Process, Persistence and Pragmatism: Reconstructing the Creation of the European University Institute and the Erasmus Programme, 1955–1989

Abstract

The Bologna process appears novel to many on the European higher education scene. It associates 46 governments and the European Commission in the construction of a European Higher Education Area by 2010,1 and is complemented by EU activity linked to the Lisbon agenda to develop and greatly expand Europe’s knowledge economy (European Commission 2007). The Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, maintains that universities have never been so high on the Commission’s agenda (EUA 2005). But if we are to make sense of the universities’ importance in contemporary Europe, such claims need to be put into a comparative perspective of the policy-making and political processes generated in other historical contexts (Mahoney and Rueschmeyer 2003).