European neighbourhood policy, the Bologna model and EU-Egyptian cooperation in Higher Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the EU’s neighbourhood policy towards Egypt. Using the higher education sector as a case, it explores the EU’s policy to induce reforms through governance transfers and Egypt’s response to this offer. The main questions are: (1) To what extent do EU policy objectives and governance approaches influence the reform of higher education in Egypt? (2) Which factors facilitate or hinder the reform process at various levels of intervention? Theoretically, the research draws on concepts of EU policy and governance transfers to partner states and the significance of contextual factors for reforms within these states. Methodologically, the analysis applies a qualitative approach based on official documents and semi-structured expert interviews with European and Egyptian officials. The analysis suggests that factors on both sides of the cooperation contribute to limiting policy implementation: the overly complex and rather unspecified governance concepts of the EU and the difficulties in Egypt to implement policies through decentralized action.