the issue, Neave (2006) delineates the history of conceptual
frameworks in higher education policy. He suggests that social contract, as his preferred
candidate for a conceptual ﬁame, best reﬂects the topography of the political economy of
higher education. Because the social contract We is built on political theory, economic
theory, and social theory, it also serves to bring a coherent multidisciplinary approach to
higher education policy research.

For these reasons, the conceptual frame of social contract in higher education
warrants closer deﬁnition through empirical study. Although the term social contract is
applied at global (Stouer, 2006; Torres & Rhoads, 2006), national (Duderstadt, 2000,

Gumport, 2001; Neave, 2006), state (California Education Roundtable, 1997), and

institutional (Neave, 2006) levels, differences in deﬁnition and dynamics between the
macro and micro levels have not been delineated, except by Neave (2006). Relationships
between social contract and other variables, whether social, economic, or otherwise, have
not been tested. The literature on academic research ﬁrnding and student support policy
discusses inﬂuences similar to social contract (Jacob & Hellstrorn, 2000; Johnstone,
1986; Olsen, 2007), but without clear conceptualization or deﬁnition Of such inﬂuences.
Hence, the lack of conceptual framing is problematic in applying the concept to speciﬁc
functional areas of higher education.

In sum, the extant work on social contract in higher education amounts to one
formal conceptualization with very limited case study application in the area of academic
research. If social contract is in fact an inﬂuential force in higher education policy,
speciﬁCally in the functional areas of academic research funding and student support
policy, the concept warrants closer deﬁnition and analysis through empirical study.

Purposes of the Current Study of Social Contract

The purposes of this study were to deﬁne, conceptualize, and test the dynamics of
social contract in higher education through empirical study. This study was limited to two
dynamics in ﬁnance policy: the funding of academic research and student support policy.
As such, this study sought to better understand the phenomenon of social contract by
studying relationships between social contract and the funding of academic research and
student support policy. Three countries were selected for this international, comparative
analysis, all of which participated in the Bologna Process. The study sought to answer the

following research questions:

 

Is there a relationship between a supranational social contract regarding academic
research and the allocation of funds to research projects at national levels?

Is there a relationship between a supranational social contract regarding student
support and the allocation of ftmds to student support at national levels?

The elements of these research questions are deﬁned and discussed as follows.

Social Contract in Academic Research

Social contract, as deﬁned in this study, is the expected role of stakeholders
(government, students, and industry) in higher education (N eave, 2006). As such, social
contract is the framework from which declarations of purpose arise. According to social
contract theory, policy statements cannot take Shape, absent some kind Of stakeholder
participation in the policy-making process (Neave, 2006; Rousseau, 1766). For example,
one discussion on the purposes of the research function in Europe proceeded to discuss
social contract in terms of the “science-society contract.” Jacob and Hellstrom describe
the science-society contract as “the relations between the state and science” (2000, p. 12).
, They view this contract with society as a dynamic phenomenon, currently shifting away
ﬁom the former science-society contract. They consider the waning social contract to be
one whereby state funds were given to research universities in return for public goods in
the form of knowledge and education, with a high degree of autonomous judgment left to
faculty. According to Jacob anleellstrom (2000), the new science-society contract
demands that beneﬁts from academic research serve economic development.

Social Contract in Student Financial Support Policy
Higher education scholars have reported on (e.g., CESifo, 2006; Vossensteyn,

2004) or commented speciﬁcally on sociological aspects of student support policies, i.e., —

the social ramiﬁcations of the public subsidization of student tuition (e.g., Ashby, 1970;
Slaughter, 1998), but only one higher education ﬁnance scholar performed detailed
ﬁnancial analyses of country cases set in their sociological contexts. In his seminal work
on comparative higher education ﬁnance, Johnstone (1986) pointed to the need for a
sociological analysis. He began such an analysis in 1986 by taking a look at the cultural
roots of higher education ﬁnance in the ﬁve countries he studied: Germany, France,
Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. His later work in comparative
tuition policy included Canada, Russia, and regional and country studies in Aﬁ'ica

(J Ohnstone, 2006).

After discussing the impact of the competing ideologies of political parties on
higher education ﬁnance policy, Johnstone (1986) considered the sociological
perspective: “Policies and instruments for appOrtioning the costs of higher education are
functions of traditions and beliefs with roots far deeper and more complex than either
party ideology or economic sophistication” (p. 158). t

Johnstone (1986) based his analysis on a comparison of the role of the student in
different national cultures. His early case studies of the United States, France, and
Sweden informed the current study as distinct examples of the range of national traditions
(or social contracts) regarding tuition policy. In some countries, such as the United States,
the college years were considered more of “an extension of childhood than as a beginning
of adulthood” (p. 158). In contrast, most Scandinavian cultures considered college
students to be full adults. This cultural distinction made a big difference in higher

education ﬁnance. In America, the costs of higher education were apportioned on the

basis of “the primacy of the parental contribution,” according to Johnstone (1986, p.

158). In Scandinavia, the burden of ﬁnancing college was taken up by the state on behalf
of students.

The French tradition has been a mix of the American and Scandinavian
approaches to tuition policy. Parental responsibility for student welfare has been
assumed, as in the United States, until the student has children of his or her own. Unlike
the American government, the French government shoulders the bulk of tuition for
students in either Situation. National testing qualiﬁes students to use their free tuition at
the best schools. The lower-rate schools are inferior to the elite schools, to the degree that
the system cannot be termed egalitarian in the Scandinavian sense.

To shed light on these national differences, Johnstone pointed to the constitutional
history of a nation, which he believed formed its citizens’ idea of an acceptable social
contract (1986). For Swedes, anything less than a fully egalitarian approach by the
government was unacceptable. As one of the most socialist democracies in Europe,
Sweden embodied the highest degree of egalitarian structure known in industrialized
countries, according to Johnstone. Its level of successful egalitarianism was aided by'its
highly homogenous ethnic composition. Although opposition parties existed, the socialist
party enjoyed a long and stable time in power (Johnstone, 1986). If working-class youth
did not choose to attend college, that was their choice, but the Swedes still addressed
their low participation rate as a social problem to solve (Johnstone, 1986). Swedish
universal access has been somewhat limited recently by yearly caps on national
enrollment levels, but not enough to constitute a serious breach of its egalitarian,
universal access social contract-(Marlow-Ferguson, 2002). In contrast, for French society,

stratiﬁcation perpetuated by the educational system has been the status quo for so many

10

generations that it would be surprising if a high level of acceptance were not in place
(Johnstone, 1986).

Johnstone’s early insights regarding the foundations of various national traditions
(1986) were conﬁrmed by later scholarship in comparative tuition policy across a wider
range of country case studies (Altbach & Johnstone, 1993; Michael & Kretovics, 2005;
Teixera, Johnstone, Rosa, & Vossensteyn, 2006). These scholars noted that the same
range of foundational national motives persisted, but as challenged in the context of a
changing, more straightened, ﬁnancial climate. They also added their Specialized
knowledge of Austria, India, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, Thailand (Michael &
Kretovics, 2005), Australia, China, Eastern Europe (Altbach & Johnstone, 1993), the
Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal (Teixera, Johnstone, Rosa, & Vossensteyn, 2006) into
comparative analysis of higher education ﬁnance.

Relation to Higher Education Purpose

The current study did not directly explore the topic of the purposes of higher
education. Studies in the history of higher education discuss changes over time in societal
expectations regarding the purpose of higher education (Duderstadt, 2000; Kerr, 2001;
' Pelikan, 1992; Rhodes, 2001; Thelin, 2004).. For example, Witte studied the impact of
changing supranational purposes and policies in higher education, as embodied in the
Bologna Process, on a national higher education degree structure (2006).

The current research went beyond a study of purposes by deﬁning,
conceptualizing, and testing the concept of social contract. The concept of social contract

captures a society’s agreed'purposes for higher education in its broader conception of the

11

political economy that Shapes purpose (Neave, 2006). In this way, the purposes of higher
education are enfolded in the “why such roles” aspect Of social contract.
The Bologna Process

To better understand the phenomenon of social contract, this study explored a
dynamic ongoing process, potentially involving social contract at different levels. The
process that was studied was the Bologna Process in the European Union, which has been
termed a supranational process (De Wit, 2007), meaning a process in which national
agendas are subordinated to multinational agreements or institutions (Meek &
Goedegebuure, 2007). This study examined the nature of a possible social contract
inherent in the Bologna Process, which, if it exists, can be termed a supranational social
contract evolving in the European Union. The ﬁrst line of inquiry of this study focused on
one functional area of higher education—academic research. Of interest here was the
relationship between the supranational (Bologna Process) social contract regarding
academic research and national-level social contracts in three countries regarding
academic research. The social contract regarding academic research is a description of
which stakeholders in higher education take which roles in the academic research
function and why they take such roles. This study examined national academic research
social contract speciﬁcally in terms of public policy statements on the purposes of
academic research, the types of stakeholders that received funding, and the stated goals of
research projects that received funding.

Similarly, to study student support policy, this study explored the relationship
between the nature of the possible supranational (Bologna Process) social contract

regarding student support policy and national-level social contracts in three countries

12

regarding student support policy. The social contract regarding student support policy is a
description of which stakeholders in higher education take which roles in determining
tuition rates and why they take such roles. This study examined national student support
social contract Speciﬁcally in terms of the stated reasons why tuition levels were not
raised by governments.

The supranational process that was the focus of this research was the Bologna
Process in the European Union. The Bologna Process was a voluntary movement by
ministries of education and universities in the European Union launched formally in 1999
with the goal of improving the global status of European institutions of higher education
by creating a European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Bologna Process goal is to
provide tools to voluntarily connect national systems, rather than to formally harmonize
systems (Bologna Declaration, 1999).

Recently, a few scholars of higher education have taken this perspective of
voluntary connection and used it to review the history of the Bologna Process to date as
an initially bottom-up process. Neave and Maassen (2007) trace the beginnings of the
Bologna Process to 1988, when a Bologna meeting of European university leaders signed
what they called the “Magna Charta Universitatum.” In this document, universities
declared the basic values of higher education, such as academic freedom and the
autonomy of higher education institutions (I-IEls).

A decade later, in May 1988, at the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary
of the Sorbonne, the ministers of education gathered there included British, French,
German, and Italian ministers of higher education. These four ministers took the

Opportunity to Sign a joint declaration that became the Sorbonne Declaration, which

13

speciﬁcally sought to harmonize higher education structures in the four signatory
countries.

The following year, in June 1999, the Bologna Declaration was signed by the
ministers of higher education of 29 European countries, which was “an amazing feat of
intergovernmental action and commitment to a joint interest” (N cave & Maassen, 2007,
p. 135), given that at that time only 15 of the signatories were members of the European
Union. The Bologna Declaration created an open European Higher Education Area. It
laid Out policies and joint actions to this end, as well as a schedule for achievement of
joint actions on the basis of the ministers of the signatory countries meeting every other
year to discuss and assess progress. These meetings and the resulting statements and
documents became known as the Bologna Process, according to Neave and Maassen
(2007).

The Bologna Process should also be viewed in its relationship to the top—down
Lisbon Process. Neave and Maassen (2007) discuss the complex nature of attempts to
study integrative processes in Europe empirically, in particular, the Bologna and Lisbon
Processes. “To study any single process of European integration in isolation is -
problematic. Under some conditions, as both Bologna and Lisbon demonstrate, reform
processes interact and intertwine, if not integrate, as several partially interconnected
developments intersect, cross and meld” (Neave & Maassen, 2007, p. 135). When the
Lisbon PrOceSS began in 2000, the European Union agreed that economic development
could not proceed without joint efforts in the key sector of education, but still agreed to
exclude higher education from their efforts. “However, given the main aims of the Lisbon

- agenda and the University’s role in it as the ‘Knowledge Institution’ it is no surprise that

14

the separated intergovernmental and supranational university policies and visions came to
be link ” (Neave & Maassen, 2007, p. 143).

Neave and Maassen (2007) further reported that the European Commission had
been purposefully excluded from the Bologna Process up until 2004, with a view to make .
the initial phase an initiative of nations rather than of the European Union. The 1988
Magna Charta emphasized the cultural basis of European higher education over its role in
economic development, and the early Bologna Process documents continued in this
direction, while simultaneously rejecting participation by the European Union.

The main focus of the Bologna Process was gradually shifted to economic
development, as seen in the Prague and Berlin Communiqués. The Prague Communique
still emphasized the university’s cultural role, but it also explicitly linked higher
education and academic research to the future economic competitiveness of Europe.
Next, the Berlin Communique explicitly referred to the role-of higher education in
economic development in Europe. It also linked the Lisbon Process to the Bologna
Process through the Education and Training 2010 work program of the European
Commission. In this way, Neave and Maassen (2007) believe that two key objectives of
the Lisbon strategy (to strengthen economic competitiveness and to stimulate social
cohesion) were brought to the heart of the Bologna Process. Their analysis of the turning
of the Bologna Process away from cultural and toward economic purposes for higher
education highlights the potential dynamic nature of the purposes of higher education
over time. Because the concept of social contract embodies determinations of purpose,

their analysis might also indicate that a shifting social contract may have been in play.

15

As a supranational initiative, the Bologna Process. affords an opportunity to study
the social contract implicit within it, along with the social contracts implicit in national
policies. This empirical study explored the inﬂuence of supranational policies on ﬁmding
patterns for academic research and student support in three Bologna Process participant
countries, comparing funding patterns in each country prior to the 1999 Bologna
Declaration to those since then.

Challenges to Empirical Study of Social Contract Addressed in This Study

Empirical testing must overcome salient challenges. First, social contract is a
social construct. Measuring a social contract is highly subjective; it can only be measured
as it is perceived and as it is constucted socially (Weber, 1946). Second, perhaps due to
the subjective and dynamic nature of social contact, the ﬁeld of higher education has not
settled on a clear deﬁnition of social contact in the postsecondary context (Duderstadt,
2000; Gumport, 2001; Neave, 2006). Third, perceived social contact can vary by society,
class, and individual, and changes over time. Multiple social contracts may be perceived,
and they all may inﬂuence funding policy in a single county (Neave, 2006).

Despite these three challenges, the study was feasible, for the follOwing reasons:
The ﬁrst challenge, subjectivity, was addressed by employing recognized content analysis
methods (to be discussed in chapter 3). Content analysis allowed for the methodical
analysis of subjective reporting. By discerning patterns in the use of common terms and
themes in policy documents, content analysis revealed policy positions relevant to
understanding social contact.

The second, or deﬁnitional, challenge is one to be approached over time by

several studies of social contact. This study began with the most developed deﬁnition in

16

the literature. As mentioned above, Guy Neave, an inﬂuential scholar in higher education
policy in Europe who consults on higher education for the United Nations Development
Program, described and conceptualized social contact, resulting in three substantive
deﬁnitions for three types of social contact. Neave (2006) bases his typology on the
original political theories of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam Smith.

Neave (2006) deﬁned social contract as the expected roles of stakeholders in
higher education. According to Neave, a Hobbes-type social contact places government
in authority to protect humankind from the mayhem of unfettered human behavior found,
for example, in unregulated markets. In higher education, a Hobbes-type social contact
tanslates into a system where govermnent contols or provides higher education. In stark
contast, a Smith-type social contact views market forces as the best support for social
order. Higher education under market orientation emphasizes private higher education. A
Locke-type social contact is a mixture of the other two. For Locke, a limited government
is legitimized by its support of the social order as constituted in relatively free markets
(Neave, 2006). A Locke-type system of higher education would evidence and value
elements of both public and private providers. '

Neave’s (2006) deﬁnition of social contact served aptly to include all of the
deﬁnitions for social contact med to date in the higher education literature, which were
detailed in the review of literature below. His deﬁnition also expanded the concept to
include social contacts that rely on market mechanisms over government (or Smith’s
social contact). The inclusiveness of Neave’s deﬁnition, its potentially broad
applicability to the extant literature, and the relevant detail of its conceptualization all

indicated that it was a good working deﬁnition for this study. To date, few higher

17

 

education scholars referred to the body of Neave’s work in social contact, except
Slaughter (1998). None speciﬁcally adopted his typology for social contact outside his
single journal issue (Gounko & Smale, 2006; Stouer, 2006; Tadmor, 2006). Kezar (2004)
deﬁned and discussed social charter, a near-equivalent term for social contract, but
because she did not root her deﬁnition in classical political theory, this study focused on
Neave’s (2006) conceptualization, which had deeper theoretical roots.

The third challenge was the potential multiplicity of national or supranational
social contacts. When we speak of a county’s social contact, whose social contract do
we mean? Across levels of a society, the “deal” that government has worked out over
time in that society can appear quite different. The literature indicated that the multiple
perceptions of social contact in higher education ﬁnance policy boiled down to Neave’s
(2006) three essential types, even though other scholars have not adopted his typology.
This point will be argued in detail in chapter 2.

This ﬁrst Chapter addressed three key challenges to the empirical study of social
contact. The review of literature, which follows, spans social contact as well as
proximate terms, and extends into the research and student support funding dynamics of
higher education. The review of literature is followed by a discussion of the qualitative
comparative research design adopted for this study. Finally, the results of this study are

presented, along with conclusions drawn from the results.

18

Chapter Two
Review of Literature

This study required a theoretical discussion of social contact, which begins with
deﬁnitions found in the literature, including proximate terms for social contact, along
with their conceptualizations. Next, the review discusses applications of the concept of
social contact extant in the literature. Final sections discuss the literature on social
contract regarding academic research, and social contact regarding student support
policy, which are the speciﬁc foci of this study.

. Origins in Political Theory

The idea of social contact derives originally from the biblical histories of Israel’s
kings, most notably King David, who made a covenant with the people of Israel (Baker,
1948). The main concept of social contact is that government governs by consent of the
governed, rather than by force (Baker, 1948; Locke, 1698). Philosophers Locke and
Rousseau theorized social contact in response to an ongoing discussion during the
Enlightenment regarding the sources of government authority.

In order to theorize on the rationales for government, social contact theory ﬁrst
posited a state of nature in which humans have no government. In that state, they may
choose to have government for particular ends. These ends include the protection of
natural rights, those rights owned by humans in a state of nature (Locke, 1698).
Government is created and legitimized by humans, under social contact theory. In other
words, government has no innate existence; it is a human artifact (Beetham, 1998; Locke,
1698). Hence, it is reasonable to state that early theories of social contact deﬁned the

concept qua social constuct.

19

 

Rousseau argued for direct democracy as the best sign of a legitimate social
contract with government (1766). Although direct democracy is not practical in a large
modern nation-state, Rousseau succeeded in tying the social contact to the legislative
process. In this way, he considered the social contact to be modiﬁable by society. His
was the ﬁrst tlreorization of social contract as a shifting, or dynamic, social phenomenon.
The electorate could legislate expansion of, redeﬁnition of, or limitation to the list of
human rights under the social contact (Beetham, 1998; Rousseau, 1766). Rousseau
transformed Locke’s static concept of social contact into a dynamic social phenomenon
that could change under the inﬂuence of social and political forces.

Deﬁnitions and Conceptualizations in Higher Education

Apart from one European journal on social contact edited by Neave (2006), '
discussions of social contact in higher education, especially in the United States, do not
reference formal social contact theory. The current study of the Bologna Process
required a search of the US. literature, because the Bologna Process in Europe, similar to
other initiatives in higher education, was designed in part to compete with the quality and
success of the large and diverse U.S. higher education system. The US. literature
evidenced not a single reference to classical political theorists Locke (1698), Hobbes
( 1651), Rousseau (1766), or Smith (1776). Such informal usage does not make clear how
to deﬁne social contact. Nor does the informal usage make application clear: how social
contacts are made or how they are abrogated. Furthermore, most references to social
contact do not differentiate social contact made or broken at the macro (global,

I supranational, or national) levels from social contact as perceived by individuals on the

micro level.

20

As a result, deﬁnition and conceptualization of the term are not developed enough
to give a clear sense of the dynamics and impact of a changing social contract, nor of how
social contract relates exactly to important implications for the future of higher education.
For example, in the ongoing discussions and debates on the changing climate for higher
education in the United States, references have been made to the changing sOcial contract
(Adam, 2007; Council, 1997; Duderstadt, 2000; Green, 2005; Gumport, 2001; Perorazio,
2001; Woodbury, 2005). Such references often do not clearly and expliciﬂy deﬁne what
is meant by social contact as applied in higher education (Duderstadt, 2000; Gumport,
2001). One exception is Perorazio (2001), who described social contact as the
expectation that public investment in higher education should bring returns to society.
Much of this same literature implied that the tansition that higher education is currently
going through is of such a momentous nature that it is changing the foundations upon
which society operates (Duderstadt, 2000; Gumport, 2001; McDowell, 2001; Peterson,
1975)

Regarding the academic research function of higher education, McDowell (2001)
used historical analysis to discuss the social contact enacted by land-grant universities by
extension service to their communities. In addition, Perorazio’s (2001) analysis of the
history of state planning in ﬁve states indicated that higher education and government
have experienced a variety of social contacts over time, most promoting economic
development.

Many mentions of social contact in the US. higher education literature refer
speciﬁcally to a social contact regarding access to higher education for all citizens, with

implications for state ﬁnancial support of student costs (Adam, 2007; Council, 1997;

21

Green, 2005; Woodbury, 2005). Often, references to social justice are invoked, such as
the level of fairness of what authors consider to be the Old contact as compared to the
new (Adam, 2007; Council, 1997; Green, 2005; Woodbury, 2005). Commentators
usually indicate an unfortunate shift to a new social contract by pointing to ensuing
threats on the horizon, such as the loss of public support for higher education as a public
good (California Education Roundtable, 1997).

Only one higher education scholar deﬁnes social contact with reference to classic
political theory (Neave, 2006). Other higher education scholars deﬁne concepts
proximate or equivalent to social contact but using other terms. Proximate or equivalent
terms for social contact include the public good, the social charter, purposes of higher
education, and contactualization. Because, as Neave states, these terms are easily
conﬂated (2006), the next section clariﬁes similarities and differences in their deﬁnitions
as they relate to social contract.

Social Charter

One scholar in the United States describes social contact, using what I cOnsider
to be a near-equivalent, or proximate, termnsocial charter. Kezar (2004) deﬁned the
social charter as the reciprocal relationship existing between higher education and
society. As such, her deﬁnition paralleled Neave’s (2006) stakeholder-based deﬁnition of
social contact. The two scholars differed in that Kezar (2004) saw the legal aspects of
the social charter (the ﬁduciary responsibility and rights of higher educatiOn in society) as
deﬁning social charter itself. In contast, Neave (2006) viewed the social charter as a
legal framework deriving tom the social phenomenon of the reciprocal relationship of

social contract.

22

Kezar (2004) ﬁrrther deﬁned social charter as “a covenant built on trust” (p. 436),
referring to meacher and Rudy’s 1997 book when she stated:

Society provides resources, political support, raw materials, and a guiding

inﬂuence. In return, colleges and universities educate students, serve as

developers and repositories of knowledge, provide social critique, and contibute

to the community. The essential elements of this charter are found in the founding

of Harvard College. (p. 436)
Kezar’s (2004) conceptualization of social charter matched Neave’s (2006)
conceptualization of social contract in that she speciﬁed its dynamic quality. Unlike
Neave (2006), she tied the social charter closely to serving the public good. According to
Kezar (2004), any movement away from the public good was a breach of the social
charter, even if the public good Changed while higher education stood still. Kezar’s
(2004) social charter was a social constuct, redeﬁned and enforced by public opinion in
a sort of check-and-balance dynamic between public opinion and higher education. She
cited the example of social pressure driving colleges in the early 13008 to change
curriculum toward the sciences. Here, public opinion redeﬁned the social charter to
become preparation in the sciences. She also pointed to another shift in social charter
after WW II, when the public good of higher education was redeﬁned as increasing
access and research.

Kezar (2004) saw a shift occurring away from the traditional social charter
between higher education and society that was founded on a communitarian philosophy
of the public good. She described the communitarian belief system as promoting higher

education goals of leadership development, meeting local needs as deﬁned by local

23

communities, or creating space for social criticism. Kezar pointed to several other
commentators in the literature (Bok, Gumport, and Kerr), who also were concerned about
what Kezar (2004) described as the shift to a new social charter in terms of the inﬂuence
of neoliberal philosophy. They observed the neoliberal philosophy supplanting
communitarianism, especially in how societies deﬁned the public good. The social
charter under neoliberalism was based on the precepts that a weak state was better for
society than a stong state; and that private ownership was better than public ownership.
A third neoliberal precept was the dominance of economic rationality over other forms of
logic. Its fourth precept was that a system in which individuals maximize their personal
welfare was superior to one in which the state provides a communitarian welfare. The
end result of neoliberal logic was that private organizations are more effective than public
institutions in promoting the public good (2004). Kezar (2004) and Neave (2006) use
different terms to describe essentially the same dynamic phenomenon: shifts in the
expectations that a society has of higher education.

Conversely, the same terms in the social contact literature took on different
meanings in different disciplines. Perhaps because he was steeped in the language of
organizational behavior, Khurana (2007) referred to the macro concept of social contact
as the social compact. He stated that business schools, after their founding in the United
States, were party to “a social compact between occupations deemed ‘professions’ and
society at large, as well as a certain set of relations among professional schools, the
occupational groups for which they serve as authoritative communities, and society”
(2007, p. 7). Citing Everett C. Hughes, an expert in the stucture of modern occupations,

Khurana used the term social compact to describe the relationship between professions

24

and society: “Professions are given extaordinary privileges in exchange for their
contributions to the enhancement of social order” (2007, p. 11). In this usage, Khurana’s
(2007) social compact appeared close in deﬁnition to Neave’s (2006) social contact.

When he used Kezar’s (2004) term, social charter, Khurana (2007) meant
something else entirely. He was referring to the legal instuments that states proferred to
enterprises in the form of state charters. Such prime examples show that for the concept
of social contact, the terms chosen, their deﬁnitions, and their conceptualizations were a
confusing combination of parallel and proximate meanings. The overall picture was one
of Neave (2006), Kezar (2004), and Khurana (2007) using different terms to better
understand what amounted to the same phenomenon in higher education policy—social
contact.

Public Good and Purposes of Higher Education.

Because the concept of social contact was tied closely by some scholars
(Gumport, 2001; Kezar, 2004; Peterson, 1975) to the concept of the public good, it was
necessary for this study to examine its deﬁnitions as well. For the purposes of this study,
an action taken for the public good was deﬁned as an action resulting in an expected
increase in the total welfare of society, beyond the expected increase of the actor’s own
personal good (Batson, 1994). Under this deﬁnition, higher education actions, most
notably state support of higher education, was'considered to be in the public gOod, rather
than only in the private good of the student, due to the numerous beneﬁts accruing to
society ﬁ'om higher education. Such beneﬁts included the development of citizens, the
spread of practical knowledge, and the creation of new knowledge (Gumport, 2001).

Khurana (2007) also referred to the public good as the common good. In contast,

25

Kezar’s (2004) deﬁnition of the public good allowed for private beneﬁt to individuals via
a neoliberal social charter to be considered as one form of the public good or a
redeﬁnition of the public good away tan a communitarian public good.

Social contact, as conceptualized in Kezar’s (2004) social charter, inﬂuenced the
pmposesof higher education. Her reading of the literature led her to state that higher
education purpOses narrowed due to changes in the social charter:

Traditionally higher education’s public role and contibution to the public good F

has included educating citizens for democratic engagement, supporting local and
regional communities, preserving knowledge and making it available to the
community, working in concert with other soCial institutions such as government
or health-care agencies to foster their missions, advancing knowledge through 3
research, developing the arts and humanities, broadening access to ensure a
diverse democracy, developing the intellectual talents of students, and creating
leaders for various areas Of the public sector. . . .According to critics, higher
education is foregoing its role as a SOCial institution and is ftmctioning
increasingly as an industry with ﬂuctuating, predominantly economic goals and
market-oriented values. Increasingly, the production of workers is the primary or
singular goal of higher education. (p. 430)

The narrowing of purpose in social contact toward market orientation that Kezar (2004)

taced in the United States is a key tend observed in the Nordic counties that were the

cases for this study. A second argument was raised to balance hers: concerns about the

narrowing of the purposes of higher education to economic development cannot deny the

26

many beneﬁts of an economic emphasis. For example, F airweather (1988) made a
detailed analysis of the beneﬁts of linkages between higher education and industy.
Contactualization

Neave (2006) rounded out his deﬁnition of social contact by contrasting it with
contactualization. Contactualization, according to Neave (2006), was the general
movement in Europe, Similar to the accountability movement in the United States,
whereby government ﬁrnds were disbursed to a given institution of higher education
contingent upon that institution meeting annual goals set forth in yearly contacts.
According to Neave, contactualization was a micro level effect deriving tom the macro
level social contact shifting in the Smith direction, narrowing the purposes of higher
education to the sole purpose of economic development.

Limitations of Literature on Social Contract and Public Good

Kezar (2004) described how public good relates to the social contact. Aside from
Neave’s (2006) and Kezar’s (2004), most discussions of social contact in the literature
offered only piecemeal conceptual frameworks; often, they were untested. Kezar’s (2004)
review of the literature on the public good in the United .States’ higher education setting
concluded that empirical studies are lacking:

Much of the literature on this topic is philosophical, conceptual, or anecdotal. For

example, Derek Bok’s Universities and the Future of America (1990) describes

the rise of commercialized research and athletics as well as faculty commitment

conﬂict. However, this work is not based on research but focuses exclusively on

the experiences of Harvard University. Theda: Skocpol and Morris Fiorina (1999)

27

and Walter Powell and Elisabeth Clemens (1998) have conceptualized new

notions of the public good [but without empirical analysis]. (p. 431)

Kezar (2004) also stated that the empirical literature on social charter in the United States
has only piecemeal conceptualizations:

A series of empirical studies have been conducted by Sheila Slaughter (1993,

1998) and Gary Rhoades (1995, 1998) on intellectual property and

commercialization of research, James Fairweather (1996) on the commitment

conﬂict of faculty, Paticia Gumport (2000) and Clark Kerr (1994) on the
corporatization of management, Murray Sperber (2000) on the commercialization
of athletics, and Gumport (1993) on the emergence Of a more market-oriented
curriculum, but there has been no synthesis of these various lines of research to
help policymakers and leaders interpret the current state of the charter and its

effect on taditional notions of the public good. (p. 431)

Applications of social contract in the literature were not only piecemeal but often
also relied on unproven assumptions as to the interaction of dynamics between national,
supranational, or global social contacts. One underlying assumption was that the United
States’ model of higher education, the American research university, was irrritated
increasingly worldwide (Geiger, 1985a; Torres & Rhoads, 2006). This led to a second
assumption that the rise of neoliberalism in the 19805 in the United States resulted in a
marked shift of the higher education social contact in the United States away tom its
taditional mandate and toward a new dominant model, which was essentially economic
development. Although Torres and Rhoads (2006) did not use the term social contact

under the deﬁnition used in the current study (Neave, 2006), a shift toward neoliberal

28

economic development constituted a shift toward a Smith-type social contact, in that
both are stongly market-oriented. According to Rhoads and Torres (2006b), the national-
level shift in social contact in the US. inﬂuenced the rest of the world via globalization
of the American model of higher education. They state, “The role of universities in
stcngthening economies has never been as front and center as it is today. Globalization
and the growing interdependence of economies Obviously have contibuted to this trend”
(Rhoads & Torres, 2006, p. 336).

Santos (2006) provided a careful historical analysis of the relationship between
higher education and economic development. His analysis included county examples
from the Americas, but his analysis was more of policy tends than county cases. He
pointed out that international organizations, such as the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, have turned their eyes toward higher
education as an engine for economic development only recently in the new millennium.
In doing so, they applied the neoliberal agenda in higher education on a global scale.
Santos also drew from his experiences in various counties in the Americas to state that
higher education has simultaneously lost both its role as a public good and its ﬁnancial
base since the 19803. Again, his were broad interpretations rather than empirical studies
setting out to prove speciﬁc tends.

Others noted a similar trend toward market orientation, or the Smith-type social
contact, on national and global levels. Kezar (2004) observed this as she reviewed the
literature in light of her concept of social charter in the US, concluding that “the

collective or public good, a historically important component of the charter between

29

higher education and society, is being compromised” (p. 429). Kezar (2004) widened her
observation of shifting social charter to the global level:
Social commentatOrs note that this orientation to the market and economic goals
is a worldwide phenomenon and is even more exteme within developing
counties where economic advancement has become the cornerstone of political
and educational agendas (Bertelson, 1998; Brown & Schubert, 2000; Currie&
Newson, 1998). They observe that governing powers in these counties have
redeﬁned the public good as private advancement and economic attainment,
abandoning long-standing missions of social development, social justice, and
democratic engagement. (pp. 430—43 1)
Economic Development as a Public Good
An understanding of economic development as a public good is grounded in the
econorrrics of education and higher education ﬁnance policy studies. Fairweather’s
(1988) balanced analysis of the beneﬁts of linkages betWeen academe and industy was
mentioned above. The following discussion provides a fuller discussion from the
economic perspective. Not until the 19505 did economists bring education into core
policy debates (Johnstone et al., 2006). Schultz (1971) intoduced a broad analysis of
human capital, deﬁned as the resOurces contained in humans, such as education, nutition,
and health, that make them more productive, especially in modernizing economies.
Levin (1989) outlined the basic terrain of the economics of education. Levin
described how investment formulas were applied to human capital to evaluate its return
on investment in terms of productivity, resulting in the study of the relationship between

the investment a society makes in education and the growth in its economy. Human

30

capital theory was the main thinking behind the War on POverty in the United States, for
which Shultze received the Nobel Prize in Economics. After the failure of education
components of the War on Poverty, scholarly debate has been lively regarding human
capital theory.

Johnstone et a1. (2006) reported that in the 19608, just as many counties were
expanding higher education in response to demographic growth, human capital became a
major rationale for government funding of economic development. Mass access to higher
education was also bolstered by the need for qualiﬁed labor, but its primary rationale in
Western Europe was to promote democracy by addressing rising social aspirations during
the stengthening of the welfare state in Europe. In the 19703, conservative critics of the
overuse of the human capital rationale for wasteful spending called for cost-beneﬁt
analysis in ﬁmding education (Arrow, 1972; Becker, 1964). These critics gave alternative
explanations for productivity effects attributed to higher education, thus eroding the
human capital rationale for high public returns to government subsidy (J Ohnstone et al.,
2006).

Bowen’s (1977) seminal, systematic Catalog of the outcomes of higher education
took a broad view to include social and economic beneﬁts at both the societal and
individual levels, including the economic beneﬁts to individuals in terms of return on
investment, and the social beneﬁts, including the impact of higher education on social
equality and the beneﬁts of academic research. Economists often found such beneﬁts
hard to quantify meaningfully and hence tend to teat them as extemalities in their
analysis (Bowen, 1962). The ﬁeld of economics of education, when explicated by

scholars familiar with the broad and varied outcomes of higher education (Bowen, 1977;

31

F airweather, 1988), grappled with the challenge of analyzing the complexities Of its
public beneﬁts. Motivation to overcome such challenges has increased with the
straightened government support for higher education in recent decades, including in the
European context (Johnstone et al., 2006). Haveman and Wolfe (1984) performed a meta-
analysis of the literature on 20 outcomes, including extemalities not accounted for with
market prices, such as working conditions, leisure, and health. After estimating the
economic value of their 20 factors, Haveman and Wolfe (1984) found that standard
estimates of the rate of return on education captured only three-ﬁfths of its value when
nonmarket factors are included.

As a European scholar of higher education ﬁnance, Vossensteyn (2000) echoed
the results of Haveman and Wolfe (1984) when he stated that “the external effects of
education can be addressed as the effects that bear upon others, [rather] than those
investing in higher education. This includes the presumed relationship between higher
education and economic growth, the increased tax payments from graduates, and the
nonmonetary beneﬁts of higher education to society, such as increased social
participation, changes in income distribution, cultural development, and a decrease in
crime. Because individual participants do not reckon with these beneﬁts in their decision
whether or not to enrol [sic], this probably leads to an underinvestment in higher
education. Public investment in higher education may prevent such underinvestment” (p.
2). In these words, he explicated the essential rationale for government subsidy of higher
education. That was: market incentives to individuals cannot capture the extemalities

valued by societies.

32

Neave and Maassen (2007) taced the history of the relationship between social
cohesion, economic development, and higher education in Europe as follows: “The
historic identifying feature of the European University, contary to its US. counterpart,

' has been its continuous close alignment with public service, constued in terms of the
services of the state” (p. 145). In Europe after World War II, the rise of the welfare state
in Europe succeeded in part due to its role in undergirding social cohesion. During this
period, higher education entered an era of massiﬁcation, with a view to provide social
mobility. The welfare state model assumed that the social cohesion provided by massiﬁed
higher education was a prerequisite for economic development.

Such assumptions supporting the welfare state model eroded during the 19705
when the capacity of the public sector to meet baby boomers’ demand for higher
» education was exceeded, as well as the capacity of the public sector to offer employment
for so many graduates, revealing the limitations of the welfare state. A turning away from
the welfare state and toward the private sector in the forms of marketization and
privatization increased in higher education. As a result, the relationship between social
cohesion and economic development was reversed. With the reasoning that provision of
enough jobs for university graduates was a prerequisite for social stability, economic
development became a condition for social cohesion, according to Neave and Maassen
(2007). Concern for social cohesion, which often is in essence a concern about disparities
in quality of life between social groups within the nation-states, has been center stage in
higher education policy in Europe since the 1960s (Neave & Maassen, 2007).

European scholars of higher education have noted the tend of increasing

marketization in European higher education (for example, Ball, 1998; Barkholt, 2005;

33

Lynch, 2006; Teichler, 2004). Lynch (2006) linked marketization in Europe to the rise of
the neoliberal agenda, to the point that the notion has been normalized in Europe that
higher education is a market commodity, and, as such, should be paid for by citizens =
through the market rather than the state.
Neave (2004) supplied background for the terms used regarding marketization in
Europe:
It is my experience that, as used in the United States, “marketisation” [sic]
corresponds to what is termed “commodiﬁcation” or “marchandisation” in
Europe—that is, higher education, learning and teaching constued as salable
goods. In contast, the European notion of “marketisation” bears greater kinship
with higher education driven by market forces, by reliance in varying degrees
upon private sector ﬁrnding and less upon tax-derived ﬁnancing. The distinction is
an important one if only for the fact that marketisation—European style—
represents a prior stage to commodiﬁcation. In the United States, however,
marketisation (European style) is held to be one of the particular historic
dimensions and speciﬁcities that long identiﬁed U.S. higher educatiOn. . . . The
current debate in the US. centes on “marketisation” qua “commodiﬁcation”
(European style). (p. 46)
As described by Neave (2004), European usage of the term marketization referred
primarily to a shift to a market-oriented social contact.
A contributing factor to problems with deﬁnition and application between the
US. and Europe was that their national higher education systems vary markedly. In the

US. context, references to social contact vis—a-vis higher education typically referred to

34

 

the role of public universities in the large and varied U.S. higher education system. In the
European setting, higher education systems were commonly governed by ministries of
education, hence the social contact in higher education is primarily with government
ministries. As a result, similar terms set in different contexts described different
phenomena. For example, as mentioned earlier, by social charter, Khurana (2007) meant
the state Charters for universities, whereas Kezar (2004) meant the general concept of a
national or global social contact. Separate national contexts can also result in scholars’
use of slightly differing terms to describe essentially the same concept, perhaps because
national academic discourses adOpt their own terms. For example, Neave’s (2006)
deﬁnition of social contact, set in Europe and applied globally, parallels Kezar’s (2004)
deﬁnition of social charter in the US. and global settings.

Neave (2006) described social contact as a social rather than an economic
contact held between all stakeholders in higher education, involving the social
dimension of higher education (equal access to higher education, as well as the social
beneﬁts of an educated citizenry). He added depth beyond other higher education
deﬁnitions of social contact by founding his work on classic political theory. In addition,
Neave’s conceptualization added the economic theory of Adam Smith to the more typical
encapsulation of social contact in the work of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau (2006). His
addition of Smith is highly relevant to current policy analysis in higher education ﬁnance,
which is dominated by neoclassical economics (Easton & Klees, 1992).

According to Neave (2006), Adam Smith’s social contact was based on the view
of the salubrious nature of the market. Social contract was the daily aggregation of

individual preferences expressed in the market mechanism. As such, it was a dynarrric,

35

not a static social contract. The market was the source of social order while the role of
government was limited to intervention only as needed. Smith’s social contract had at its
core a positive view of market competition.

Neave’s (2006) conceptualization of social contact iwa preferred for this study
for the following reasons. First, social contact was more carefully probed by Neave than
narrowly deﬁned. He approached the concept from several sides, describing it as a social
rather than an economic contact held between all stakeholders in higher education and
involving the social dimension of higher education (which included equal access to
higher education, as well as the social beneﬁts of an educated citizenry).

Second, Neave’s (2006) social contact was carefully conceptualized to delineate
three distinct types ﬁrlly inclusive of all potential phenomena: Smith (market-
orientation), Hobbes (government-orientation), and LOcke (mix Of the other two). The
typology was fully inclusive because it was a spectum with Smith at one end, Hobbes at
the other, and variations of Locke in the middle. This three-piece typology brought
important perspectives from economics of education into the analysis. Third, it was
conceived in a European setting (appropriate to this study of the Bologna Process).
Neave’s (2006) conceptualization has already been applied in three markedly different
countries (Gounko & Smale, 2006; Stouer, 2006; Tadmor, 2006) and hence may likely be
potentially applicable in a variety of county contexts. The literature on social contact
and social compact shows that this deﬁnition is certainly broad enough to describe the
US. and European higher education systems, as different as they are. The
conceptualization may be applicable as well in a global context, because it included three

distinct types on a spectum that included all potential types.

36

For the purposes of this study, the deﬁnition of social contact was as follows:
Social contact in higher education is the expected roles of stakeholders in higher
education. Description of a particular nation’s social contract includes which stakeholders
perform which roles and why they are given such roles in higher education. Social
contract can exist at the national, supranational, or global levels.

Three Universal Types of Social Contract

Two parallel conceptualizations in the literature indicated the potential ‘
universality of Neave’s (2006) social contact typology. Kezar (2004) conceptualized
three philosophies of the public good, which were universally inclusive. Each philosophy
resulted in a type of social charter. Kezar’s three social charters paralleled the three types
in Neave’s typology Of social contact. '

Kezar (2004) delineated her conceptualization as follows: First, she deﬁned
communitarianism, which derived tan a “communitarian philosophy of the public good
[that] espouses a social and public Charter in the taditional model of higher education”
(2004, p. 433). Ascording to Kezar (2004), a communitarianism philosophy required that
communities, not individuals, hold rights and responsibilities. The public good, or
general welfare, was furthered best by governments “because individuals are too self-
interested and will forsake important societal needs (Noddings, 1998). The public good
was seen as the state’s responsibility, even though a healthy balance needed to be reached
between individual autonomy and social cohesion (Bellah, 1996)” (Kezar, 2004, p. 434).
Kezar’s (2004) communitarian type was a close match to Neave’s (2006) description of a

Hobbes-type social contact.

37

 

Kezar’s (2004) second Social charter was liberalism/neoliberalism. Because >
liberalism protected above all else individual, private freedoms, “the neoliberal
philosophy of the public good espouses an individual and economic charter, resulting in
the industrial model of higher education” (p. 433). Under liberalism, the public good was
arrived at not by the conscious policies of governments but as the sum of all of the
individual decisions freely made. “Thus, the common or public good is assumed to have
emerged from focusing on protection of individual rights and freedoms” (p. 434), similar
to the workings of Smith’s invisible hand of the free market. Kezar’s neoliberal type
meshed well with Neave’s Smith-type social contact.

Finally, Kezar described a utilitarianism form of social charter (Kezar, 2004) that
“embraces a changing and contested charter that is a blending of both the taditional and
industrial models of higher education” (p. 433). As a mix of the other two, Kezar’s
utilitarian type included any phenomena not classiﬁed in the ﬁrst two types on a spectum
between the two polar opposites. As an intermediate type, Kezar’s utilitarian type
corresponded to Neave’s Locke-type social contact.

One empirical study in United States’ higher education ﬁnance may also indicate
that countries have three basic social contacts from which to choose. Zumeta (1996), a
premier scholar in higher education ﬁnance, developed three classiﬁcations of state
governance Systems. His classiﬁcations were based on his extensive empirical analysis of
ﬁfty states. Zumeta’s three classiﬁcations embodied in rough form Neave’s (2006) and
Kezar’s (2004) three types of social contact.

Keeping in mind that the deﬁnition of social contact for purposes Of the current

study was the expected roles of stakeholders in higher education, the indication here was

38

that there could exist three basic ways that stakeholders can share between them the
burden of ﬁnancing higher education. Zumeta (1996) concluded his classiﬁcation of state
approaches to governing higher education with: “It is possible to characterize most states’
policy postures. . .toward private higher education in terms of a few theoretically
intuitively plausible categories—the laissez-faire, cental-planning and market-
competitive constructs plus two hybrids of these” (p. 525). According to Zumeta’s (1996)
typology, a state that takes the laissez-faire stance engages in low levels Of student aid
spending compared to other states, supports public sector tuition at low levels, and allows
private sector higher education a low level of involvement in state planning. This attitude
reﬂects the view that the market is a better allocator of funding to higher education than
is the government.

Zumeta’s (1996) second category was a central-planning posture by states,
whereby state education authorities involve private institutions of higher education
substantially in state policy, giving them speciﬁc and enforced roles in the state higher
education system. Cental-planning states also fund private higher education and their
student aid at higher levels than do laissez-faire states. The cental planning posture
corresponded with the Hobbes-type social contact, whereby government is considered
the best way to allocate funding to higher education.

Zumeta’s (1996) third category blended state and market contol in what he called
a market-competitive pOsture. Market-competitive states are involved in private higher
education but with much less state planning, regulation, ﬁrnding, and enforcement than
under cental planning. These states would rather set market forces to work, for example,

by giving portable ﬁnancial aid to students, such that they can choose their university

39

themselves. This third type corresponded with the Locke-type social contact, which is a
mix of government support and market forces in higher education.

In his analysis, Zumeta (1996) added two more types that were hybrids of these
three. His hybrid classiﬁcations (a mix of cental planning and market-competitive and a
mix of market-competitive and laissez-faire) fell between the three main types on a
spectum between the two polar opposites of government contol and market contol.
Hence, Zumeta’s typology paralleled in its main stucture the same spectum described
by Neave (2006) and Kezar (2004).

Macro Level (Federal and Supranational) Social Contracts

Because Zumeta’s (1996) analysis was of ﬁfty federated states in the United
States, it also suggested that three essential forms of social contact may exist in the
setting of a federation of social contracts involving nations rather than states. European
scholars have sought Zumeta’s expertise on the California system of higher education
because its scope was appropriate for the study of European national higher education
systems with budgets about the size of that of California (W. Zumeta, personal
communication, July, 2006). Zumeta’s federally based comparative analysis of US.
state-level social contacts also suggested that a comparative study of national social
contacts in the European quasi-federation might beneﬁt from analysis according to the
same three types.

It was the purpose of the current study to examine the Bologna Process as a
federation of European social contracts, in other words, a supranational social contact
guiding national policies. The global spread of neoliberal econorrric development policies

from the United States (Kezar, 2004) through international organizations (Santos, 2006)

40

raised the question of whether or not similar inﬂuences affected higher education policy
even in welfare states. The current study examined how the supranational social contact
of the Bologna Process affected the national social contacts of three Nordic welfare
states, speciﬁcally in the functional areas of academic research and student support
policy.

Although the current study began by terrning the Bologna Process a supranational
process, the literature on policy implementation indicated that it should not be assumed
that the Bologna Process is supranational, or top-down, in nature. Premfors (1984) laid
out the main issues involved in the analysis of policy processes from the distinction of
top-down vs. bottom-up. There has been a lively debate among scholars concerning the
best way to describe policy implementation processes, as well as the best methodology
for such research. For the purposes of the current study, a bottom-up policy process, as
relevant to the Bologna Process, was deﬁned as one rooted in the interests and agendas of
the nation states themselves, rather than rooted in the policy initiatives of ofﬁcials of any
body of European cooperation, such as the European Union or the European
Commission.

Kogan (2005) described the ongoing and intensifying scholarly debate on top-
down versus bottom-up policy dynamics. Recent scholarship critiqued the taditional
assumption that policy ﬂowed from centalized bureaucracies down to institutions. In
Kogan’s (2005) view, policy implementation in higher education is best understood as
conducted in a network rather than in strictly bilateral negotiations, and as interactive

rather than causal processes. He further states:

41

Thirty years of implementation research has amply demonstrated the lack of
realism in assuming that policies and reform initiatives move from government to
objects of implementation unaffected by the road they travel. Understanding
implementation in higher education is taking notice of how policies and reforms
often are-formal political conﬁrmation of developments in the ﬁeld, and not some

kind of alien phenomenon that is thrust upon “unsuspecting” institutions (p. 53).

These reﬁned conceptualizations of policy implementation were relevant to the
interpretation of the results of the current study, described in chapter 4, as not a strictly
causal, bottom-down process.

Another consideration in the top-down, bottom-up debate is the positive and
negative connotations inherent in terms like globalization (typically negative) and
internationalization (typically positive). In his critique of terms with negative
_ connotations that may not be accurate in policy analysis, such as globalization,
Marginson (2007) deﬁned the supposedly more positive term internationalization as not
Simply a positive descriptor for the range of national responses by HEIS to protect the
rights of their democracies against the eroding inﬂuences of (often neoliberal) forces of
globalization. According to Marginson (2007), such biased deﬁnitions portrayed higher
education as taking ownership of the assumedly positive inﬂuences of
intCmationalization on national higher education systems. Marginson (2007) argued the
need for less-biased deﬁnitions of both globalization and internationalization, as
deﬁnitions that would simply reﬂect their geo-spatial location beyond national borders. I

The distinction between bottom-up and top-down processes can be applied to the

Bologna Process in the context of European cooperation. The current study began by

42

positing that both are top-down supranational processes. De Wit (2007) described how he
thought the Bologna Process and European cooperation interact. According to De Wit
(2007), European cooperation in the EU is for its member nations a constant balancing
act between national autonomy and cooperation on a supranational level. He viewed the
balance in the EU as tipping increasingly toward supranational cooperation, motivated by
the need to address shared challenges, but not so in higher education, according to De
Wit (2007).

In higher education policy, the balance in the EU has been divided clearly: the EU
as regulator, fostering fair competition; national ministries of education as actors with
autonomous strategies, according to De Wit (2007). He asserted that EU member states.
retain responsibility for the core of education policy, despite EU advances into marginal
areas. He points to evidence such as the founding of the Bologna Process outside EU
mechanisms. Its early texts avoided any reference to the EU. The EU role in the Bologna
Process has been to encourage but not mandate coordination, mainly because the EU
Treaty speciﬁcally excludes the harmonization of national policies. Rather, the EU
supports and complements the actions taken by member states in the Bologna Process,
with member states keeping full responsibility for the content and organization of their
education systems (De Wit, 2007). The current study will test De Wit’s assertion that the
Bologna Process is a bottom-up process led at the nation-state level.

However, De Wit (2007) also portrayed how EU involvement in the Bologna
Process has grown with time. His evidence for this trend includes that, since 1999, the

European Commission has had a representative in the Bologna Process FollOw-Up

43

Group; the European Union ﬁnanced the biannual ministerial meetings; and the European
Union provided the coordination platforms used by Bologna participants.

Meek and Goedegebuure (2007) also pointed out the growing supranational
inﬂuence of the EU in higher education in recent years despite the principle of
subsidiarity (or the prime responsibility of member states in higher education) as a force
exerting external pressure on the Bologna Process to standardize or homogenize
European higher education. They looked to Neave’s (2002) close historical analysis to
. conclude, “What appearsat a superﬁcial level to be the same or similar national response
to external pressures, quickly becomes more varied and complex with closer scrutiny.
The Bologna Process is a case in point. The Bologna Process, rather than forcing national
higher [sic] systems to conform to a common supranational initiative, provided them with
a lever to do what they intended to do all along” (Meek & Goedegebuure, 2007, p. 284).
Neave (2002) concluded that the Bologna Process “is built upon—and brings together——
trends already present in different systems and presents them as part of the Bologna
Process. It does not create them” (p. 186). More recently, Neave and Amara] (2008) drew
the following conclusion from their analysis of Bologna Process documents, plus country
case studies for set of countries (France, Germany, and Italy) different from the current
study:

Individual signatory states could claim the moral leverage required to use

Bologna as an additional blessing for policies many had in hand before Bologna.

These were powerful claims and especially so in such sensitive areas as

competitiveness and employability, which represented a fundamental departure

ﬁom earlier notions that turned around employment, and which stood as an

44

explicit neoliberal reinterpretation of higher education’s purpose. Such ﬁndings

were an integral part of a manufactured consensus without which the Bologna

strategy risked progressing less briskly. (p. 51)

These results will be compared to the results of the current study in chapter 4.

The current study Egan by considering the Bologna Process as an example of a
supranational process. Deﬁnitions in the literature tend to assume that a supranational
process is by nature a top-down process. For example, Knight (1997) deﬁned
international processes in higher education as those that protect existing national
identities against the forces of globalization. Hence, according to Knight, an international
process would be a bottom-up process. Alternatively, the Bologna Process could also be
termed a multination or multilateral process. Neave and Amara] (2008) recently
described the Bologna Process as “the ﬁrst example of a multination agreement,
unprecedented in the number of nations subscribing to its principles and unprecedented in
its bid to re-engineer the continent’s systems of higher education around a common
proﬁle.” From their usage in international relations, the terms multination or multilateral
refer simply to participation by more than one nation in a process. The preﬁx multi does
not of itself indicate a bottom-up nature. In contrast, supra, meaning “over” in Latin,
implies a central body with authority} over national processes. In international law
(N ickless & Siedl, 2004), “a supranational instrument. . .is not only binding on the
member states, but it is supreme over any national legislation dealing with the same
matters” (p. 20). “There is only one supranational body within Europe and that is the

Eur0pean Union,” according to Nickless and Seidl (p. 20). It is the purpose of the current

45

study to test empirically whether the nature of the Bologna Process is supranational (top-
down) or national (bottom-up).
Social Contract Regarding Academic Research

As mentioned above, for purposes of the current study, the formal deﬁnition of
social contract was the expected roles of stakeholders in higher education, and social
contract was the context in which purposes of higher education were determined. The
issue of the purposes of higher education arose often in higher education policy
discussions in Europe, at both national and supranational levels. Models to describe the
prioritization of purposes of higher education ranged ﬁ'om the entrepreneurial university
(Jacob & Hellstrom, 2000; Jongbloed, 2007), with its research closely tied to business
applications; to the Humboltian model (Kerr, 2001), with its joint priorities of teaching
and research, which spread through Europe from Germany; to the multiversity, with its
multiplicity of purposes for the university (Kerr, 2001 ).

Discussions of purposes of higher education in the higher education policy
literature typically compared different models of the university in the setting of historical
and recent trends in technology and demographics (Duderstadt, 2000; Kerr, 2001; Thelin,
2004). Literature on the changing structure of knowledge and knowledge production was
particularly relevant to this study of the purposes of the research ﬁrnction of higher
education (Gibbons et al., 1994). Pertinent also were discussions of the rise of industry
logic in higher education institutions, which Gumport (2002) viewed as movement away
from institutional logic, which seeks to meet a multiplicity of societal expectations. The
rising industry logic, in contrast, primarily seeks to promote economic development as

the main purpose of higher education. As such, industry logic has had a particularly high

46

impact on academic research policy, primarily because research is one ﬁmction of higher
education that earns revenues.

A social contract based on Gumport’s (2002) industry logic is on the rise in
Europe. Such a market-oriented social contract was the basis for declarations that the
purpose of government control of higher education is to produce knowledge as a strategic
resource for economic development. Jacob and Hellstrom (2000), members of a
European entrepreneurial university, viewed academic research as an instrument for
economic development. For them, the role of the university was chieﬂy a choice between
three modes of economic development: a hub for regional development, an incubator
laboratory for business applications, or a connection point in a larger knowledge-
production network.

Economic trends were the situational context for the rise of industry logic in
academic research. Due to tightening govMent budgets, higher education institutions
in Europe experienced pressures toward higher accountability, which, in the European
context, led to the rise of the evaluative state (Jongbloed, 2007). These trends in political
economy went beyond Europe to the United States, suggesting that social contract in
academic research may be globally dynamic.

Tadmor applied social contract to academic research policy. Tadmor (2006)
believed the social contract regarding academic research has shifted, driven by forces
different ﬁom the government ﬁscal tightening that drives tuition increases. He saw WW
II as the turning point, when higher education institutions accepted huge increases in
government funding of their research in support of the war effort. Tadmor traced this

trend through the Cold War era into the current day. He viewed the key paradigm shift as

47

the placement of research not just in polar opposition to teaching, but also giving research
and its funding the highest place, trumping even loyalty to the institution. This trend is
seen today in the promotion of academic entrepreneurship and academic technology
transfer (Tadmor, 2006), both of which are strategies for economic development,
representing a Smith-type social contract.

Another salient example of how Neave’s (2006) third type of social contract--the
market-oriented, Adam Smith version-~can be seen in modern thought is the extensive
neoclassical work that has been accomplished in the economics of education. The
concept of the market mechanism as superior to government control has had wide
inﬂuence in the area of higher education ﬁnance, both at the macro and micro levels
(Easton & Klees, 1992). The market-oriented version of social contract is recognized
today as dominant in policies concerning academic research in Europe (Jacob &
Hellstrom, 2000). V

In a few places, the literature indicated that national and global social contracts
may inﬂuence shifts in funding to the research function of higher education. One
empirical study in the US. context made a direct connection between the two. Slaughter
and Rhoades (1996) described “the emerging bipartisan political coalition supporting
commercial competitiveness as a rationale for research and development (R&D)” (p.
303). Justiﬁed by the need for the US. economy to compete globally, new political
alliances formed between the defense and health industries and government in the 1980s.
These alliances succeeded in changing laws and ﬁmding structures for R&D, with
consequences for the funding of academic research. Slaughter and Rhoades (1996)

performed a longitudinal study of the inﬂuences of shifting business strategies and

48

corporate structm’es on the support of business elites in the defense and health industries
for “competitiveness R&D policies” (p. 303). Their study analyzed U.S. R&D legislation
from the 19803 and 19905 that was passed with the purpose of enhancing U.S.
commercial competitiveness. They studied the effects of this competitiveness legislation
on academic research by analyzing changes from 1983 to 1993. Their results were
positive: Academic research agendas in the US. shifted toward enhancing commercial
competitiveness.

Zumeta’s (1996) typology included his estimation of the relative levels of
government frmding to private higher education essential to each type. Hence, his study
did not test the correlations between types of social contract and consequentlevels of
funding from public versus private sources. Instead, he deﬁned each type according to the
level of state-government funding going towards private higher education. His study
indicated that there is such a strong relationship between the degree of market orientation
and funding patterns that it might be assumed in developing a typology.

Social Contract, Public Good, and Funding to Research and Student Support
The literature on globalization in higher education indicated, through historical
analysis, connections between social contract and funding levels to higher education in
general. This included literature on academic capitalism (Rhoades & Slaughter, 2006),
which argued that the global trend of pressure on institutions of higher education to
generate revenue by patenting their research products and partnering with entities in the
private sector was increasing. Academic capitalism has also had an impact on the public
good of higher education, according to Torres and Rhoads who stated, “With the rise of

academic capitalism in US. higher education, we witness a reduced commitment to,

49

support of, and emphasis on the “publicness” of higher education” (2006, p. 30). Santos
(2006) also argued that the erosion of the public good of higher education resulted
directly in reduced funding to public universities. This erosion would by deﬁnition be
expected to go hand in hand with a shift away from a Hobbes-type social contract, which
views higher education as a public rather than a private good.

Santos (2006) extended his argument by pointing to the rise of neoliberal
globalization, imposed via the international ﬁnancial institutions in the 19808. Kezar
(2004) viewed the rise of neoliberalism as a global shift in the social charter. (For the
purposes of this study, because Kezar’s social charter was a near-equivalent to social
contract, her discussions of social charter were considered as applicable to social
contract.) The global dominance of neoliberalism meant for public universities the
erosion of their role as a public good on a global scale (Santos, 2006). For these reasons,
the literature on national as well as global social contract suggested that there may be 0
important ties between social contract at the national level, as well as beyond the national
level, and the allocation of funding to higher education. '

Slaughter (1998) made a direct connection between shifting social contract and
ﬁmding of academic research. She stated,

I argue that higher education student aid policy and academic science and

technology policy have undergone a sea change. During the past twenty years,

higher education policy has shifted from being a policy arena in its own right as
described by Wolanin and Gladieux (1975) and has come closer to Guy Neave’s

(1988) analysis of higher education in the European Community, where higher

education “is less a part of social policy . . . [and] is increasingly viewed as a

50

subsector of economic policy” (p. 274). In other words, the economic ﬁmctions of

higher education have moved to the foreground, the educational functions to the

background. . . .Academic science and technology (Research and Development)
policy. . .changed dramatically. In the 19808, [US] federal legislation moved

R&D policy much closer to the market through legislation that deﬁned research as

a valuable, private product rather than a free public good. (p. 209)

The trend of government disinvestment in higher education had different
implications in Europe compared to the United States. Because European systems of
higher education were almost all public systems, they had the power through ministerial
budgets to mitigate disinvestrnent and develop new income streams from academic
entrepreneurial activity (Santos, 2006). In the United States, where the system was a mix
of private, often elite, universities and public universities, the public universities went
after alternative ﬁrnding sources, such as from philanthropy, market activities, and tuition
increases (Santos, 2006). These general connections ”between social contract, the public
good, and funding patterns suggested that funding to the academic research function and
to student support may be inﬂuenced as well by shifting social contracts, but perhaps in
opposing directions for the two functions.

Geiger’s (1985a) analysis of the US. higher education system noted its chief
characteristics of pluralism and diversity. After analyzing the top 21 research universities
in the US, he found a high degree of diversity in their institutional characteristics. The
21 best research universities included public as well as private institutions and large
institutions with multiple missions as well as small institutions specializing in research.

Some institutions were highly centralized, and others were very decentralized. This

51

analysis led Geiger to conclude that there were advantages and disadvantages to
centralization and decentralization, to the Humboltian model and the specialized research
institute, to funding just a few proven scientists and a wide range of new investigators.
He concluded that it was the very diversity of the American system that allowed the
system as a whole to avoid making trade-offs. As a result, the system gained the beneﬁts
of all alternatives (Geiger, 1985a). European higher education systems, especially those
of welfare states, will ﬁnd it extremely difﬁcult to apply any lessons learned in the
diverse U.S. system to their monolithic state systems.

One such “lesson” was managerialism, which never worked well in the US.
setting (Bimbaum, 2001) but nevertheless came like a wave into Europe during the
1980s. If Gumport (2002) is correct, industry logic cannot transfer directly to social
institutions because they have their own institutional logic. Neave and van Vught (1991)
reported that they found it abundantly evident from country case studies in the UK,
Belgium, Germany, Finland, and Norway that the new managerialism brought the values
of the world of business as well as its techniques into the academic world. They
questioned whether business values and techniques should or could be adapted in useful
. ways to higher education.

Neave and Van Vught (1991) also pointed to the rise of conditional contracts (or
contractualism per Neave’s deﬁnition (2006) in higher education ﬁnance as one of the
most signiﬁcant recent developments in Western European higher education. Such
contracts allow central administrations, whether governmental or private sector, to
increase incentives to make higher education more responsive to market forces. The

authors’ concern here was that contractualism was a powerful tool to push higher

52

education away from serving society and towards becoming a public enterprise.
' Contractualism also constituted a shift away from trying to control the processes of
higher education (such as teaching and research) to trying to control its outcomes or
products (such as enrollment or graduation levels). In other words, institutions were being
given more autonomy in many higher education systems but on the condition that
contractualism provided more control over the end products of higher education.
Contractualism gave governments “a particularly strong leverage to assert societal needs
over those arising primarily out of internal evolution of the disciplines or out of the
individual needs for personal development or of unrestricted enquiry, all of which are
determined internally within the institution by those who create and those [who] consume
knowledge” (Neave & Van Vught, 1991, p. 253). They also were worried that “product
control was, at best, only a surrogate for quality, a nominal end-point and a representative
approximation of process which is quality in being, a quintessential activity whose A
complexity may be grasped and appreciated intuitively and personally but which is only
with great risk of distortionrepresented through evaluation of product” (p. 253). Their
chief concern was that higher education will respond to the strong incentives of
contractualism by producing graduates, patents, and articles--in essence by becoming a
knowledge factory no longer able to challenge the often short-term and opportunistic '
values and objectives of government with the long-term values of higher education.

A Nordic example of contactualization occurred when Norway introduced result-
oriented planning in 1990, with the purpose of such planning and reporting being to keep
HEIS accountable for quality, cost limitation, and educating enough personnel for

national and regional workforce needs. As the accountability system was introduced, it

'53

met with resistance, especially at the University of Oslo. Concerns included an increased
administrative workload for faculty, reduction of academic freedom, and increasing
competition for ﬁmding, deepening rifts between administrators and academic units
(Aamodt et al., 1991).

Before continuing this discussion of economic and organizational aspects of
social contract regarding higher education ﬁnance, it is necessary to deﬁne key ﬁnance
terms. The economics of education brings to this discussion a clear delineation of the
basic costs and beneﬁts of higher education. F airweather and Hodges (2006) outlined the
current analysis of the costs and beneﬁts of higher education according to an economics
of education frame. Costs and beneﬁts are usually classed by economists as public or
private. Private beneﬁts accrue to individuals such as students. Public beneﬁts, such as
higher employment and consumption and the resulting higher tax revenues, accrue to
national and local economies and governments. Regarding the private beneﬁts,
Fairweather and Hodges (2006) reported,

College graduates earn more money, and the difference in income between those

with post-secondary education and those without it has continued to widen

because the earning power of those without it has shrrmk consistently over the
past 30 years. Once a desirable advantage in employment, post-secondary

education has increasingly become a prerequisite to stable employment and a

middle-class income. (p. 3)

Private costs are paid by students and their families. Public costs are paid by
governments. Government subsidy of higher education has typically been justiﬁed by the

public beneﬁts relating to citizenship: reduced crime rates, increased public service,

54

higher voter participation, and social cohesion/appreciation of diversity (Fairweather &
Hodges, 2006). These deﬁnitions applied in the current study.
Student Financial Support Policy

Slaughter (1998) made a direct connection between social contract and student
support policy: “These changes began in the early 19703 when the United States adopted
a student-as-consumer or market model for postsecondary student aid ﬁnancing, in effect
giving students vouchers through Pell grants” (p. 209). Slaughter’s (1998) analysis
indicated that these fundamental changes in society’s views on higher education, turning
education into a private product that was part of economic policy (which amounted to a
shift of social contract), affected student support policy over time. The essence of the ‘
policy change was toward a high-tuition, high-aid policy. The purposes of this shift were
to help the private sector of American higher education compete with publicly supported
institutions and to lower costs to the taxpayers by increasing user fees for those who
could afford higher education. But because ﬁnancial aid in the 1980s fell below rising
tuition, high-tuition high-aid policies were gradually replaced by policies that increased
student loans. These low-interest loans mostly helped parents and students with the
ability to repay their loans. Hence, the shifts in US. higher education tuition policy were
ultimately regressive (Slaughter, 1998).

The American experience cannot be transferred readily to other systems, due to
wide differences in the public-private mix of institutions. Slaughter (1998) drew some
conclusions about US. tuition policies that are important to understanding the social

impacts of higher education policy in other countries, however:

55

Because the rich generally paid to send their offspring to expensive, private
institutions (Kingston & Lewis, 1990), the groups that paid most heavily for the
changes in policy were the middle class and the working poor. The middle class
was pushed toward borrowing, and the working poor turned toward community
colleges which were low cost but did not provide grants. Community colleges
absorbed the majority of “ﬁrst generation” students and “students of color”--
euphemisms for working class and minority college students (Cooperative
Institutional, 1994; Grubb & Tuma, 1991). Like many market behaviors
introduced to reform the public sector, the high-tuition, high-aid policy probably
proportionately beneﬁted the private, or in this case, the independent sector more
than the public, and continued to rely heavily on public ﬁrnds to maintain private
markets. (p. 214)

Her discussion raised the question: If a social contract is regressive and unjust to

lower classes in a society, can it be sustainable? This question was a central backdrop to

any discussion of student support policy and social contract. The inference here was that,

if social contract is dynamic and responsive to the weight of opinion in a society, then

social contract can change, driven by mass protest against the injustice of incumbent

policies, like high-tuition, high-aid.

Dynamism as Addressed by Conﬂict Theory

The responsiveness of social contract to public opinion ﬂows from the essential

nature of social contract. As mentioned in the introduction, social contract is in essence a

social construct. Social contract theory, as conceptualized here, accounts for change in

societies. In doing so, this study ”works in more than the single, currently dominant area

56

of sociology. Burrell and Morgan (1979) performed a sweeping meta-analysis of the
scope of sociological research. Their central claim in 1979, which is more salient today,
was that modern sociology has neglected three potentially rich paradigms in favor of
focusing most sociological work in a single paradigm. The authors divided the ﬁeld of
sociology into four quadrants based on two dimensions: subjective versus objective, and
regulation of a stable order versus conﬂict in the context of radical change. The resulting
four quadrants delineated four paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist,
and radical structuralist. The dominant paradigm was, and is today, functionalism. The
main functionalist schools of thought included objectivism, social system theory,
integrative theory, and social action theory. What we have missed, and are missing by
neglecting other paradigms includes: phenomenology and hermeneutics (interpretive
sociology); existentialism, anarchic individualism, and critical theory (radical
humanism); conﬂict theory and Marxist theories (radical structuralism).

Conﬂict was a core concern of radical Weberian thought, according to Burrell and
Morgan (1979). This school of thought was not concerned so much with organizations
but with the superstructure of societies. The macro level analysis of a radical Weberian .
approach, as well as its facility for analyzing conﬂict, interests, and power as central
concepts, make it attractive for an analysis of social contract.

The analysis byiBurrell and Morgan (1979) also helps to explain key differences
between American and European perspectives on social contract. According to Neave
(2007), European thought allows for conﬂict theory: The European assumption is that

untenable social conditions will lead to conﬂict in the form of strikes. American theorists

57

tend to think of revolution in terms of consumer protest or taxpayer revolution (G. Neave,
personal communication, June 30, 2007).

Because this study is of three European country cases, it is appropriate to employ
conﬂict theory in sociological analysis. A recent book took a conﬂict theory approach to
how the globalization of neoliberal economics has affected higher education globally.
Editors Rhoads and Torres (2006) invited scholars of sociology and higher education
from North and Latin America to discuss higher education in the context of globalization.
In their introductory chapter, Torres and Rhoads stated (2006):

Colleges and universities throughout the world have been sites of student

resistance to a variety of forms of globalization. As privatization spreads to the

realm of higher education funding, increasingly colleges and universities are
either implementing fees or raising tuition, the results of which have been large-
scale student protests. Over the past few years we witnessed a year-long fee-
related strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Rhoads and

Mina, 2001), nationwide protests by Canadian students over tuition hikes

(Birchard, 2002), university occupations by German students in protest of the

privatization of education, and massive protests by students in Great Britain after

higher education officials broke with tradition and implemented annual fees for

ﬁrst-year full-time students (Rhoads, 2003). (p. 15) i
’ Torres and Rhoads (2006) also pointed to recent trends in the unionization of graduate
students. They viewed graduate student unionization as a response to the increasing
marketization of the academic enterprise. They said that graduate student organizers seek

higher remuneration, which can be justiﬁed due to their productivity in delivering

58

education to undergraduates. Graduate student organizers reject the idea that the college
is a collegial community that can be trusted to protect their interests. Graduate student
organizers realize that market-oriented philosophy and practice now dominates U.S.
research universities. “In the eyes of graduate student organizers, academe is less a
‘collegial community’ and more a ‘corporation’” (Torres & Rhoads, 2006, p. 35).
Graduate students, if they are only workers in a corporate enterprise, need to
unionize to balance their power against corporate power. In the same book, Rhoads and
Rhoades (2006) wrote a chapter on graduate student unionization, where they traced the
growth of graduate student unions as follows:
Based simply on size and expansion alone, graduate student unionizing in the
United States warrants consideration as a signiﬁcant social movement (Barba
1994a, 1994b; Rhoades & Rhoads, 2003). For example, the number of unionized
graduate student employees has increased by 175 percent since 1990, and close to
40,000 graduate student employees are now unionized (Smallwood, 2001). Also,
at the beginning of the 1990s only a handful of graduate student unions existed;
by the close of the decade more than 20 graduate student unions had formed, and
a similar number of groups were mobilizing (Julius & Gumport, 2003; Rhoades &
Rhoads, 2003; Smallwood, 2001). (p. 275)
If the trend of increasing graduate student tmionization is one consequence of a mounting
infusion of market-based philosophy in higher education, as the social contract moves in
a Smith-type direction, other consequences become clear.
One key consequence is access to higher education. In their concluding chapter,

Rhoads and Torres (2006) stated that the global rise of neoliberalism has impacted higher

59

education, causing the rise of academic capitalism, with negative consequences for
access: “The issue of access to higher education is less widely embraced and often is
contested terrain between those advancing a free market position and others stressing a
more democratic or social justice perspective” (p. 337).

Tuition policies in the United States were inﬂuenced also by social trends.
Longstanding general agreement on the public purposes of higher education has eroded
over the past two decades (Duderstadt, 2000; Kerr, 2001). Attributes previously
considered positive due to their salutary effects on higher education quality, such as
elitism and the prioritization of research over teaching, have come under increasing
criticism by the general public. The rising consumerist movement among students and
parents has also eroded the value of elitism and redeﬁned quality to emphasize efficiency
or bang for the buck (Altbach, 2001). Such changes in public opinion have been claimed
to amount to a change in the social contract (Duderstadt, 2000; Gumport, 2001). For
these reasons, social contract is an important concept for understanding the relationship
between public opinion and how student tuition is ﬁnanced.

The demand for greater bang for the buck in higher education was most closely
expressed in the accountability movement. Institutions of higher education, particularly
public institutions dependent upon state funding, were increasingly held accountable by
legislatures and the general public for efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars
(Johnstone, 1989; J ohnstone, et al., 2006). Higher education institutions in Europe
experienced similar pressures toward higher accountability, which, in the European

context, led to the rise of the evaluative state (Jongbloed, 2007). These trends in political

60

economy in the United States and Europe suggest that social contract regarding student
support may in fact be dynamic.
Kogan (2005) described the forces, such as the accountability or quality assurance
(QA) movement, that trigger change in higher education:
First, they are rarely parliamentary action but political opportunism. More than
most systems, higher education if left to itself seeks and probably needs stability
and continuity rather than change and reform. Its primary aim will be to sustain
academic values through the pursuit of knowledge and this requires exception
from the pursuit of reformist ambitions. Pursuing and disseminating knowledge
are not easily performed under the glare of public policy activities. What are
called reforms in higher education have derived more from public and social
policy than from academic development. The second kind of reform is that
developing from changes in the knowledge landscape and affecting curricula and
research agendas. Their impact will differ between that on existing elite
institutions and new and more demotic institutions. Some changes are both social
and academic; quality assurance is the obvious example, with its connotations of
accountability but with its deep implications for academic work. I suggest that in
such mixed cases it will be the politicians who insist on change, though
institutional leaders soon recruited themselves to the QA banner but for
managerial rather than academic reasons. (pp. 63—64)
Kogan did not paint an idyllic picture. Expectations by stakeholders of higher
education, or social contract, may be shifting swiftly and dramatically. Legislators

responsible for funding higher education have hair-trigger responses to changes in public

61

opinion, which themselves reﬂect at least partially the social contract. These same
legislators have short horizons for‘their policy impact, because they cannot both keep
their jobs and respond with long-term solutions.

These changes in public opinion and student support policies are inﬂuenced by
national economic trends. In the U.S., the two decades from 1975—1995 experienced
accelerated cost increases in higher education, in large part due to burgeoning
administrative costs (Leslie & Rhoades, 1995). In addition, cyclical recessions over the
recent three decades depressed state tax revenues, which led to cuts in public funding of
higher education (Hovey, 2001). Tightened state ﬁnances have heightened the political
pressure for efﬁcient use of public ﬁmds (Hovey, 2001).

An important voice in public opinion in Europe is the voice of the student, not via
consumeriSm as in the US. but via political pressure. Student unions are politically
powerful in Europe. The European Student Union, which represents national student
unions across Europe, presented its demands relating to the Bologna Process. They
demanded participation in the Bologna Process by student representatives at every stage,
access to higher education not based on ﬁnancial means, concrete national plans for
student diversity, and free education for all, including no additional fees (www.csib.org).
The policy position of European student unions is clearly a Hobbes-type social contract,
relying as it does on full government funding of student support.

Two Models of Student Support Social Contract

Johnstone’s (1989) seminal study of student support policy in several countries,

including Sweden (cited above in this chapter) stated that social forces are more

important than economic forces in student support ﬁnance policy. He thought that student

62

support policies are rooted in social beliefs, in particular, in a society’s view of the
student. He based his analysis on a comparison of the role of the student in different
national cultures. In some countries, such as the United States, the college years are
considered more of “an extension of childhood than as a beginning of adulthood” (1989,
p. 158). In contrast, most Scandinavian cultures consider college students to be full
adults. This cultural difference makes a big difference in higher education ﬁnance. In
America, the costs of higher education are apportioned on the basis of “the primacy of the
parental contribution,” according to Johnstone (1989, p. 158). In scandinavia, the burden
of ﬁnancing college is taken up by the state.

Recent European Union data reports conﬁrm Johnstone’s two models for view of
the student. European Union countries choose from two models regarding student support
ﬁnance: either the student as independent of, or the student as dependent on, family
ﬁnances. A recent European Commission report (European Commission, 2007) on
students contrasts the two models:

A ﬁrst model is based on the principle of student ﬁnancial independence, which is

sometimes granted to young people from the age of 18 onwards. Support here is

targeted exclusively at students, and their parents thus receive neither family
allowances nor tax relief. The situation of countries in this group may differ
depending on whether or not they have adopted the principle of education ﬁ'ee of
charge. In the Nordic countries (except Iceland), Ireland, Hungary, Malta and the

United Kingdom (Scotland), students with state-subsidised places do not

contribute ﬁnancially to administrative or tuition costs. Admission to tertiary

education is thus ﬂee or almost ﬂee (where students pay solely contributions to

63

student organisations). In a second model, support is awarded to the parents of

students, as long as the latter remain ﬁnancially dependent on them (generally up

to the age of 23 or 26 according to the country concerned). In this group also, one
may distinguish between countries in which tertiary education is free and those in

which contributions have to be paid. (p. 99)

For the current study, these two models for student support policy were considered in the
analysis of the impact of social contract on student support policy in three Nordic
countries. In all three societies studied, students are considered independent of their
parents and needing full tuition support ﬂom the government. The sociological roots of
ﬁnance policy are clearly argued in these two models.

Warrant for the Current Study Based on the Literature Review

Review of the literature pertaining to social contract and higher education ﬁnance
policy led to the following conclusions for the purposes of the current study.

Social contract needs to be deﬁned clearly. Neave’s (2006) deﬁnition is most
appropriate for study in a European context. The phenomenon of social contract may
exist at national and supranational levels, but it is not proven empirically. Social contracts
in academic research policy and student support policy may exist at national and
supranational levels, but this is not proven empirically. Social contract may be a dynamic
phenomenon, but this is not proven empirically at macro levels.

The current study rests on the same warrants as Kezar’s (2004) meta-analysis of
empirical research in social charter. The current study also responds to Kezar’s (2004)
call for systemic, empirical work'by addressing social contract at the macro levels of

national and supranational social contracts.

In summary, there is need for a macro level, conceptual, empirical study of the
shifting dynamics of social contract in the European context that includes national and

supranational levels of analysis.

’65

Chapter Three
Research Design

This study examined national social contract and funding responses to
supranational policies. The two research questions in this internationally comparative
analysis were: I

Is there a relationship between a supranational social contract regarding academic
research and the allocation of funds to research projects at national levels?

Is there a relationship between a supranational social contract regarding student
support and the allocation of ftmds to student support at national levels?

Disciplinary Orientation

Because the concept of social contract was born in political economy, study of the
concept of social contract required contributions from political economy and its daughter
disciplines, political science and economics. The current study explored the concept of
social contract speciﬁcally as it applies in the context of higher education policy. As
such, it drew theory and methodologies from the ﬁelds of higher education policy and the
history of higher education. As a study focused on ﬁnance policies in higher education, it
also drew theory and methodologies ﬂom higher education ﬁnance and the economics of
education.

This study compared the social contracts of three countries, hence its analysis
depended on theory and methodologies of comparative higher education. One
comparative method often applied in higher education studies is thematic comparison,
whereby countries are compared using common questions to analyze country data, after

which the body of evidence is presented systematically (Kogan, 1996). Kogan preferred

66

thematic comparisons to formal hypothesis testing in policy analysis, due to the complex
multiplicity of factors that inﬂuence policy. He did, however, consider one current
hypothesis to be testable by employing thematic comparison: Clark’s triangle (1983).
Clark’s (1983) approach laid out three theorized that policy was driven by three forces:
professional—collegial, govemmental—managerial, and market forces. Kogan (1996)
viewed Clark’s hypothesis as a feasible way to compare countries by studying the degree
to which national higher education policy was driven by collegial, managerial, or market
forces. The current study analyzed three Nordic welfare states in terms of their response
to market forces.

Giving support to; a sociological approach in his seminal work on comparative
higher education ﬁnance, Johnstone (1989) pointed to the need for a sociological frame in
comparative work. He began such an analysis by taking a look at the cultural roots of
higher education ﬁnance in the ﬁve countries he studied. After discussing the impact of
the competing ideologies of political parties on higher education ﬁnance policy,
Johnstone considered the sociological perspective. “Policies and instruments for
apportioning the costs of higher education are ﬁrnctions of traditions and beliefs with
roots far deeper and more complex than either party ideology or economic sophistication”
(1986, p. 158). Johnstone also pointed to the beneﬁts of a comparative analysis (1989).

The current study utilized a speciﬁc methodology termed Qualitative
Comparative Analysis (QCA) (Berg-Schlosser, et al., 2009). QCA was ﬁrst developed in
the late 19803 for use in comparative politics and sociological studies of welfare states.
Its basic logic, “the Method of Difference” originated by Hume and developed by J. S.

Mill, set forth that, if a number of cases were identical in most circumstances but one,

67

and only one case exhibited the phenomenon studied, then that single difference was
either an effect or an important part of the cause of the phenomenon. Key to this
methodology Was careful matching of the cases chosen in order to make any common
causal relationship clear by eliminating other possibilities. Critiques of this methodology
point to the problem that important discoveries can only be made if the most relevant
factors were included in the cases chosen. In the social sciences, it is impossible to
assemble a full model that both includes all relevant factors and controls for all other
factors. But QCA does help to eliminate irrelevant factors. Berg-Schlosser et al., also
argued that QCA “approximat[es] causal conditions in the ‘real’ world” (2009, p. 3). This
’ study included a section on the choice of country cases (below), in order to make clear
the structure of the QCA comparison.

The economics of education contributed the delineation of the basic costs and
beneﬁts of higher education, which were deﬁned by Fairweather and Hodges (2006) in
chapter 2 of the current study. According to Fairweather and Hodges (2006), private
beneﬁts accrue to individuals such as students and researchers, and to private companies
that patent or develop research. Public beneﬁts, such as higher employment and
consumption and the resulting higher tax revenues, accrue to national and local
economies and governments. Private costs are paid by private companies, students, and
their families. Public costs are paid by governments and taxpayers. Government subsidy
of higher education has typically been justiﬁed by the public beneﬁts relating to
citizenship: reduced crime rates, increased public service, higher voter participation, and

social cohesion/appreciation of diversity (F airweather & Hodges, 2006), as well as

68

economic development. A wide range of public and private stakeholders beneﬁt ﬂom
higher education.

Stakeholders identiﬁed for this study were limited as follows: For the study of the
academic research dynamic, key actors related to its funding were government and
private-sector industry. The theory behind this choice was the Triple Helix thesis. As
Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000) explain, “The Triple Helix thesis states that the
university can play an enhanced role in innovation in increasingly knowledge-based
societies” (p. .109). Instead of focusing on the ﬁrm as the hub of innovation, the focus
instead was on “the network overlay of communications and expectations that reshape the
institutional arrangements among universities, industries, and governmental agencies”
(Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000, p. 109). The role of the university in economic
development was brought to our attention in the study of the institutional connections
among the university, industry, and government for the purpose of economic and social
development (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). For the student support dynamic, the
actors involved in ﬁmding were primarily government and students. This choice was
based on a study of the inﬂuence of stakeholders in higher education on legislation in the
late 19603 in Europe (Daalder & Shils, 1982).

Higher education ﬁnance policy derives from a mix of disciplines, including
primarily economics and political science. Previous work in this ﬁeld, especially that of
Johnstone (1989), has yielded useful constructs for analysis of ﬁnancial factors.
Vossensteyn’s (1999) construct took account of key characteristics of European higher

education.

69

For these reasons, this study approached the topic of social contract via the
disciplines of political economy, sociology, and economies, with signiﬁcant contributions
ﬂ'om the economics of education and higher education ﬁnance policy analysis. Theory
from these three disciplines was discussed in the review of literature (chapter 2). From
- the discipline of sociology, the methodology of content analysis was employed to analyze
country policy documents and research project abstracts.

From the discipline of the economics of education, the methodology of economic
trend analysis was employed. From these two methodologies emerged patterns and trends
that were analyzed using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, which emerged from
political science and sociology.

Qualitative Empirical Research Design

This study responds to the call for systemic, empirical work on the concept of
social contract. A macro level, conceptual, empirical study of the shifting dynamics of
social contract was conducted in the European context, including national and
supranational levels of analysis. I studied two speciﬁc dynamics of social contract:
academic research policy and student support policy.

Social contract is a little-researched phenomenon. Key factors of social contract
are only assumed and must be validated. For these reasons, qualitative research methods
were needed to explore social contract at the outset. Content analysis of each country
case study was conducted: to categorize social contract at the supranational level in the
' Bologna Process; and to categorize national social contracts for each country regarding

both academic research and student support policies.

70

According to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Berg-Schlosser, et al., 2009), the
choice of countries studied is an essential research design element. This study matched
three countries as all Hobbes-type, or govemment-oriented, social contract prior to the
beginning of the Bologna Process in 1999. The ﬁnancing factors (percent of academic
research frmded by government and percent of student support paid by government) are
necessarily quantitative factors, which are appropriate data for Qualitative Comparative
Analysis. Qualitative Comparative Analysis does not test hypotheses and does not claim
to prove causality, nor does policy implementation analysis (Gomitzka, et al., 2005).
Accordingly for this study, I do not argue that causality can be proven; rather, I argue that
correlation is indicated.

Conceptualization: Academic Research Dynamic

Because formal conceptualization of social contract was virtually nonexistent
aside ﬂom two similar typologies (Kezar, 2004; Neave, 2006), the current study of
necessity delved into conceptual work prior to its empirical work. A recent evaluation of
the state of scholarship in comparative and international studies in higher education
showed signiﬁcant global expansion of this type of scholarship (Weiler, 2008). Weiler
(2008) reported that the body of descriptive work is growing. New data sources are
improving and enriching comparative and international research. There is still a wide gap,
however, between theoretical work and policy-oriented work in higher education
research, although some bridges have begun construction. Truly comparative work
(where several countries are compared to each other according to the same theme or
dynamic), although it is still rare, is bringing important theoretical insights to policy

issues (W eiler, 2008) (such as, access, quality assessment, and governance). The current

71

study seeks to connect theory with policy analysis by analyzing its two central research
questions and by utilizing improved comparative data bases in a truly comparative
manner by studying three countries.

The relationships that were examined for the ﬁrst research question are diagramed
in Figure 1. The ﬁrst concept was the supranational social contract (in the Bologna
Process) regarding the role of government in the support of academic research. The
dynamic examined was the inﬂuence of supranational social contract on national ﬁnance
policy in each country regarding academic research, because funding allocations would
indicate how nation-states ﬁrlﬁll their research policy priorities. An intervening factor
was the dominant social contract at the national level for each of the three countries
studied, which was added to reﬂect that national governments may or may not alter their
views of the social contracts regarding academic research to accord with supranational
social contract.

Figure 1

Conceptualization of Dynamics of Social Contracts Regarding Academic Research
Funding

 

 

 

 

 

 

National
Supranational social National social ﬁlm?“
contract regarding - - contract regarding - - - - . policy .
government’s role in govemment’s role in regarding
academic research academic research academic

research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corresponding Factors and Indicators: Academic Research Dynamic
To study how social contract impacts academic research policy, it was ﬁrst

necessary to delineate the concepts to be studied, then to specify the factors that represent

72

the concepts, and ﬁnally to specify the actual indicators that will be studied. Concepts,
factors, and indicators for academic research are summarized in Table 1. The three
concepts studied, as diagramed in Figure 1, were the supranational social contract, the
national social contract, and national ﬁnance policy--all three of these in terms of
academic research. To represent the concept of a supranational social contract regarding
govemment’s role in academic research, the factor studied was supranational agreements
by national governments as to the expected social roles of national governments vis-a-vis
the other stakeholders in academic research. This factor was selected to embody Neave’s
deﬁnition of social contract as the expected roles of stakeholders (2006) and to apply that
deﬁnition to the academic research function of higher education. The chosen indicator for
supranational agreements was the Bologna Process in Europe, based. on general
descriptions of the Bologna Process by higher education scholarsas a supranational
initiative (De Wit, 2007; Meek & Goedegebuure, 2007).

The current study examined the major policy documents agreed to in the Bologna
Process. They were examined for indications of the agreed purposes of academic
research, because stated purposes of higher education often echo and hence help to reveal
the underlying social contract. They were also examined to determine the proportion of
public versus private stakeholder ﬁrnding of academic research, as well as the proportion
of public versus private recipients of academic research funding. The latter factors were
chosen to evaluate movement of social contract over time toward increasing support by

and of the private sector (a Smith-type direction for social contract).

73

Table 1

Concepts, Factors, and Indicators for the Academic Research Dynamic

 

 

 

Concepts Factors Indicators

Supranational Supranational agreements Bologna Process policy goals, as stated in
social contract by national governments as Bologna Process policy documents, for:
regarding to the expected social roles I. Purposes of academic research
govemment’s role of national governments 2. Public versus private stakeholder

in academic vis-a-vis other Stakeholders participation in funding or conducting
research in academic research academic research

National social Expected social roles of National policy goals, as stated in national

contract regarding national governments vis-a- policy documents, for:

govemment’s role vis other stakeholders in 1. Purposes of academic research
in academic academic research 2. Public versus private stakeholder
research participation in funding or conducting

academic research

 

National ﬁnance National allocation of funds 1. Percent of academic research ﬁmded by
policy regarding to research projects government versus private sector
academic research 2. For recent key research projects, the
proportion of public- versus private-
sector orientation of (a) project goals
and (b) ﬁmd recipients

 

The concept of national social contract regarding govemment’s role in academic
research was represented by the factor of the expected social roles of national
governments vis-a-vis other stakeholders in academic research. Again, this factor
embodies Neave’s (2006) deﬁnition of social contract and applies it in academic research
at the national level of social contract. The chosen indicator for this factor was national

policy goals, as stated in national policy documents for each country. These documents

74

were examined for indications of national purposes of academic research and of national
policy regarding the proportion of public versus private funding of academic research, as
well as public versus private receipt of academic research funding.

The third concept studied in the academic research social contract dynamic was
national ﬁnance policy regarding academic research, represented by the factor of national
allocation of funds to research projects for each country. Indicators of this factor included
the percent of research funded by the public versus the private sector and, additionally,
for recent key research projects, the proportion of public- versus private-sector
orientation of (a) project goals and (b) fund recipients. Examination of key documents
and projects led to these choices for indicators. Upon examination of the data, it was clear
that an accurate representation of social contract at the supranational and national levels
required speciﬁc measurements of multiple elements of funding. Such funding aspects
included the stated purposes of academic research (whether for ecOnomic or social
purposes), as well as who funds the research (public or private sources), and also who
receives the research (public or private entities).

Conceptualization: Student Support Dynamic

The relationships that were examined for the second research question are
diagramed in Figure 2. The ﬁrst concept was the supranational social contract regarding
the role of government in the support of student net costs. The dynamic examined was the.
inﬂuence of supranational social contract (in the Bologna Process) on national ﬁnance
policy in each country regarding funding student net costs, based on the premise
mentioned above that the Bologna Process is an example of a supranational initiative (De

Wit, 2007 ; Meek & Goedegebuure, 2007). An intervening factor was the dominant social

75

contract at the national level for each of the three countries studied, added because
national governments may or may not alter their views of the social contracts regarding
student support funding to accord with supranational social contract.

Figure 2

Conceptualization of Dynamics of Social Contracts Regarding Student Support Funding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

r \ National
Supranational social National social ﬁnance
contract regarding contract regarding P011” .
govemment’s role in “““ 5 govemment’s role """ F ”mg
student ﬁnancial in student ﬁnancial student
support support ﬁnancral

\ J SW"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corresponding Factors and Indicators: Student Support Dynamic

Similar to the study of academic research to examine how social contract impacts
academic research policy, it was ﬁrst necessary to delineate the concepts to be studied,
then to specify the factors that represent the concepts, and ﬁnally to specify the actual
indicators that would be studied. The three concepts to be studied, as diagramed in Figure
2, were the supranational social contract, the national social contract, and national ﬁnance
policy, all three of these in terms of student support policy. Concepts, factors, and
indicators for student ﬁnancial support are summarized in Table 2.

The supranational social contract regarding student ﬁnancial support was in terms
of the govemment’s role in funding students’ net costs. The factor chosen to represent the
concept was supranational agreements by national governments as to the expected social

roles of national governments vis-a-vis other stakeholders regarding ﬁnancial access to

76

higher education. The speciﬁc indicator chosen for this study was the policy goals as
stated in Bologna Process documents regarding both access to higher education and also
how each stakeholder should bear the burden of student costs for higher education. The
indicator of policies on access to higher education was incorporated into this study
because it is a central policy of higher education ministries. Access policy may or may
not be reﬂected in how the burden is shared across stakeholders; thus, the two are indeed
separate indicators.

The second student ﬁnancial support concept in Figure 2 was the social contract
at the national level, speciﬁcally regarding the govemment’s role in funding student costs
for higher education. This concept was represented by the factor of the expected social
roles of national governments vis-a-vis other stakeholders in funding student costs for
higher education. Representing this factor was the indicator of national policy goals
regarding student ﬁnancial support as stated in national policy documents.

The last dynamic in Figure 2 was ﬁnance policy at the national level regarding the
frmding of student ﬁnancial support, which was represented by the percent of student
costs for higher education that was supported by the government.

The end results for both dynamics were ﬂamed in the Results section of this
study, in two three-by-three grids (one for academic research, one for student funding)
with three countries in columns, the rows being supranational social contract, national

social contract, and national ﬁnance policy.

77

Table 2

Concepts, Factors, and Indicators for the Student Financial Support Dynamic

 

Concepts

Factors

Indicators

 

Supranational social

Supranational agreements by

Bologna Process policy goals, as stated

 

 

contract regarding national governments as to in Bologna Process policy documents,

govemment’s role in the expected social roles of regarding:

funding student costs for national governments vis-a- 1. Access to higher education

higher education vis other stakeholders 2. How each stakeholder should
regarding ﬁnancial access to support student costs for higher
higher education education '

National social contract Expected social roles of National policy goals, as stated in

regarding govemment’s national governments vis-a- national policy documents, regarding the

role in funding student vis other stakeholders in expected social roles of national

costs for higher education funding student costs for governments vis-a-vis other stakeholders
higher education in funding student costs for higher

education

National higher education National allocation of funds Percent of student costs for higher

ﬁnance policy regarding to student costs for higher education supported by government

funding student net costs education

 

Units of Analysis.

Sampling: Choice of Country Case Studies

Higher education was examined at the systemic level of analysis for this study,

meaning that research funding levels and student support policies studied were

aggregated at the national level for each national system studied. Carnoy (1998) placed

the study of the political economy of education as primarily at the nation-state level of

analysis, because the state is the prime mediator between stakeholders in higher

education, such as industry (employers) and students (aspiring to be employees). From its

origins, Qualitative Comparative Analysis was a macro comparative approach in that it

78

was applied to societies or nation-states (Berg-Schlosser, et al., 2009). Because the
number of nations with key similarities and relevant data available could never be more
than the 200 or so countries in the world, QCA worked with small data sets. For this
reason, statistical methods used with large data sets did not apply. Although quantitative
data enter into the comparative analysis of QCA, it is considered to be a case-oriented

' method rather than a quantitative method. ’

The supranational process in question was the Bologna Process in Europe. This
study examined two different dynamics of social contract in order to begin to test the
potential of social contract as a conceptual ﬂame for the study of diverse aspects of
higher education policy. To most effectively pursue the research questions, three country
case studies were chosen according to explicit criteria.

First, all three cases were participants in the Bologna Process in order to study its
inﬂuence. Second, all three had sufficient sources of quality data on their higher
education systems, which 'is true, for example, of members of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation for Development (OECD). Third, all three had identiﬁable
national social contracts ﬁtting Neave’s typology of Hobbes, Locke, or Smith (2006).

All three countries chosen for this study were social welfare states, per the
sampling plan of the research design. They fell under Neave’s (2006) Hobbes-type of
social contract. As such, they were far distant ﬂom a market-oriented social contract. All
three started on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Smith-type social contract
when the Bologna Process began. Hence, movement toward a Smith social contract by
these countries should be a strong indication of a shifting social contract, much more so

than in countries with Locke- or Smith-type social contracts. Discussion of the history of

79

these three strong Hobbes-type countries (Bleiklie et al., 2000; OECD, 1995; Svensson,
1987) indicated that certain aspects of their higher education sectors have transformed
signiﬁcantly toward a more market-oriented, Smith-type social contract in higher
education since the 19603, but they all retain their essential social welfare state
orientations.

This study recognized that affiliation with the European Union (EU) might
present a confounding factor. In other words, a country with strong resource dependency
on the European Union might tend to toe the line of EU policy, including in more
voluntary processes such as Bologna. It was not the purpose of this study to test the
relationship between resource dependency on the EU and shifting social contract Instead,
in order to avoid this confounding factor, one country chosen was not a member of the
EU. If that country, not dependent on the EU for resources, shifted social contract in
concert with the Bologna Process social contract along with two EU member countries, it
would indicate that EU membership could not have been the driving force for all three.

For all of these reasons, the country cases chosen to be studied were Finland,
Sweden, and Norway. Each country and its salient aspects as a case study for the current
research, derived ﬂom meta-analyses of country case studies (cited for each country), are
detailed below. I conducted the meta-analyses by studying historical descriptions of the
higher education sector of each country. A later phase of the study analyzed higher
education policy statements by the governments of each country relating to the Bologna

Process.

80

Finland

Finland historically exhibited a classic Hobbes-type of social contract, based on
strong control of funding by a centralized government (Kivinen & Rinne, 1991). This
welfare state was built on top of previous governments, including the Swedish empire,
Russian annexation, and Russiﬁcation, which ended in 1917 (OECD, 1995). The period
1809' to 1863 was a time of national formation by the universities. Because the Finnish
parliament was not functional during this extended period, it became a golden era for
universities. As the only respected authorities remaining standing, university professors
actually stepped into the power vacuum to form national goals hence, the university
became a hub of political activity (OECD, 1995). This era was formative of the Finnish
tradition of the intellectual engaged in a democratic society (V alimaa, 1996), which was
an important backdrop to the nature and functioning of social contract in higher education
in Finland, due to the public-service emphasis it lent the academic vocation.

The trend of elevating economic development to become a chief purpose of
higher education has strengthened in Finland since the 19603 (Kivinen & Rinne, 1991).
Marketization (in reality, Americanization) has been the goal for the past 30 years
(Larsson, 2008). Since the 19803, Finland has actively pursued a national science and
technology policy that successfully restructured the economy (OECD, 1995). Research
and development cooperation between higher education and industry, most speciﬁcally to
apply innovations quickly into industry, has produced strong economic sectors in
forestry, metal, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications (OECD, 1995).

In Finland in the 19603, because economic growth was a high national priority,

Finnish society accepted increased central planning in higher education as a prerequisite

81

for such growth (Pesonen, 1982). In 1966, Parliament committed the government to fund
education generously for the next 15 years. Similar to Sweden and Norway, one of the
reforms of the late 19603 in Finland was to add student representatives to bodies of
governance in higher education. Prior to that time, most students were not interested in
governance issues, focusing mainly on their bread-and-butter interests such as housing,
scholarships, and sports. Student unions were large, powerful, wealthy, and independent,
due to their provision of housing and other services to students (Pesonen, 1982).

Student unions and administrators in higher education were dealing with the
impact of the baby boom on Finnish universities (Pesonen, 1982). The population of
youth graduating from secondary schools nearly doubled from 1960 to 1970, causing
dramatic increases in the number of university students and faculty, and the establishment
of new universities and institutes of technology. Government spending on higher
education increased from 2 to 3.5 percent ﬂom 1967 to 1975 (Pesonen, 1982).

During the 1968 elections in Finland, previously stable party divisions reacted to
an electorate that was swinging ﬂom left to right (Pesonen, 1982). In 1970, the voting age I
was lowered ﬂom 21 to 20, further increasing the electoral weight of young voters.
Although they were a minority group with minority support from other voters, vocal
student activists gained representation in higher education governance, including at the
departmental level on the basis of the principle of “one man, one vote.” In the early
19703, students were given one-third of the votes in the governing bodies of HEIS.
However, the most salient characteristic of this period of reform was centralization. All
HEIS in Finland except one were brought under the ministry of education, a

transformation that included many formerly private institutions. Ministry officials

82

increased their efforts to control academic as well as ﬁnancial matters during this time
(Pesonen, 1982).

Today, Finland has the fastest-reforming higher education sector in Europe
(Larsson, 2008). Reforms in higher education include a new university act, going into
effect in 2009, to increase the ﬁnancial and legal autonomy of higher education
institutions vis-a-vis the state. For example, the new university act gives universities and
colleges the legal status of persons separate ﬂom the state, and, as a result, the power to
own land in their own names (Larsson, 2008).

As of the fall of 2000, the higher education system in Finland was composed of
20 universities and 29 polytechnics (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002). Polytechnics were funded
43 percent by local governments and 57 percent by national government. They were
staffed by 3,118 full-time teachers and 1,261 part-time teachers, instructing in tourism,
culture, technology, business, and other subjects.

In 2002, before the Bologna Process harmonized university degree systems,
Finnish universities offered degrees in the form of bachelor’s, master’s, professional
(licentiate), and doctoral degrees. Bachelor’s degree completion was approximately three
years. Master’s degree completion was approximately ﬁve years. The largest university,
the University of Helsinki, had approximately 33,000 students and 3,000 teachers and
researchers in 2002. All Finnish universities were public. They included ten
multidisciplinary, four arts, three econorrrics and business, three technology, and one
military university. Admission to universities was competitive, limited to about one-third
of the university-age population. Undergraduates totaled about 128,000, and graduate

students totaled about 19,000. Parliament set the agenda for educational legislation. The

83

ministry of education implemented educational policy, budgeted at 3.6 billion euros in
1996.

Finland has a strong international orientation, both With Western Europe and with
a view to aid the development of its former Eastern Bloc neighbors. Finland joined the '
European Free Trade Association in 1961 and the OECD in 1969. Finland agreed to free
trade with the European Economic Community in 1973 (OECD, 1995) and joined the
European Union (EU) in 1995. Finland is an active participant in the LisbonProcess of
the European Union, the mutual goal of which is to improve the European economies via
cooperation. As a proactive member of the EU, Finland had an inﬂuential recent EU
presidency (European Union, 2008a). Finland recently surpassed Sweden as the most
progressive EU state in terms of leading higher education reforms, including those
promoted by the OECD (Kivinen, 2007).

A key element of Finland’s strong external orientation is its desire to retain
national identity in the midst of internationalization, and it is relying explicitly on
education to do so (OECD, 1995). A second key challenge facing Finland today is how to
increase self-regulation (or autonomy) for higher education institutions and at the same
time still attain national economic development goals (Kivinen & Rinne, 1991). Other
challenges include serving the sparse but spread-out population, a goal historically
achieved at high cost via small regional colleges distributed across the large land mass.
There is also a need to organize the research function of higher education, perhaps by
fostering specialization by institutions, then encouraging their collaboration (Kivinen &
Rinne, 1991). The challenge is to encourage the same institutions that compete

aggressively for research funding to work together. Finally, the internal organization of

84

institutions is still quite rigid, which prevents the needed organizational changes (Kivinen
& Rinne, 1991 ).
Norway

Higher education funding in Norway is impacted positively by national resources,
speciﬁcally the high national wealth ﬂom oil income (and in the future from gas and
untapped oil reserves). As a consequence, into the foreseeable ﬁrture, higher education
budgets will be a function of national priorities set in the context of relatively healthy
budgets. For example, if providing higher education to half of the college-age population
achieves few results, the citizens of Norway could decide that old-age pensions are more
worthy of funds than higher education, even though both can be afforded. Most
indications are, however, that a strong majority has a stake in higher education for
themselves and their progeny (Aamodt, 2006).

The history of higher education in Norway and other Nordic countries is short,
compared to the medieval roots of higher education in other European countries, with the
ﬁrst university founded in Norway in the early 18003. Until then, Norwegian students
went to Denmark, because Norway was not separate from Denmark until 1814 (Amodt,
2006). Overall, the historical development has been from autonomy with state support to
state steering and heteronomy.

The primary purpose of higher education ﬂ'om the outset in Norway was to
educate its workforce. Educating the workforce was the core mission of the University of
0310, which was the ﬁrst Norwegian University, founded in 1811 (Marlow-Ferguson,
2002). The period ﬂom 1830 to 1875 was the shift ﬂom the classical to the modern

university; between 1960 to 1995, from the elite to the mass university (Amodt, 2006),

85

when regional colleges increased tremendously, giving access across Norway’s far-ﬂung
regions and serving the goals of teaching, research, and development (Marlow-Ferguson,
2002). Such evolution occurred in the setting of a generally close and stable tie between
higher education and the state while Norway developed and democratized (Aamodt,
2006).

As for other European countries, the 19603 were a relatively turbulent period.
Midgaard (1982) describes the huge expansion of the higher education sector in Norway
during the 19603, which was caused by two factors that also expanded higher education
in many other countries at the same time: rising aspirations and demographics. More
young people sought higher education, and the post-WW II-age cohort was large. In
Norway, university enrollment from 1955 to 1960 increased 70 percent, doubled in the
next ﬁve years, then doubled again from 1965 to 1975. Midgaard (1982) also noted the
power of public referendum in Norway regarding the European Union, exempliﬁed in the
late 19603 and early 19703, when two governments were voted out due to the weight of
public opinion falling in opposition to these governments’ negotiated agreement to join
the European Economic Community.

The power of central state authorities to set the ﬂamework for the system of
higher education was established ﬂom the founding of the University of Oslo (Midgaard,
1982). There has also existed a simultaneous understanding that universities must be
given proper autonomy in order to do what they do best. In the education bureaucracy,
conﬁdence was high that university leaders could deal with the events of the 19603 at
their institutional levels. As a result, individual institutions greatly inﬂuenced higher

education legislative reforms (Midgaard, 1982).

86

The reforms in Norway relating to students gave students a higher degree of
representation in the governance system (Midgaard, 1982). This must be understood,
however, in the historical context of Norway: Students have always been represented
even at the highest levels of institutional governance. Norwegian students have beneﬁted
ﬂom student unions managing their interests, such as housing and cafeterias, since the
19203. The student unions managed the massive growth in demand for their services as
the baby boomers came to college. In the case of Norway, it may have been positive past
experience with student leadership, rather than fear of student violence, that led to the
reforms. Institutions, conﬁdent of the historically responsible and capable qualities of
student leadership, did not balk at increasing student representation. Scholars also point
to the tradition of reform in Norwegian higher education that defused the need for serious
student violence (Midgaard, 1982). I

The evolution toward the modern mass university appears quite steady, however,
when viewed over the wide reach of Norway’s history. Higher education policy was not
the product of a ﬁght between political parties but of broad consensus, which brought
forth evolving, shared norms, closely tied in to the needs of the welfare state and the
labor market (Bleikle, 2000). Though some periods (1975—1985 and 2006) of a slight
oversupply of graduates arose, mainly in nonscientiﬁc/technical disciplines, Norway
usually experiences in current times a good balance for labor needs. Almost 90 percent of
graduates are employed six months after graduating, probably because salaries are not
widely differentiated in Norway, similar to Sweden (Aamodt, 2006). Enrollments

reported in 2002 were 185,320 students in higher education, with an enrollment rate of 62

percent (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002).

87

The Norwegian higher education system consisted (as of 2002) of four
universities that offered undergraduate and graduate programs. The system also included
26 state colleges, which are smaller than the universities that offered shorter, more
specialized programs. Approximately 35 percent of 19-year—olds entered college or
university immediately after secondary education. The university degrees traditionally
offered were a ﬁrst degree, which required four or ﬁve years of study, then a higher
degree, which required three or more years of study. Formal doctoral programs became
available in the 19703, similar in structure to the internationally recognized United States’
programs (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002).

Students in Norwegian higher education often delayed their studies for a series of
reasons (compulsory military service, work experience, or paid employment), resulting in
about 50 percent of Norwegian students in higher education being over the age of 25
. (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002). Similar to Finland, Norway offered a wide variety of non-
forrnal or adult education courses, including employment training offered by the Ministry
of Labor and Local Affairs (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002).

The Norwegian system of higher education was for the most part state-owned as
of 2002, with faculty as civil servants, and Parliament in control of creating any new
chairs. The budgets of HEIS were completely under government control. Norway spent 1
percent of GNP on higher education in 1990 and 5.8 percent of GNP on all education in
the same year. Even in the context of government ownership and overall budgetary
control, individual institutions had a high degree of autonomy. They also had a high ,

degree of inﬂuence in their regions (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002).

88

HEIS performed approximately one fourth of total research and development as of
2002, most of the academic research being basic research conducted in the universities.
Recent years have seen growth in applied research and development at the regional
colleges. Research funding is primarily provided ﬂom the university budgets but also
includes some public and private contracts (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002).

Norway supports a strong role for the state, or a Hobbes-type social contract,
typical of Nordic welfare states. The state is viewed as protective of academic ﬂeedom.
Higher education institutions like being part of the state. Evidence of such is the response
to a 2006 proposal to make higher education institutions independent of the state while
continuing state funding unabated. The proposal was rejected by most institutions of
higher education (Aamodt, 2006).

Enduring purposes of higher education have received constant support. These
include educating professionals, preserving knowledge, conducting research, and
providing extension services. On top of these enduring purposes has been added a
“corporate organizational ideal” (Bleiklie et al., 2000, p. 28). This began in the 19803,
which was an era of tighter budgets and the inﬂux of managerialist policies, as reﬂected
in administrative ideology and organization. In the end, things did not change much in
higher education in Norway. Managerialism increased standardization and formalization,
allowing outsiders more information with which to evaluate higher education, but also
higher education actors have become more pragmatic by realizing that the new measures
are just as vulnerable to politics and context as the old (Bleiklie et al., 2000).

In 2001, a “Quality Reform for Higher Education” bill was passed to bring in

more market-oriented reforms. Funding was tied more strongly to incentives regarding

89

enrollment or credits and graduates produced, e. g., 25 percent of the budget was
conditioned on how many students completed exams (Aamodt, 2006). Reforms were not
the result of political efforts alone, but were inﬂuenced by changing demographics, social
structures, and political institutions (Bleiklie et al., 2000).

The NoMegian public recognized that the system of education came close to
offering all systems high-quality education and that the system was always working to
improve outcomes. Norwegians looked to future reforms to educate all their citizens to
compete in a global knowledge economy (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002).

As for its international orientation, Norway is not a member of the European
Union (European Union, 2008b); hence, it acts as an adjunct or observer rather than a
member in the Lisbon Process. Norway was selected for the current study based on
, exactly this feature.

Sweden

Public education was originally used in Sweden to train priests, who performed a
wide range of services, including agricultural, to the rural countryside (Svensson, 1987).
In more recent history, the welfare state, with its Hobbes-type social contract, dominated.
The power of the state was especially centralized during the Great Power period of
Gustavus Adolphus (Svensson, 1987). The welfare state, with its guarantees of free
education and health care, was established in Sweden. in the 19403 (Marlow-Ferguson,
2002). Sweden’s history of state governance of education, including appointment of
faculty directly by the government, runs exactly counter to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of

legal autonomy for higher education (Bauer et al., 1999).

90

 

State control of universities never overreached its usefulness, however; university.
tradition determined institutional policies. Professors truly saw themselves as public .
servants, along the lines of the tradition of the honorable civil service, taken from the
University of Berlin (Svensson, 1987). Civil servants graduating from autonomous
universities formed a bourgeois class that initially balanced the power of its meritocracy
against the power of the nobility. Modern civil servants balanced power in a mediating
manner by being educated to give impartial service to the state. At the same time, they
protected the market from state intervention and the state from corporate collusion
(Svensson, 1987). Modernism, with its value-neutral rationalism and scientism, fostered a
new breed of civil servant: the technocrat-engineer needed to master national resources
(Svensson, 1987).

Ruin (1982) traced how reforms in the 19603 in Sweden fell along two parallel
lines: increased government control and increased internal control. Before 1968, the
control of the Swedish government in higher education was already extensive, and full
professors shared their internal authority with other stakeholders, but these two trends
intensiﬁed after 1968. The greatest inﬂuence of government was through funding, mainly
because all but one university were public entities. The legislature allocated resources to
them accompanied by detailed regulations (Ruin, 1982).

Similar to in Norway, the-student population in Sweden more than tripled
between 1960 and 1970 (Ruin, 1982). Demand for higher education was exacerbated by
the requirement that, outside some specialized institutions, most departments in the
universities admitted all qualiﬁed applicants. Two problems arose: how universities

might address the increasing costs of expansion; and how the labor market might absorb

91

the ﬂood of graduates. Faculty salaries were determined by negotiation between the
government and two powerful trade unions. Swedish professors, unlike their colleagues
in Norway and Finland, were not inﬂuential in national politics because Swedish
universities tended not to actively assert national culture in the face of dominant
neighboring countries, as was more common in Norway and Finland (Ruin, 1982).

Also as in Norway, Swedish students formed student unions, which built and
administered student housing, health care, cafeterias, and other service centers (Ruin,
1982). They enjoyed independence from university controlneven existing rules on .
student behavior were not applied. All students were required to. join a student union. The
government formed an informal political alliance with student leaders during the events
of the 19603 and 19703, which intensiﬁed the Swedish tradition of cooperation between
' government and student leaders, including during turbulent times (Ruin, 1982).

Sweden also had a tradition before 1968 to involve student representatives in
decisions, even down to the departmental level (Ruin, 1982), because “Swedish
educational authorities have traditionally felt a sense of closeness to the students” (p.
341 ). Authorities have had a practice of valuing student representation in university
governance as a proxy for representation of Swedish society in university decisions.
Although student unrest in Sweden in 1968 was small and mild compared to that in other
countries, Swedish authorities reacted rapidly and effectively with a view to calming a
potentially volatile situation, given the prior example of French student violence. The
reforms of the 19703 increased the proportion of student representatives, including at the

departmental level (Ruin, 1982).

92

 

Sweden has moved from social corporatism to pluralism in recent years (Bauer et
al., 1999). Sweden was a strong example of social corporatism, whereby the welfare state
maintained universal social services, full employment, and a basic ﬂoor on the standard
of living. Bauer et al. (1999) reports that the shift toward pluralism and a more mixed
economy still occurred in the context of a welfare state, based in a broad social consensus
with active support by key economic actors.

Swedish higher education “is meeting increasing demands and is going through a
major shift in the relationship between the State and the higher education institutions”
(Bauer et al., 1999, p. 249). During economic recessions in the late 19803 and in the
19903, higher education was reorganized (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002). A massive
decentralization abolished the national board of universities and colleges and gave HEIS
more autonomy, including the power to appoint staff, although authority to mandate the
number of faculty positions remained with the Ministry of Education and Science. Since
1993, ftmding of higher education became results-oriented, requiring colleges and
universities to meet criteria for credit points earned and full-time students enrolled.
Vocational education was also reformed in the 19903, increasing its rigor (with a well-
regarded, three-year, full-time program) and relevance to jobs in Swedish industry. Adult
education became a sophisticated system in the 19903, including basic education and job
training. Distance learning components have been an important addition to the national
education system with a view to reaching distant rural regions.

Such decentralization and other reforms were also the product of the inﬂuence of

public management ideas inﬂuencing the industrialized countries (Bauer et al., 1999).

93

Additional impetus came ﬂom the weakness of the Swedish economy. Any improvement
of economic competitive advantage spurred by higher education was welcome.
The 19903 marked the advent of the knowledge society. The new era required a
higher education system that educated students to learn, rather than a centralized plan
with a focused industrial policy guiding training for certain jobs. A key ﬁnance reform
was the shift from input-based to performance-based budgets. Swedish academics
themselves have changed their values since 1977, away from social values and equality to F
concern about disciplinary quality and acceptance of market values (Bauer et al., 1999).
However, as of 2002 the Swedish higher education system continued to follow its
traditional philosophy of equal opportunity for all students (Marlow-Ferguson, 2002).
The fundamental right to education, coupled with the general expectation of state subsidy
as far as was in its power, was based on the idea than state support of education reduces
crime and increases economic and social beneﬁts. Sweden spent proportionally far more
than most countries on total education, amounting to 8.3 percent of GNP in 2001.
Undergraduate enrollments as of 1997 were 300,400 students. Thirty percent of
secondary-school graduates attended higher education within ﬁve years of graduation as
of 1997. The 19903 reforms led to a 50 percent increase in enrollments in under a decade.
Sweden has been a member of the European Union since 1995 (European Union,
2008b) and took the presidency of the EU in 2009. Sweden is an active participant in the
Lisbon Process of the European Union, the mutual goal of which is to improve the

European economies via cooperation.

94

Conclusions Regarding Choice of Country Cases

Since three Nordic welfare states were chosen for the cm'rent study, it is useful to
examine the nature and origins of commonalities among them. Similarities shared among
the Nordic countries stemmed in part ﬂ‘om their histories of consensus. Lindal (1981)
followed the history of Nordic democracy back to the time of the Vikings. The power of
the Viking chiefs was delimited by public opinion in the form of the local assembly of
warriors. The power of the local assembly shifted in form to majority rule in the
codiﬁcation of law in the twelfth century, still under the delimited authority of the king.
If a king went beyond his legal authority, his subjects had the right to rebel against him,
and at times they did. Such democratic norms persist, albeit in different forms, in these
egalitarian welfare states today.

Regional characteristics may have also played into their joint approaches to
research and higher education. Wendt (1981) described the high degree of close
cooperation among the ﬁve Nordic democracies in a great number of ﬁelds of endeavor,
more so than any other set of neighboring nation-states. According to Wendt (1981),
cooperation was the key characteristic of the very existence of the Nordic peoples. These
small countries with limited intellectual and ﬁnancial resources beneﬁted ﬂom
cooperation in the area of research and higher education. Often, the number of doctoral
students in each country was small. Therefore, these countries found it effective to pool
together professors and students by either forming giant institutions or dividing labor
between separate research centers.

A third Nordic characteristic was high levels of social capital. Coleman (1988)

deﬁned social capital as, in essence, trust. Trust is productive because it makes economic

95

activity possible. Coleman gave the example of a diamond dealer in New York City who
commonly handed over stones for inspection off his premises without insurance.
Coleman explained this trust based on the ethnic, religious, and family ties of the Jewish
community of diamond dealers in New York City. Neira, et al. (2009) performed an
empirical study on 14 OECD countries, concluding that countries with high levels of
social capital also have higher economic growth rates. The authors reviewed the literature
on human social capital and economic development. Similar to Coleman, they deﬁned
social capital as “an agglomeration of corporate, psychological, cultural, and institutional
assets. . . [that] increase the amount (or the probability) of mutually beneﬁcial or
cooperative behavior for the people involved and for society in general” (p. 115), in
essence, trust, which they measured in terms of responses to a widely recognized survey
instrument called the World Values Survey. The highest social capital countries included
Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Fifty-ﬁve to 70 percent of respondents in these three
countries said that people can be trusted—high percentages compared to the other OECD
countries studied, which scored as low as 12 percent for trust.

Again the three Nordic social welfare states were chosen as country cases for this
study because they all participate in the Bologna Process adopting the Hobbes-style
social contract: Finland (an EU member); Sweden (an EU member); and Norway
(afﬁliated via membership in the European Economic Area [EEA], which is a trading
alliance also known as the European Single Market). Norway is not an EU member,
hence Norway is less dependent on EU funding than the other two country cases. Also,
due to its considerable oil wealth, Norway is also less vulnerable to economic factors

constraining public frmding.

96

Finland and Sweden, as EU members, are tied to commitments made by their
prime ministers in the Lisbon Accords. Great success in measuring progress toward
stronger academia-industry linkages has been made by the European Research Area
(ERA) efforts of the European Commission (EC), which is the administrative body of the
European Economic and Monetary Union (EU). Movement toward an ERA is driven
mainly in the European Union policy context of the Lisbon Accords of March 2000,
which were signed by the European Union Heads of State and Government. The Lisbon
Accords specify policy directions (including higher education research) to promote the
global competitiveness of the European economy.

The ERA is also supported by the European University Association (EUA),
whose members are the driving force behind the Bologna Process (www.cuabe, 2007).
The EUA supports efforts in both the Lisbon and Bologna Processes in order to realize a
European knowledge society. In moving toward an ERA, HEIS are following the lead of
the European Union Lisbon Accords to push for increased funding of research, both in
academe and the private sector. The European University Association and the European
Union formed a strategic alliance to ﬁght for an increased share of the European
Commission budget to go to research. This effort ties into the Bologna Process, in which
HEIS pressure their education ministries to increase allocations to higher education (as
promised in the Lisbon Accords of the EU and in the Berlin Communiqué of the Bologna
Processzww.er;a.be. 2007). Because Norway is not signatory to the Lisbon Accords, its
education ministers and HEIS are ﬂeer in the Bologna Process than are Finnish and

Swedish HEIs. Thus, because they did not sign the Lisbon Accords, Norwegians can

97

increase their public ﬁmding of academic research more according to national priorities
rather than according to EU guidelines.
Data and Analysis

High quality data on each indicator were retrieved ﬂom online sources. These
sources included europa (European Union), Eurydice (European Union), ERA-WATC H
(European Commission), and eurostudent (European Union) sites. Data were in two
forms: policy documents for content analysis and economic trends data for trend analysis.

The ﬁrst step of analysis regarding the ﬁrst research question was to determine
the social contract of the Bologna Process regarding academic research. Member
countries, including the three Nordic countries in the current study, agreed to the
multilateral policy statements generated during the Bologna Process. The question here
was how to classify the multilateral Bologna Process statements (listed in Appendix A) in
terms of a social contract regarding academic research as Hobbes-, Locke-, or Smith-type
(Neave, 2006). Themes, terms, and discussion points were categorized as promoting
Smith, Locke, or Hobbes social contract. Tallies of terms were totaled to compare
frequency of use. The Bologna Process social contract regarding academic research was
determined by weighing the full content of the multilateral policy statements in order to
determine their general direction.

After studying supranational social contract in the Bologna Process, the ﬁrst
research question next required content analysis in the data-classiﬁcation phase regarding
the national level of social contracts for each of the three countries studied. Content
analysis was employed to classify available written public records in the policy decision-

making process regarding academic research frmding by the state (see Appendix B for

~98

lists of documents by country), again country by country. The term social contract was
never used explicitly in any policy statements; however, related terms described either
market-oriented (i.e., market, economic, competition) or govemment-oriented (i.e.,
government, social) policies. Neave’s (2006) deﬁnition of social contract as the relative
roles of government, academe, and industry in higher education allowed for the study of
policy statements regarding such roles as a study of social contract. The terms were
classiﬁed by the type of social contract they implied: Smith (market-oriented), Hobbes
(govemment-oriented), or Locke (a mixture of market- and govemment-oriented policies)
(Neave, 2006). For example, a social contract per Adam Smith gives ﬂee rein to market
mechanisms in the allocation of research funding. A Hobbes-type social contract entrusts
the allocation of research ﬁrnding to government entities.

There are indications in the literature that examination of supranational and
national policy statements regarding academic research can reveal implicit expressions of
social contract concerning academic research, ﬁtting into Neave’s three types (2006). For
example, the literature on current trends in academic research policy describes a
mounting emphasis on the need for research with increasingly strong linkages between
stakeholders in academe and industry (Jacob & Hellstrom, 2000; Tadmor, 2006). This is
an implicit, general description of a Smith-type, market-oriented social contract in
academic research. Such discourse centers on the social roles'played by academe and
industry as stakeholders in academic research. Even if the literature does not refer
explicitly to social contract, if the relative roles of academe and industry are discussed,

the type of social contract reﬂected by their roles can be inferred.

99

The next step of analysis was to work with the data to quantify the research
ﬁnance policy factor. Content analysis was performed on the abstracts of research
projects funded by the national governments (see Appendix C for lists of projects). These
abstracts were submitted by national ministries to a central online database maintained by
the European Commission in support of the European Research Area (ERA-WATCH),
ﬂom which data for this study were extracted. The abstracts were analyzed for content in
order to categorize them as linked to the goal of national economic development (Smith-
type social contract), linked to government development of social welfare (Hobbes-type
social contract), or linked to a mixture of economic and social development goals (Locke-
type social contract).

Estimates were then made of the percentage of the total frmding for these
classiﬁcations. This analysis was extended across a time period beginning in 1997 (to
include years prior to the 1999 start of the Bologna Process in order to determine pre-
Bologna levels) and through the most recent year of available data (2005) for each
country. Because content analysis of the Bologna Process documents revealed extensive
promotion of increased government funding to academic research, countries with high
and increasing percentages of government funding of academic research were considered
to be moving with the Bologna Process, and perhaps in response to the Bologna Process.

Answering the second research question involved focusing on country-byfcountr'y
analyses of student support policies spanning the Bologna Process years. Beginning from
the premises of Johnstone’s (1986) seminal work cited in chapter 2, the three cases were
proﬁled using national data, including European Union statistical reports on student

support policies in each country. Country data on Finland and Norway were interpreted to

100

see if Johnstone’s assumptions about Scandinavian countries held true in ways similar to
his analysis of Sweden. If all three countries evidenced a view of the student as
independent from parents, along with high state funding of students’ net costs, the three
country cases would constitute positive results for the second research question.

OECD member governments and HEIS, in response to increasingly limited
budgets, have considered previously unplumbed funding sources, such as student cost-
sharing via higher tuition fees (Johnstone et al., 2006). If the three countries in the current
study do not show evidence of movement in this direction, they would be going against
the trend in other mature Western economies, which would call for explanation. Positive
results for both research questions would indicate that the inﬂuence cf supranational
social contract on national social contract was operating in more than one function of
higher education and hence might be a broad inﬂuence. Positive results for only one
research question would indicate that the supranational social contract had limited
inﬂuence. Negative results for both research questions would suggest that supranational

social contract had minimal inﬂuence on national social contracts and ﬁmding policies.

101

Chapter Four
Results

Results of this study are detailed in this section regarding the types of social
contract that were indicated from content analysis of key documents from the Bologna
Process. Policy trends were analyzed at the supranational level and at the national level
(for Finland, Sweden, and Norway), both for academic research funding policies and for
student support policies, to determine national orientations pre-Bologna, as well as any
movement in national social contracts in these two areas during the Bologna Process.
Figure 3 diagrams a summary of the process by which the results were determined. The
study began with the details of each social contract as essentially a black box. The
process of several stages of content analysis deﬁned the contents of each black box.

An analysis of Bologna Process documents was the starting point for content
analysis. The keypolicy documents produced by the Bologna Process were: the Sorbonne
Declaration (1998); the Bologna Declaration (1999); the Prague Communique (2001); the
Berlin Communique (2003); and the Bergen Communique (2005). In this ongoing,
intergovernmental process, which added signatories over time, the ministers of education
of Finland, Sweden, and Norway joined in 1999 with the Bologna Declaration. These
documents were chosen for analysis because they state the purposes and policies of a
group of ministries of education, including those of the three country cases chosen for
this study, regarding how they will cooperate to strengthen higher education across
Europe. Because the Bologna Process documents state the joint purposes and policies that
the signatory countries adopted for higher education, they were a promising source for

data on the Bologna Process’s supranational social contract in higher education.

102

Figure 3

Supranational Inﬂuences, Social Contracts, and Policies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supranational Global economic Lisbon Process to grow
‘mﬂuemes competition European economic area
Bologna Process to develop High pmticipation by all
European higher education area HE stakeholders
Bolggg Process social contract for higher education (HE)
Market-oriented policies (Smith) set in governmart—
social contract oriented cultures and structures (Hobbes) promoting
industry-academy research collaboration (Locke) and
equal access (Hobbes)
Naﬁond FINLAND NORWAY
us - -
mat m
contracts Academic Academic ,
research research Academic
- - research

Student 50““ Student 50““ Student 50cm

airport mm?“ W ““3"" swarm m

social WW social “many social $1,“,

contract 318:; contract :2; contract miented
obbos obbes obbes -

(H ) (Smith) (H ) (Smith) ‘" ’ (Smith)
Academic Academic Academic
research research research

HE 9053 funding 81068 ﬁmding gross funding
M from public from public from public
l‘ . sources sources sources
decreased increased deceased
signiﬁcantly minimally minimally
(Smith) (Hobbes) (Smith) _
R&PDas%of R&Das%of Eggas9ﬁof
. GDP increased .
increased. 19% (Smith) increased 9%
26% (Smith) ------------ (smith)
Sou-"7.1 - ...... M arket- Market-
welfare~ oriented oriented
oriented project goals _
Student project goals Student (3mm) Student (3m)
support (“013136) ------------ 9W0“ -----------
........... 83% shared 33% shared
“‘1." 9% shared my ﬁmds ﬁlly nines
11°1de funds Pmdby Mum ?"de academe-
state academe- state industry 5m“ industry
(Hwbcs) (Tim) (Hobbes) {I I e) (Hobbes) (Hobbes)

 

 

 

103

Bologna Process Social Contract

Content analysis of six key Bologna Process policy statements consisted of in-
depth review and comparison of documents (Appendix A) for a variety of social contract
concepts and language. Themes and terms were categorized as promoting one of the
following: a Smith-type (market-oriented), a Locke-type (mixed), or a Hobbes-type
(govemment-oriented) social contract.

The current study found that the most salient theme of the Bologna Process
documents was the need for Europe to develop a European Higher Education Area in
order to compete globally in quality, most prominently with the United States’ higher
education system. Key points of discussion along these lines included: making degrees
easily comparable across Europe; basing country systems on three cycles (bachelor,
master’s, doctorate); setting up a system whereby credits transfer easily; increasing
mobility of students and faculty across European borders; cooperating across Europe in
quality assurance; and retaining aspects of study in Europe that make it unique in the
world.

Frequencies of use of terms in the Bologna Process statements were compared.
The most commonly used terms reﬂecting a Smith-type market-orientation (toward
economic development) were: economic and competitive, with ﬁ'equencies of 11 and 13
respectively. These terms described a theme of the need to compete in a global economy.
Terms for strategies to fulﬁll the Bologna Process market Orientation (with their
frequencies) were: mobility (19), quality assurance (20), qualiﬁcations (16), and
recognition (of degrees) (16). The most common terms reﬂecting a Hobbes-type

govemment-oriented social development orientation (with their frequencies) were:

104

government-based growth or development (8), social growth or development (9), and
social cohesion, social dimension, and other terms beginning with social (14). The term
government reﬂected the central role of government in higher education in Europe. The
term social was used in policy statements to refer to various social factors, such as the
unique cultural qualities of study in Europe. Other terms related to social contract had
much lower frequencies, such as: market-based (1), tradition (4), and values (6).

Content analysis was not limited to drawing conclusions merely based on
ﬁ'equency of terms. Terms were also studied in their usage within the context of the
Bologna Process documents. The overall structure of the discourse was an enthusiastic
promotion of market forces carefully enclosed within a mandate to protect and promote
social and cultural dimensions of European life. Within the market-oriented discourse
ﬂowed an array of strategies intended to fulﬁll the call for greater market orientation.
These strategies included increasing the mobility of students and employees across
national boundaries, improving the international recognition of degrees and
qualiﬁcations, improving quality assurance schemes, and promoting industry-academy
research collaboration in higher education. Strategies for social cohesion centered on
ensuring equal access to higher education. The policy documents also noted the
importance of participation in the Bologna Process by all stakeholders in higher
education, including student unions.

From this content analysis, the study concluded that the Bologna Process was
intended to move higher education in Europe in a market-oriented direction (or closer to a

Smith-type social contract). Such movement proceeded, however, from an enduring

105

foundation in a Hobbes-type social contract. This foundation recognized the role of
government in protecting social cohesion via higher education.

The next step of content analysis was to judge the central themes and the balance
of terms relating to the ﬁrst research question, the academic research dynamic in the
Bologna Process. Market-oriented terms tied to academic research policy in the Bologna
process were slightly more frequent than government-oriented terms (10 Smith to 7
Hobbes). Similar to the overall tenor of the Bologna Process documents, the discourse
relating to the research function of higher education pointed directly to the need for
Europe to compete globally in higher education via initiatives like increasing joint
research between public higher education and the private sector, but the Bologna Process
set that imperative squarely within the need to protect and further social considerations
like equal access.

Themes and terms relating to the second research question, the student support
dynamic in the Bologna Process, were analyzed as follows. First, any mention of access
policy was noted. As of 2007, Bologna Process countries were required to report on the
social dimension (or how they are ensuring equal access to higher education regardless of
ﬁnancial status). This overall policy goal amounts to a Hobbes-type (govemment— and
social welfare-oriented) social contract. Second, the Bologna Process policy statements
were searched for any mention of student ﬁnancial support policy. There was none. This
meant that the Bologna Process, as an intergovernmental process, left the conduct of
student ﬁnancial support policy up to nations, as long as each nation was committed to

equal access to higher education.

106

Three Country Cases: Academic Research Dynamic

During the process of conducting content analysis on 13 national policy
documents from the European Commission ERA-WATCH data site (see list of
documents in Appendix B), it became clear that the policy contents of each document
were shaped by the orientation of its authors. The 13 documents on national policy
responses to the Bologna Process included ﬁve documents written as national responses
to the Lisbon Accord process in the European Union. This subset of policy documents
were originally submitted to the European Union to report national progress on economic
development goals agreed to in Lisbon. They were included in the ERA website due to
their relevance to the creation of the European Research Area, which involves academic
research. The Lisbon documents were also relevant to this study because the Bologna
discussion between ministries of education, as a response to global competition in higher
education, is nested in the Lisbon economic policy discussion. The Lisbon Process, also a
response to global economic competition, is led by prime ministers, ministries of ﬁnance
or trade, and business groups. Accordingly, the Lisbon documents were tallied separately
to account for potential bias of its authors, who are more connected to business interests.

Results of the analysis of Lisbon-related documents were:

Finland: 33 Smith (high-frequency terms were market, economic development,
competition, innovation, technological, mobility, competence, skills, knowledge) to 13
Hobbes (government, social).

Norway: 46 Smith (market, economic development, competition, innovation,

technology, competence) to 13 Hobbes (government, social, quality, public).

107

From this analysis, it is clear that the Lisbon Process engenders a strong market
orientation in policies regarding academic research, even for nonsignatory countries like
Norway.

Sweden: 59 Smith (market, economic growth, competition, innovative, quality,
skills) to 13 Hobbes (government, social).

Eight remaining Bologna Process policy documents (outside the Lisbon Process)
had the following results:

Finland: 9 Smith to 9 Hobbes

Norway: 27 Smith to 31 Hobbes

Sweden: 75 Smith to 24 Hobbes

According to this analysis of Bologna Process documents outside the Lisbon
Process, national policies regarding academic research in the three country cases
analyzed were tied to a degree to key differences in how each country related to the
Lisbon Process in the European Union. Norway is an observer, not a signatory, to the
Lisbon Accords. Norway’s documentation of progress in enhancing academic research
with a view to foster a globally competitive European economy was piecemeal and
muted, compared to the other countries’ in-depth and enthusiastic reports. Because
Norway’s Lisbon-related statements promise more robust market-oriented policies in the
ﬁrture, Norway’s social contract regarding academic research was classiﬁed in this study
to be marginally Smith-type. Sweden, a signatory to the Lisbon Accords, was far out in
front of the other two countries in its national commitment to research for global
competitiveness, clearly a Smith-type social contract. Finland, also a signatory to the

Lisbon Accords, balanced its enthusiastic national discussions of enhancing research for

108

competitiveness with discussions of its social ramiﬁcations. Finnish higher education
policies are made in the context of the erosion of local communities in the wake of
growing pluralism in Finnish society (Finnish Ministry of Education, 2004). As a result,
Finnish policies to improve academic research recognize the need to beneﬁt all social
sectors and all regions of Finnish society. For this study, Finland was determined to tip at
least marginally in favor of a Smith (or market-oriented) social contract for academic
research due to its enthusiastic participation in the Lisbon Process, which generates
strong research policy statements and detailed strategies for their implementation.

These subtler aspects of the Finland case raised a distinction within the concept of
national social contract--that being the distinction between national policy orientation and
the roles expected of stakeholders. The deﬁnition of social contract used in the current
study included the expected roles of stakeholders in higher education. Further study of
national policy statements showed that, for Finland, government entities are the main
participants intended to carry out the more market-oriented policies regarding academic
research. This ﬁnding would be classiﬁed as a Hobbes-type result for stakeholder
participation, but as a Smith-type result for policy orientation. This more nuanced
application of the concept of social contract, to include expected participation by
stakeholders, was adopted for the current study. Along these lines, the same national
policy documents were studied, to ﬁnd that participation in academic research is expected
to be a mix of government and industry (a Locke-type mix) in Norway. Participation in
academic research is expected to be primarily by government entities in Sweden, which is

a Hobbes-type result.

109

Key research projects posted on the ERA-WATCH site (see lists of key projects
in Appendix C) were analyzed, using content analysis. Project funding amounts were
classiﬁed in terms of which social contract was reﬂected in ﬁrst, project goals and
second, who received the funds. The results for project goals were:

Finland: 51% Hobbes, 41% Locke, 8% Smith

Norway: 57% Smith, 29% Locke, 14% Hobbes

Sweden: 72% Smith, 25% Hobbes, 3% Locke
For some key projects, universities shared funding with private entities. For the purposes
of this study, Shared funding, or partnering government with business on research
projects, was classiﬁed as a Locke-type result, where government and business work
together. Sweden shared project ﬁmding between public and private entities to a higher
degree (33 percent of key project funding was shared) than Finland (9 percent was
1 shared). Norway shared 83 percent, a clearly Locke-type result. A rough benchmark of 50
percent or more shared funding determined the Locke-type classiﬁcation. This
benchmark placed Finland and Sweden in the Hobbes-type category.

Results for all three countries aggregated were: Research project goals in terms of
which social contracts are reﬂected in project goals: 885 million euros reﬂected Smith-
type, market-oriented goals; 308 million euros reﬂected Hobbes-type, social welfare
goals; 452 million euros reﬂected a Locke-type mix of the other two. Recipients of
project funds by type of social contract were: 0 Smith, 528 Hobbes, 1,092 Locke. (Note:
It is expected that no private entities [Smith-type] without public partners [Locke-type]
would receive funding intended for higher education institutions.) Hence, in aggregate,

the goals of research projects were in a Smith-type (or market) orientation. Funding in

110

aggregate ﬂowed mainly toward a Locke-type mix of public- and private-sector
recipients. The analysis of the Bologna Process documents evidenced that its signatories
agreed to fund more research projects oriented toward market-based needs. They also
agreed to fund more joint industry-academy projects. When data for the three country
cases are aggregated, therefore, the three Nordic countries, if taken as a bloc, appear to be
exactly aligned with Bologna Process priorities for academic research.

The third variable in this conceptualization of the dynamics of the social contract
regarding academic research was the percent of academic research funded by the
government. I used three approaches to explore this dynamic. The aim of this study was
to analyze how much of goverrunent research and development (R & D) funds went to
the higher education sector alone. The data were not aggregated in that manner. Instead,
the analysis began with trend data on the percent of government spending on R & D'to all
recipients, including higher education, the business sector, the government sector, and the
private nonproﬁt sector. The trends for government funding of R & D during the Bologna
Process period were (per Table 3, and summarized in Figure 3):

Finland: A decreasing trend, even before the Bologna Process, totaled a 22
percent decrease in government funding over the ten years studied. This is a signiﬁcant
decrease. This reduction of the role of government is a Smith-type result.

Norway: An initial decrease, then an increasing trend after 2001, totaled an
increase of 7 percent in government ﬁmding over the decade studied (a Hobbes-type

result). Such a small increase is not Signiﬁcant, however, over ten years.

111

Sweden: Increases alternated with decreases, ending in a decrease. The result over
ten years was an overall decrease of 10 percent in government funding (a Smith-type
result). This does not amount to a Signiﬁcant overall decrease.

Table 3

Gross Domestic Expenditure on R & D by Source of Funds, Percent Financed by
Government

 

Country 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

 

Finland 30.9 30 29.2 26.2 25.5 26.1 25.7 26.3 25.7 25.1 24.1

 

Norway 42.9 N/A 42.5 N/A 39.8 N/A 41.9 N/A 44 N/A 45.9

 

Sweden 25.8 N/A 26.1 N/A 22.3 N/A 24.3 N/A 23.2 N/A N/A

 

Source: European Commission (2009). Gross domestic expenditure on R & D (GERD) by source of funds.

Eurostat Retrieved 2/26/2009 from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal

These national trends in government support for R & D Show that, with the
exception of Norway, the trend is toward a decreased role for government, which is a
Smith-type trend. Norway shows an increased role for government, which is a Hobbes-
type trend.

It is important for the purposes of this study to analyze how much funding went to
the higher education sector alone. Unfortunately, for this set of R & D funding data,
recipients were aggregated, such that government funding to higher education could not
be isolated from other recipients of government funding for R & D. Data for R & D

funding ﬁom all sources to the higher education sector alone are presented in Table 4.

112

Table 4

R & D Expenditure by Sectors of Performance, as Percent of GDP, Higher Education
Only

 

Country 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

 

Finland 0.54 0.56 0.62 0.6 0.6 0.64 0.66 0.68 0.66 0.65 0.65

 

Norway 0.43 N/A 0.47 N/A 0.41 0.44 0.47 0.47 0.47 0.46 0.51

 

Sweden 0.75 N/A 0.8 N/A 0.82 N/A 0.84 0.83 0.79 0.77 0.77

 

Source: European Commission (2009). Research and development expenditure, by sectors of performance.

Eurostat. Retrieved 2/26/2009 from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal

Results for aggregated funding ﬁ'om all funding sources to the higher education
sector alone (as shown in Table 4) were:

Finland: Moderate increasing trend since before the Bologna Process.

Norway: Slight increase at outset of Bologna Process, then decreases, which were
erased by a return to previous levels that held Steady, with a ﬁnal increase in 2007.

Sweden: Increasing trend ﬁorn outset of Bologna Process, with slightly
decreasing trend beginning in 2005.
In general, the three countries maintained or increased the portion of R & D spending
going to the higher education sector. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that changes in
R & D funding by governments (Table 3) went at least proportionately to the higher
education sector. .

Because Finland and Sweden were members of the European Union and
signatories to the Lisbon Accords, which stipulated that 3 percent of GDP go toward R &

D, it was informative to analyze UNESCO time series data ﬁ'om 1997 to 2006 on gross

113

domestic expenditure on R & D as a percent of GDP. Results (summarized in Table 5)
were:

Finland: The trend line shows a marginal increase over time, totaling a 26 percent
increase over ten years.
Table 5 1

Gross Domestic Expenditure on R & D (% of GDP)

 

Country 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

 

Finland 2.7 2.9 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.4 3.4 3.4 3.5 3.4

 

Norway 1.6 N/A 1.6 N/A 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.6 1.5 1.5

 

Sweden 3.5 N/A 3.6 N/A 4.3 N/A 3.9 3.7 3.9 3.8

 

Source: UNESCO (2009). Expenditure on R & D as a % of GDP. Retrieved on 2/25/2009 from

http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco

Norway: The trend line increased until 2003, then decreased. Over the ten years
studied, gross R & D spending as a percent of GDP increased by 19 percent.

Sweden: The trend was an increase over the period with a spike in 2001. The
overall result was a 9 percent increase over ten years.

Despite the fact that Norway is not a signatory to the Lisbon Accord, which
mandates R & D funding at higher levels, Norwegian ofﬁcials are still highly apologetic
about not meeting the Lisbon goal of 3 percent of GDP. The national political will is
determined, according to the government, to heighten R & D funding. This is expected to
be accomplished partly through ﬁmding increases from the business sector (Norwegian
Ministry of Trade and Industry, 2007). Oil is not a renewable resource in the long term,

making it imperative for Norway to address global competition in a knowledge economy

114

sooner rather than later. The Norwegian government (Norwegian Ministry of Trade and
Industry, 2007) also explained their decreased funding to R & D as mainly the result of
substantial jumps in overall GDP due to oil price increases. Absolute amounts of R & D
funding ﬁ'om government increased for Norway since 2003 (see Table 3), but growth in
Norway’s GDP reduced their percentages of GDP. The Norwegian government
(Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, 2007) stated its commitment to reach the
Lisbon target of 3 percent of GDP by 2010, including annual budget reviews of this
target. The government admits (Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, 2007) that
Norway is currently below the EU average for the percent of GDP devoted to fund R &
D. Norway’s progress toward this target over the past decade has been particularly
challenged by the structure of its economy, which is dominated by industries that
typically do not invest substantially in R & D.

Finland reached the Lisbon Accord mark of 3 percent of GDP in 1999, which is a
reasonable explanation of why the trend line shows slow marginal growth. The Finnish
Ministry of Education (2004) reported that efforts to bring R & D funding to the top
levels globally succeeded in the late 19908, with the majority of funds coming from the
private sector. Further increases are harder to make, chieﬂy because entrepreneurship
drives the next level of innovation, and private venture capital for R & D is scant in
Finland (Science and Technology Policy Council, 2006). The council (2006) also reports
that because Finland has wong the lowest levels of external funding for R & D in the
OECD, attracting funds from other countries is a key way to achieve more funding

increases in the future. .

115

Sweden reached its Lisbon 3 percent mark in 1997, which may be one reason why
increases have not been forthcoming since 2001, when it topped the OECD in R .& D
spending as percent of GDP (Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment, and
Communications, 2004). The current, so-called “Innovative Sweden” strategy to
intemationalize the research sector is intended to keep Sweden’s lead as a climate for
business investment, technology, and innovation against globalized knowledge
competition (Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment, and Communications, 2004).
The combination of well-managed government, healthy social security systems, and a
political culture based on consensus has mobilized and steered national resources
effectively (Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment, and Communications, 2004).
The public and private sectors have interacted successfully in long-term strategies to
develop Swedish industries and advanced technologies (Swedish Ministry of Industry,
Employment, and Communications, 2004). From 1994 to 2004 increased foreign
investment contributed to R & D investment (Swedish Ministry of Industry,
Employment, and Communications, 2004). Current policy is to merge Sweden’s
industrial research institutes, which are presently specialized and marginal, in order to
focus and extend collaboration between industry and academe (Swedish Ministry of
Industry, Employment, and Communications, 2004).

‘ The results of this study of the academic research dynamic are summarized in the

following 3-by-3 grid in Table 6:

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Table 6

Academic Research Social Contract (SC)

 

 

 

 

Bologna SC Country National SC Gross R&D funding by source
tie; iiiliiec‘ti'gtiiti """"
Participants
Purposes: Smith Finland Purposes: Marginally Smith Signiﬁcant Smith funding shiﬁ
Participation: Locke Participation: Hobbes Hobbes projects goals
Hobbes participants
Purposes: Smith Norway Purposes: Marginally Smith Minimal Hobbes funding shift
Participation: Locke Participation: Locke Smith projects goals
Locke participants
Purposes: Smith Sweden Purposes: Substantially Smith Mmimalﬁmithftrndinng shift _
Participation: Locke Participation: Hobbes Smith projects goals
Hobbes participants

 

Three Country Cases: Student Support Dynamic

Bologna Process national reports from each country reported the following
progress from 2004 to 2006: Finland continued with no changes: its commitment to equal
access for all students (low-income and immigrant groups have lowest participation); its
commitment to diversity: its philosophy that parents are not obligated to pay tuition; and
its commitment to ﬂee tuition for all higher education in the form of grants and loans,
which are fully portable. Thirty percent of a student’s loan is deducted if the student
completes the degree in a speciﬁed period. The government also funds 80 percent of
housing expenses.

Norway continued with. no changes: its commitment to equal access for all
students (low-income and those whose parents do not have university education have

lowest participation); its philosophy that parents are not obligated to pay tuition; and the

117

role of student uniOnS in providing student housing, ﬁnanced with government funds and
a mandatory fee from students. Tuition is paid by government grants and loans, based on
student or Spouse income. A maximum 40 percent of student loans can be converted into
a grant. The government keeps its commitment to cooperate with municipalities and
student unions to fund student housing.

Sweden continued with no changes: its comrrritrnent to equal access for all
students (students coming from homes with little study tradition or ﬁom some ethnic
groups have lowest participation rates; hence, they are the focus of access policies); its
commitment to diversity; and its philosophy that parents arenot obligated to pay tuition.
The support mix is 34 percent grants and 66 percent loans for all students.

This stable government orientation (as in a Hobbes-type social contract) in these
three Nordic countries runs counter to recent trends in Europe to add fees and/or increase
tuition (European Commission, 2007). The results of this study of the student support

dynamic are summarized in the following 3-by-3 grid in Table 7:

118

Table 7

Student Support Social Contract (SC)

 

Bologna SC Country National SC Funding Allocation

 

 

 

 

Access: Hobbes Finland , Hobbes Hobbes
Support: no comment Hobbes Hobbes
Access: Hobbes Norway Hobbes Hobbes
Support: no comment Hobbes Hobbes
Access: Hobbes Sweden Hobbes Hobbes
Support: no comment Hobbes Hobbes
Added Step of A nalysis

A step of analysis was added after the initial results were reaped because the
country case data indicated that substantial national commitments to economic
development were in place prior to the Bologna Process. These results suggested a more
historical approach to the case analyses. The approach taken was to overlay each
country’s social contract as adopted during the Bologna Process on top of its historical,
traditional social contract. This analysis was done by comparing country results against
the description of each country case (at the beginning of chapter 3).

This additional step of analysis revealed that national social contracts were
evolving in the direction taken in the Bologna Process signiﬁcantly before the Process
was initiated. All three countries absorbed the managerialism of the 1980s, as well as the
emphasis on the knowledge economy of the 19903. An increasing emphasis on market-

orientation, or movement of social contract in a Srrrith-type direction, was injected into

119

these welfare states’ Hobbes-type government orientations decades prior to the Bologna
Declaration. The Bologna Process social contract was a rising market orientation nested
in the context of concerns for maintaining social cohesion via continuing emphases on
social welfare and social justice. Student-support social contracts, as reﬂected in access
policies, were consistently Hobbes-type for the three countries, which matched the
Bologna Process social contract. Where the Bologna Process was silent, as in how to
provide access to higher education via student support policies, countries followed their
national social contracts. This result indicated a strong role for national social contracts.

For the academic research dynamic, however, funding patterns were only partially
consistent with the Bologna Process social contract. Country differences reﬂected
national priorities and traditions, which formed part of their national social contracts. For
example, in the case of Finland, the Academy of Finland received ﬁmding for all but one
key project. The academy is a government body, or a Hobbes-type recipient of research
funding, oﬂen guided by Hobbes-type project goals. This is not surprising, in that the
Academy of Finland is well-respected and more long-established than the other Finnish
research agencies. The Academy also performs the important function of doctoral
research training in the Finnish system (Science and Technology Council of Finland,
2006)

Such results suggested that national social contracts had more inﬂuence on overall
ﬁtnding patterns than did the priorities of the Bologna Process. If the Bologna Process
had prevailed in every case, Shared research funding between academe and industry

‘ would have been more the norrrr, or higher than 50 percent, in Finland and Sweden. Also,

Finland would fund more market-oriented key projects, and Norway would increase

120

ﬁrnding from private sources for acaderrric research. Clearly, the Bologna Process
national contract did not drive overall funding patterns. Rather, national differences are
evident, which may reﬂect national social contracts. A close look at Table 6 (above)
shows that the last two columns (national social contract purposes and participants and

goals and participants in key projects, by country) match exactly. Hence, the results of

 

this study suggest strongly that national social contract is a stronger inﬂuence on funding ‘
r1
patterns than is supranational social contract. j
: 1
Yet, if the three countries studied were considered as a bloc, their funding patterns / ,1
‘ 1

matched Bologna Process initiatives exactly, primarily by funding iri aggregate mainly
Locke-type recipients, as the Bologna Process promoted. This result led to the following
considerations. Multinational negotiations require compromise. Such compromises often
lead to agreements that protect aggregate interests more than the subtleties of separate
national interests. If the Bologna Process were the product of the negotiated national
interests of these three countries, such negotiation among national social contracts would
likely result in aggregate funding patterns that follow the Bologna ProCess social
contract.

National results indicated that national social contracts existed before the Bologna
Declaration, were carried into the Bologna meeting, and drove the evolving Bologna
Process, rather than the Bologna Process driving national social contracts. The
differences between this conceptualization and the conceptualization assumed by this

study prior to its results are diagramed in Figures 4 and 5.

121

Figure 4

Hypothesized Conceptualization of Academic Research Dynamic of Social Contract

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

National
Supranational social National social ﬁnance
contract regarding - - contract regarding - - - - p P°h°Y_
govemment’s role in government’s role in “383111198
academic research academic research academic
research
Figure 5

Conceptualization of Academic Research Dynamic of Social Contract after This
Study Was Conducted

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supranational social

contract regarding

government’s role in N . 111
National social academic research atron
contract regarding poﬁnmlicy
govemment’s role in re .
academic research gafdlcmlng
J I research

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nordic Commonalities
In considering these three Nordic countries and the possibility of bloc behavior, it
was useful to this study to examine the nature and origins of commonalities among them

in chapter 3. Similarities Shared among the Nordic countries sterrrrned in part from their

 

histories of " J.’ u "‘ iarrierrr, regional intellectual and ﬁnancial
cooperation, and high levels of social capital. Wage differentiation is low across the
Nordic countries, due to their strong egalitarianism. F ifty-ﬁve to 70 percent of

respondents in these three countries said that people can be trusted—high percentages

122

compared to the other OECD countries studied, which scored as low as 12 percent for
trust.

It may be that the high levels of trust in Nordic societies, added to their regional
cooperation, facilitate consensus on social contract not only nationally but also across the
Nordic region. Regional consensus and cooperation may have been factors in the current
study’s research result that, if the three countries’ funding patterns were aggregated, the
results matched the Bologna Process social contract exactly. Perhaps the aggregated
result reﬂects their broad similarities and cloaks their subtle differences.

The Bologna Process as a Bottom— Up, International/Multinational Process

Another consideration in the interpretation of results was the top-down, bottom-
up debate discussed in chapter 2. De Wit (2007) gave evidence for classifying the
Bologna Process, especially in its formative phase, as a nationally-driven proceSs. His
characterization of the Bologna Process as an eSsentially bottom-up voluntary
intergovernmental cooperation increasingly encroached upon by. the EU aids in the
interpretation of the results of the current study. This study of the Bologna Process found
that national social contracts reﬂected better than supranational social contract the
complex patterns of national funding of academic research and student ﬁnancial support.
The primacy of national stances supports the characterization of the Bologna Process as a
bottom-up process, driven by its members rather than by the EU bureaucracy. The current
study also found that national policies connected with the Lisbon Accord of the EU are
distinctly more market oriented than in the Bologna Process. The implications are: If EU

inﬂuence grows in the Bologna Process, then the Bologna Process can be expected to

123

become more top-down, and its social contract can be expected to become more market
oriented.

Meek and Goedegebuure (2007) also point out the growing supranational
inﬂuence of the EU in higher education in recent years despite the principle of
subsidiarity, or the prime responsibility of member states in higher education as a force
exerting external pressure on the Bologna Process to standardize or homogenize
European higher education. They look to Neave’s (2002) close historical analysis to
conclude, “What appears at a superﬁcial level to be the same or Similar national response
to external pressures, quickly becomes more varied and complex with closer scrutiny.
The Bologna Process is a case in point. The Bologna Process, rather than forcing national
higher [sic] systems to conform to a common supranational initiative, provided them with
a lever to do what they intended to do all along” (Meek & Goedegebuure, 2007, p. 284).
Neave (2002) concluded that the Bologna Process “is built upon—and brings together—
trends already present in different systems and presents them‘as part of the Bologna
Process. It does not create them” (p. 186). More recently, Neave and Amara] (2008) drew
the following conclusion from their analysis of Bologna Process documents, plus country
case studies for a set of countries (France, Germany, and Italy) different ﬁom the current
study: “Individual Signatory states could claim the moral leverage required to use
Bologna as an additional blessing for policies many had in hand before Bologna These
were powerful claims and especially so in such sensitive areas as competitiveness and
employability, which represented a ftmdamental departure ﬁ'om earlier notions that
turned around employment, and which stood as an explicit neoliberal reinterpretation of

higher education’s purpose. Such ﬁndings were an integral part of a manufactured

124

consensus without which the Bologna strategy risked progressing less briskly” (p. 51).
The ﬁndings of these recent studies (although reached by different means than the current
study) agree with the results of the current study, that the Bologna Process was more a
conﬂuence of existing national policies than a supranationally directed initiative.

For these reasons, and as a result of the current study, I would deﬁne the EU
processes, such as the Lisbon Process (which tend to be more top-down) as supranational
processes. I would classify the Bologna Process as a bottom-up process—and in that sense
more an international than supranational process because I have found that its members
are guided primarily by their national social contracts. My deﬁnition is in accord with
Knight (1997), who deﬁned international processes in higher education as those that
protect existing national identities. Alternatively, the Bologna Process could also be
termed a multination or multilateral process, per Neave and Amara] (2008). For these
reasons, this study ﬁnds that the terms international, multinational, or multilateral
describe the nationally sourced direction of the Bologna Process, rather than the term
supranational.

Limitations

The limitations of this study were those typical of comparative international case
studies in general, plus additional limitations caused by the novelty of the topic. Due to
the limited number of cases studied and their similarities, the results of this study cannot
be generalized to other countries without further study. All three countries studied were
Nordic countries, and hence they shared traditions and characteristics common to their
region. For example, democracy and consensus have been national characteristics of the

Nordic countries throughout history (Lindal, 1981).

125

Due to these strong similarities, it may be a useful next step in research on social
contract to study the relationships in Figures 4 and 5 in a set of countries with widely
differing traditional social contracts, such as a strongly ﬂee-market state, a welfare state,
and a mixed economy. Alternatively, a study comparing all of the Nordic countries to the
rest of Europe in the Bologna Process would explore the role of regional similarities in
social contract.

Comparative studies in higher education are often limited by national differences
between systems. This problem was mitigated for this study by choosing similar cases,
according to the methodology of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Choice of
country cases by QCA facilitated the inclusion of factors chosen for the study and the
elimination of factors considered most irrelevant. Only further research can clarify if the
chosen factors are the most relevant.

The minimal prior conceptualization and application of social contract required
this study to expand conceptualization in more detail before its initial application. This
study operated as an initial empirical study as well as a conceptualization. As such, it is
limited by its scope from including a majority of possibly relevant factors that may shape
social contract, especially those factors salient in countries that differ highly from the
three welfare states studied. It also is limited by its scope from examining all potentially
relevant confounding factors. For example, dependency on EU ﬁrnding was not studied
(e. g., study of funding to the three case countries from EU higher education programs
such as COMETT, ERASMUS, SOCRATES, LEONARDO, COMENIUS, and LINGUA
[De Wit & Verhoeven, 2001]). Nor was the role of demographics formally analyzed in

the current study, although it was mentioned in the country backgrounds in chapter 3.

126

Demographic forces are at times prevalent in higher education and may push social
contract in new directions, just as the baby boom pushed universities to prepare graduates
for jobs beyond the limited number of posts available in the civil service.

The current study was intended as an initial empirical study of the dynamics of
social contract in higher education. Its results indicated the probable existence of the
phenomenon and outlined its inﬂuence in higher education ﬁnance policy, evidencing the
potential of its further conceptualization and application.

Conclusions Based on Results

This study examined the relationship between the supranational social contract of
the Bologna Process and the national social contracts of three welfare states in the areas
of academic research funding and student support funding. Several conclusions are drawn
from the results of the content analyses. For student support, because any explicit
supranational policy on student support funding was absent, the Nordics’ national social
contracts and student support funding policies continue with full government support as
before. Here, the European trend of national social contracts moving toward increased
student payments is weak compared to the Nordics’ national social contracts in their
’ inﬂuences on national funding patterns. Hence, absent supranational social contract, the
national social contract is a stronger deternrinant of funding in the three countries studied
than the shifts in social contracts in other European countries.

Also, for academic research, national social contract is the driving factor, more so
than supranational social contract. Evidence supporting this conclusion is threefold. First,
in each country case studied, the trend of national . social contract regarding academic

research in a Smith direction was pronounced long before the Bologna Process. From

127

historical evidence of global trends presented in the literature review and national
histories presented in the country case data, this study concluded that the Bologna
Process was a joining of existing national social contracts that were headed in the same
direction, rather than a top-down push of supranational social contract on each country.
This conclusion makes sense in terms of the Bologna Process itself being a bottom-up
rather than a top—down process and its key actors being ministries of education and higher
education institutions (HEIS), rather than EU representatives.

The history of the relationship between social cohesion, economic development,
and higher education traced in chapter 2 stressed the close alignment of European HEIS
with service to the state. Experiences varied by country, but it can be seen in the country
history section in chapter 3 that Finland, Norway, and Sweden closely tied higher
education to public service. The current study found evidence of the important role of
national social cohesion in the Bologna Process. Social cohesion was a term used
explicitly in the Bologna Process documents analyzed for the current study. For example,
nation states in the Bologna Process view marginalization and exclusion as forces that
erode social cohesion and hence must be avoided in higher education reform. As seen in
the country histories’ chapter of the current study, Finland, Norway, and Sweden have
been at the foreﬁ'ont of these efforts in Europe. Concern for social disparity translates,
especially in these three Nordic countries, into attention to regional development, which
has been a central concern in other European countries as well during the past four
decades. These concerns at the national level prompted agreement on social cohesion in

the Bologna Process.

128

A second ”reasoning behind this study’s conclusion in favor of the strength of
national social contracts over that of the Bologna Process lies in the case of Norway.
Norway’s case may exemplify the preeminence of national social contract regarding
academic research. The structure of Norway’s economy (comprised mainly of low R & D
industries) and its slow start in increasing R & D funding compared to the EU countries
made it slow going to boost R & D funding to the Lisbon target of 3 percent of GDP.
Another factor relevant to social contract may have been at work. Strong national social
protest determined the limits of the social contract in Norway by not allowing Norway to
become an EU member. As a nonmember of the EU, Norway did not sign onto the EU
Lisbon Accord goal of giving 3 percent of GDP to research and development. Given
these factors, it is no surprise that Norway’s gross overall funding of R & D is far below
Finland’s and Sweden’s, who are both EU members and signatories to the Lisbon
Accords.

Third, the results of this study for academic research social contract show a higher
correlation across all three country cases between national social contracts and frmding
trends than between supranational social contract and funding trends. The supranational
social contract embodied in the Bologna Process encouraged R & D funding toward a
Locke-type mix of government and private entities as recipients. Taken in aggregate
across all three countries, the organizations that received the project funds followed the
pattern of the Bologna Process. But when the results were separated by country, national
funding went instead mainly to Hobbes-type government entities, with the exception of

Norway. Funding went to higher education, which is mostly a part of the governments of

129

these welfare states. The structure of higher education continues to be minimally
privatized in the three welfare states studied.

For these reasons, this study concluded that, although hypothesized the opposite
direction, the national social contract inﬂuences the supranational social contract more
than the reverse. This study also concluded, as hypothesized, that national social contract
inﬂuences funding policy, more so than supranational social contract.

The Bologna Process is a discussion between education ministries and as such is
nested within social welfare contexts, ideologies, and language. Hence, market
orientation is balanced with social dimensions. As a result, shifts toward market
orientation moved more slowly in the Bologna Process than in the Lisbon Process (which
is focused on developing member states’ economies). The three welfare states studied
retained their commitments to social welfare by shifting strategies toward energizing
market forces but only with the explicit purpose of strengthening the welfare state.

Future Research

As mentioned, it may be a useful next step in research on social contract to study
the relationships in Figures 4 and 5 in a set of countries with widely differing traditional
social contracts, such as a strongly free-market state, a welfare state, and a mixed
economy. Alternatively, a study comparing all of the Nordic countries to the rest of
Europe in the Bologna Process would explore the role of regional similarities in social
contract. To follow up on the current study, it would be useful to evaluate the inﬂuence of
political, social, and cultural similarities among the Nordic countries in the Bologna
Process, a prime example being the Nordic model for democracy shared by Finland,

Norway, and Sweden (mentioned in chapter 3).

130

I

Further research on the Bologna Process can also trace the relationship between
the bottom-up Bologna Process and the top-down Lisbon Process, as discussed in
chapters 1, 2, and 3. In the current study, content analysis comparing documents closely
related to the Lisbon Process to the remainder of Bologna Process documents studied
found signiﬁcantly higher emphases of economic development in the Lisbon Process
documents. The history of the relationship between the Lisbon and Bologna Processes
adumbrated in chapter 1 evidenced that economic development (the core objective of the
Lisbon Process) became a priority in the Bologna Process as of the Prague Communique
in 2001. It also indicated that, although the European Commission (EC) had been
speciﬁcally excluded from the Bologna Process up until 2004, with a view to make the
initial phase an initiative of nations rather than of the European Union, EC
representatives were added to the Bologna Process in recent years. Because the EC is the
bureaucratic arm of the EU Lisbon Process, its presence adds a strong, top—down,
supranational force favoring economic over cultural development into the Bologna
Process. EC involvement suggests that the ﬁnding of the current study that the Bologna
Process to date is inﬂuenced more by national than supranational factors should be tested
again after the next phases of the Bologna Process.

Beneﬁts of the Study

Any venture into relatively unexplored territory has daunting aspects, which are
compensated for somewhat by the thrill of overcoming challenges. This study
successfully addressed three initial challenges to the study of a macro level social
phenomenon i.e., subjectivity of study of a social construct, lack of deﬁnition of social

contract terms, and the multiplicity of social contracts. After addressing these three

131

challenges, this study laid out a research design and methodology that proved viable for
the case study analysis of three select countries. ‘
This study applied a deﬁnition of social contract (Neave, 2006) in higher
education policy as the expected roles of stakeholders in higher education. The current
study indicates that the phenomenon of social contract does exist, and operates
dynamically, especially at the national level. Hence, if social contract is changing, it is
because nations desire such change—at least, they think they do. Further experience with [

marketization and privatization may turn the tide, after the fuller scope of the beneﬁts and ,3,

costs of marketization are realized.

This study also offers a systematic approach to the study of social contract by
indicating that social contract is a viable conceptual frame for higher education policy
that may be applicable to all countries and, as such, a comprehensive, or globally
applicable, frame. Higher education policy has been a ﬁeld in search of a global ﬁarne
(Neave, 2006). Comparative analyses beneﬁt greatly from conceptual frames that can be
applied to a range of countries, and many have been tried and shown wanting
(Martinusson, 1997; Neave, 2006). Such ﬂames do more heavy conceptual lifting than
can thematic analyses (Kogan, 1996). ’

Epilogue: Implications
Concerns regarding shifting social contract were raised in the introduction and
were highlighted in the Beneﬁts sections of this study. This epilogue considers future
implications regarding these concerns in light of the results of this study.
If social contract inﬂuences the values and missions of institutions of higher

education (Gumport, 2001; Kezar, 2004), then it is a phenomenon guiding the sector of

132

national economies that shapes their futures. If changes in the social contract involve and
affect all stakeholders in higher education (Gumport, 2001; Kezar, 2004; Veysey, 1970),
then its impact is broad. If its effects are often ﬁnancial, as this study indicates, then if the
social contract weakens, perhaps due to reduced public appreciation for the public
beneﬁts of higher education, public-sector funding shifts to other priorities, and higher
education suffers (Johnstone, 2006; Kezar, 2004).

This study gave empirical evidence that the national social contracts of the three
case studies, as well as the social contract of the Bologna Process, have deﬁned the
purposes of higher education to move in the direction of economic development, as
several scholars suggested (Gumport, 2001; Kezar, 2004; Neave, 2006; Rhoades &
Slaughter, 2006). If, as Fairweather and Hodges (2006) warn and as Kezar (2004)
believes, higher education acts more and more like an industry and less and less like a
social institution, one evidence of which is the orientation toward goals and values
determined by changing economic needs, such a redirection of purposes may further
erode the social roles of higher education. The ﬁrndamental opportunity cost offers
“compromises that are potentially harmful for higher education and the general public,
especially as that charter relates to the historic mission of fostering democracy and such
important values as equality, academic freedom, or the pursuit of knowledge” (Kezar,
2004, p. 430). Such concerns will grow if the balance found in the current study between
social and economic ends in the Bologna Process tips farther in the direction of economic
imperatives, as it may with greater EC participation.

This study also found that the Bologna Process social contract is market oriented.

in its policy direction. In other words, the chosen direction for the future of the three

133

Ft-

welfare states studied is greater use of market forces for both social welfare and
economic development. A market orientation for research was no doubt chosen by the
Bologna Process participants based on assumptions regarding its future beneﬁts. These
assumptions are questionable when applied outside the business sector and especially
questionable when applied in the higher education sector. One concept of questionable
application was competitiveness, which was a dominant theme in the documents
examined for the current study. European scholars of higher education also saw the theme
of competitiveness to be a frequent reference in their analysis of Bologna and Lisbon
Process policy documents (Gornitzka, et al., 2007). These scholars point out that the
competitiveness seems to carry with it a bundle of untested assumptions about how
higher education systems operate in the competing national settings, particularly in the
U.S.. Europeans look to the U.S. as their chief competitor because it is known for having
the best research universities in the world. Gornitzka, et al. (2007) state that “the success
of U.S. higher education and academic research is assumed to be the result of the
marketization of U.S. universities, high private investments in education and research,
'coupled with a weak state” (p. 211). This assumption is not supported by empirical study,
according to Gornitzka, et al. (2007). They give the example of the highly marketized
higher education system of Australia, which does not rank among the best in the world.

The current study further found that research funds ﬂow primarily to government
entities in the three welfare states studied. In the case of Sweden, a majority of projects
shared ﬁmds jointly between the public and private sectors, but still, market forces did
not prevail. Enhancing public—private research collaboration is an example of

decentralization efforts, which have a long way to go in Sweden. Geiger (1985b)

134

approves of decentralization, as a critic of central government planning and direction of
research policy. His (1985b) analysis of the historical record indicated that the most
constructive forms of adaptation ﬂow from the normal operations of science itself and of
the scientiﬁc community rather than from bureaucracy. According to Geiger (1985b),
planners will inevitably block the way science operates normally, and this will block the
best contributions of science to the creation of new knowledge. If Geiger is correct, then
the current study’s ﬁnding that research continues for the most part as conducted by
government entities in the countries studied suggests the potential of a signiﬁcant drag on
their knowledge creation efforts.

The current study’s ﬁnding that Bologna Process countries share the ambition to
compete globally, and especially with the U.S., as knowledge creators highlights at least
one difficulty. Any attempt to mimic other national systems is problematic, but especially
in the case of the U.S. research system. As discussed in chapter 2, Geiger’s (19853)
analysis of the U.S. higher education system noted its chief characteristics of pluralism
and diversity, which allow it to gain the beneﬁts of all alternatives (Geiger, 1985a).
European higher education systems, especially those of welfare states, will ﬁnd it
extremely difficult to apply any lessons learned in the diverse U.S. system to their
monolithic state systems. One such “lesson” was managerialism, which never worked
well in the U.S. setting (Birnbaum, 2001; Gumport, 2002; Neave and Van Vught, 1991),
as mentioned in chapter 2, but, even so, came like a wave into Europe during the 19803.

Deep-seated Nordic social, cultural, and historical factors discussed in chapters 3
and 4 indicate that a full-on market orientation is not appropriate for the Nordic welfare

states of the current study. One factor mentioned in passing in chapter 4 is that the

135

 

egalitarian ethos of Nordic countries allows for little wage differentiation. Because of
egalitarian wages, the investment model for higher education tuition policy does not
operate in the Nordic econonries. Their wage structures support, and may demand,
continued equal access policies like high state subsidization of tuition, as found in this
study for all three countries.

Some aspects of higher education, like tuition policy, may change very little over
time. It is open to question how and how much the various aspects of higher education
systems will change but not whether they will change. The changing environment of
higher education is a dominant and enduring backdrop to higher education research
(Clarke, 1983). Organization theorists (Burns & Stalker, 1961) used open systems theory
to describe and analyze HEIS as open systems. As open systems, HEIS are permeable to
their environments. Hence, their responsiveness to outside factors, trends, and inﬂuences
is a key component of their survival. Because social contract is an importance inﬂuence
(the current study indicates, in particular, national social contract), I-IEIs can be expected
to respond to changes in national social contract over time. The current global
environment being one of rapid and turbulent change, the prospect of rapid shifts in
social contract arises, with its concomitant responses by HEIS. The overall picture is one
of at least some long-held expectations and traditions in higher education eroding or
dissolving during our lifetimes.

As highlighted in chapter 2, higher education may tend to ﬂourish more under

stable than under changing values (or changing social contracts). If this is true, it may be

more crucial for higher education than any other sector of society to protect academic

' values ﬁom reformers. The current study indicates that social contracts regarding

136

 

academic research have shifted at the national level prior to the Bologna Process. Other
social contracts, or expectations by stakeholders of higher education, may be shifting,
some perhaps swiftly and dramatically e. g., the expectation of tenure for professors has
eroded in our lifetimes. Legislators who fund higher education have hair-trigger
responses to changes in public opinion and short horizons for viewing the consequences
of their decisions. Their agility is problematic in higher education, where policy effects
are broad and long term.

Higher education differs from other sectors of the economy in that it generates an
unusually high level of extemalities or beneﬁts to society. Externalities are not only hard
to measure or price, but it is difficult to receive payment for them using a market
mechanism. In the current austerity climate in Europe, as governments seek to increase
accountability by HEIS to their governments in return for increased autonomy given to
HEIS, the challenge of measuring extemalities has become serious. Where it is not
addressed adequately, which is to be expected given the current level of analysis in the
economics of education, the social beneﬁts of higher education will be poorly estimated,
especially for lagged orllong-term beneﬁts, reaping only piecemeal results in terms of
reporting the outcomes of higher education subsidies under accountability. Partial
measurement and reporting will encourage and perhaps even incentivize only those
outcomes that can be measured and offer the least risk with the highest potential gains,
ultimately narrowing public beneﬁts and emphasizing private beneﬁts.

The Bologna Process has generated a wide array of research to date, with new
approaches in the oﬂing. Interest in the Process is global, because the Process is an

experiment on a regional scale, intended to boost Europe’s global competitiveness. The

137

 

1 study of supranational, multinational, and national social contracts will inform research in
the following manner: Study of the dynamics of social contract helps to map the terrain
of the political economy of higher education. In places, the soil is soft and malleable, as
concerning foreign student tuition in Finland. In other places, the terrain is like solid
granite, as when French student protests broke out in 2008—2009 in response to Sarkozy’s
market-oriented higher education reforms, planned to give French university presidents i

the autonomy of commercial enterprises (Chrisaﬁs, 2009). French leaders are especially

 

wary of student protests inciting general strikes, ultimately toppling their governments
(e.g., that of DeGaulle in 1968). The more accurately we can map the terrain of social
contract, the more conﬁdently we can move forward. In the European context, policy
discussions on social cohesion suggest that forward movement lies in the direction of the

knowledge society rather than the knowledge economy.

138

Appendix A
Table A

Key Policy Documents Produced by the Bologna Process

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title Year Signatories/Participants

Sorbonne 1998 France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom

Declaration

Bologna 1999 Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,

Declaration Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland,
Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak
Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Swiss Confederation,
United Kingdom

Prague 2001 Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic,

Commrmiqué Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden, Swiss Confederation, Turkey, United Kingdom

Berlin 2003 Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Commtmiqué Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holy See, Hungary,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Swiss Confederation, Turkey, United
Kingdom, and “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”

Bergen 2005 Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium,

Communiqué Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech

Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia,
Germany, Greece, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova,
Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden, Swiss Confederation, Turkey, Ukraine, United
Kingdom, and “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”

 

Note: The London Communique of April 29, 2007, was not included in the current study, which
studied Bologna Process and country policy documents up until April 19, 2007.
Source: Norway Ministry of Education and Research (2005). Main documents of the Bologna

Process. Retrieved 12/23/2008 ﬁ'orn http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/

139

 

Appendix B

Table B1

Important Research Policy Documents: Finland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title Date Responsible Document Type No. of

Organization Pages

Content-
Analyzed

Knowledge, innovation, and 12/12/2002 Science and Government review 40
lntemationalization Technology of policies and

Policy Council of preview of national

Finland challenges
Education and Research 12/04/2003 Ministry of Government plan 30
2003-2008: Development Education and strategies
Plan
Government Resolution on 7/4/2005 Government of Detailed government 0
the Structural Development Prime Minister strategies for future
of the Public Research Vanhanen structural
System development (not

directly relevant)

Government Strategy 7/4/2005 Government of Strategy document 0
Document 2005 Prime Minister (not in English)

Vanhanen
The Lisbon Strategy for 10/13/2005 Ministry of Ofﬁcial government 29
Growth and Jobs: The Finance policy document
Finnish National Reform identiﬁes key
Programme 2005-2008 challenges
Science, Technology, 6/27/2006 Science and Four-year science 45
Innovation Technology and technology

Policy Council of policy review

Finland
The Lisbon Strategy for 10/12/2006 Ministry of Annual Finnish 21
Growth and Jobs: The Finance government progress
Finnish National Reform report regarding
Programme 2005-2008 Lisbon strategy
Government Programme of 4/19/2007 Ofﬁce of the Government 12
Prime Minister Matti Prime Minister statement to
Vanhanen’s Second Cabinet Parliament regarding

plan and strategies

 

140

Source: European Communities (2008). Finland — Important Policy Documents. Retrieved 12/23/2008 from

http://cordis.europa.eu/erawatch/index.cfm?fuseaction-ri.content&topicID-33&countryCode-FI

141

Table B2

Important Research Policy Documents: Norway

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title Date Responsible Document Type No. of
Organization Pages
Content-
Analyzed
Research Expands 1/4/2004 The Research Vision and strategy 0
Frontiers Council of (site not available) '
Norway '
Law Amendment 6/4/2004 Ministry of Government legal 0
Proposition No. 79 Education and codiﬁcation of j i .
Research structural reforms (not .i
in English) '
Commitment to 3/18/2005 Ministry of Government policy 8
Research Education and paper on priorities
Research
Report from the 1/22/2008 Government Long-term 0
Government Commission on government strategies
Commission on Higher (site not available)
Higher Education Education
The EU Lisbon 1/1/2007 Ministry of Government policy 75
Strategy: A Trade and regarding Lisbon
NorWegian Industry . Strategy
Perspective

 

Source: European Communities (2008). Norway — Important Policy Documents. Retrieved 12/23/2008

from http://cordis.europa.eu/erawatch/index.cfm?fuseaction-ri.content&countryCode-NO&topich—33

142

Table B3

Important Research Policy Documents: Sweden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title Date Responsible Document Type No. of
Organization Pages
Content-
Analyzed
VINNFORSK 4/8/2003 VINNOVA (Swedish Government strategy paper 0
government agency for on strategies for
innovation) commercializing academic
research (not in English)
Financing 4/29/2004 Ministry of Education, Structural strategies (not in 0
Strong Research Research, and Culture English)
Environments '
Innovative 6/28/2004 Ministry of Industry, Government policy 34
Sweden Employment, and regarding national
Education, and Ministry innovation vision and ’
of Education, Research, strategy
and Culture
Research for a 3/22/2005 Government of Sweden Government bill regarding 0
Better Life ' research priorities (not in
English)
New World — 6/14/2005 Ministry of Education, Government bill 11
New University Research, and Culture
More Growth March 2006 Confederation of Swedish Critique of national l3
and Jobs! Enterprise" enactment of the Lisbon
Strategy
Growth and Jobs 10/23/2007 Prime Minister’s Ofﬁce" National progress regarding 37
the Lisbon Strategy
Government 10/17/2008 Ministry of Education and Ministry Web site press 2
Bill: A Boost to Research""‘ release
Research and
Innovation

 

Sources: Unless otherwise indicated, European Communities (2008). Sweden — Important Policy

Documents. Retrieved 12/23/2008 from http://cordis.emopaeu/erawatch/index.cﬁn?fuseaction—

ri.content&countryCode-SE&topicID-33

’Confederation of Swedish. Enterprise (2009). More Growth and Jobs! Retrieved 1/19/2009 from

http://www.svenskmaringsliv.se/multimedia/archive/00000/More _growth__and _jobs__601a.pdf

"Prime Minister’s Ofﬁce (2007). The Swedish Reform Programme for More Growth and Jobs.

Stockholm: Government Ofﬁces of Sweden. Retrieved 1/19/2009 from

http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/203 Ila/90799

"*Govemment Ofﬁces of Sweden (2009). Government Bill: A Boost to Research and Innovation.

Retrieved 1/19/2009 from http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/6949/a/1 15809

143

Appendix C

Table C1

Lists of Key Research Projects Funded: Finland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title of Project Start Responsible Project Project Funds
Year Funding Goals Partners (euros

Organization millions)

Graduate Schools System 1994 Ministry of Locke Hume 41.6
Education

Baltic Sea Research Programme 2002 Academy of Hinne Hume 5.8
Finland

Environmental, Societal, and Health 2003 Academy of Hume Hume 3.5

Effects of GMOs Finland

Russia in Flux 2004-2007 2003 Academy of Hume Hume 9.5 :14.
Finland " ]

Research Programme on Health 2004 Academy of Locke Hume 7.4

Services Research Finland

Social Capital and Networks of Trust 2004 Academy of Hume Hume 6.0
Finland

Systems Biology and Bioinformatics 2004 Academy of Hume Hume 10.7
Finland

Environment and Law Research 2005 Academy of Hume Hume 2.5

Programme Finland

Research Programme on Application 2005 Academy of Smith Locke 8.0

of Information Technology in Finland

Mechanical, Civil and Automation

Engineering .

Research Programme on Neuroscience 2005 Academy of Hume Hume 7.1
Finland

Finland Distinguished Professor 2006 Academy of Locke - Hume 32.5

Programme Finland

Research Programme on Business 2006 Academy of Smith Hume 4.3

Know-how F inland

Research Programme on NanoScience 2006 Academy of Hume Locke 9.5
Finland

Research Programme on Sustainable 2006 Academy of Hume Hume 7.5

Production Finland

Research Programme on Power in 2007 Academy of Hume Locke 7.0

Finland Finland

Research Programme on Substance 2007 Academy of Hume Locke 5.5

Use and Addiction Finland

Centres of Excellence 2008 Academy of Locke Hume 21.0
Finland

 

Source: European Communities (2009). Finland - Support Measure(s). Retrieved 1/22/2009 from

http://cordis.europa.eu/erawatch/index.cfrn?fuseaction=ri.content&countryCode-Fl&topicID-64

144

Table C2

Lists of Key Research Projects Funded: Norway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title of Project Start Responsible Project Project Funds
Year Funding Goals Partners (euros

Organization millions)

Commercialization of 2000 Research Smith Hume 88.1

R & D Results Council of Norway

Functional Genonrics 2002 Research Locke Locke 203.1

in Norway Council of Norway

Outstanding Young 2003 Research Locke Hume 2.4

Investigators Council of Norway

Clean Energy for the 2004 Research Hume Locke 55.3

Future Council of Norway

Climate Change and 2004 Research Hume Hume 108

Impacts in Norway Council of Norway

Programme for 2004 Research Smith Locke 3 12.5

Optimal Exploitation Council of Norway

of Petroleum

Resources

Core Competence and 2005 Research Locke Locke 135

Growth Council of Norway

Aquaculture 2006 Research Smith Locke l 77
Council of Norway

Centres for Research- 2006 Research Smith Locke 100

Based Innovation Council of Norway

 

Source: European Communities (2009). Norway - Support Measme(s). Retrieved 1/22/2009 from

http://cordis.europa.eu/erawatch/index.cfm?fuseaction=ri.content&countryCode-N0&topicID-64

145

T1

 

 

Table C3

Lists of Key Research Projects Funded: Sweden

 

Start Responsible Funding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title of Project Project Project Funds
Year ‘ Organization Goals Partners (euros
millions)
F AS Post-Doc Grant 1994 Research Council for Smith Hume 2.5
Working Life and Social
Science
Manufacturing 1994 VINNOVA (Swedish Smith Locke 66.2
Engineering Governmental Agency for
Research Area Innovation Systems)
Solar Energy for 1994 Wallenberg Foundation Hume Hume 7.5*
Hydrogen
Producation
Research Proﬁles 1997 The Knowledge Foundation Smith Hume 78*
Forest Research 1999 The Knowledge Smith Locke 45.8*
Programme Foundation; VINNOVA
Innovation in Food 2001 VINNOVA Smith Locke 14.0
Human Proteome 2002 Royal Institute of Hume Hume 48.4
Resource Technology
VINN Excellence 2004 VINNOVA Smith Locke 22.7
Centre
Berzelius Centres 2005 Swedish Research Council; Smith Hume 18.4
VINNOVA
Linnaeus Grant 2005 Swedish Research Council Hume Hume 15.2
Postdoctoral 2005 Swedish Research Council Hume Hume 3.9
Position in Sweden
Research & Grow 2005 VINNOVA . Smith Locke 54.0
Strategic Research 2006 Swedish Foundation for Smith Hume 86.0
Centres Strategic Research
Biomedical 2007 Swedish Research Council Locke Mainly 7.9
Engineering for Hume,
Improved Health increasingly
Smith
FAS Centres 2007 Research Council for Hume Hume 1.9
Working Life and Social
Science

 

*Coﬁnanced with private or nonproﬁt organization

Source: European Communities (2009). Sweden - Support Measme(s). Retrieved 1/22/2009 ﬁ'om

http://cordis.europa.eu/erawatch/index.cﬁn?ﬁrseaction=ri.content&countryCode—SE&topicID-64

146

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