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Networking Administration in Areas of National Sensitivity: The Commission and European Higher Education

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European Integration and the Governance of Higher Education and Research

Part of the book series: Higher Education Dynamics ((HEDY,volume 26))

Abstract

Education as a policy area in the European Union (EU) has a weak legal basis for Community action and institution building. It has traditionally been regarded as nationally sensitive; an area that belongs to the core of the nation state and therefore resilient to ‘Europe’. Yet, European higher education reveals a complex governance system where multiple levels are in action and interaction, including the supranational level with the European Commission (EC) as the core actor. Strikingly, no attempts have been made to systematically map the nature of the administrative infrastructure of European integration in higher education. This chapter is a first attempt to identify the characteristics of the European administrative capacity with respect to higher education and in particular the administrative networks in several versions that connect the European level to other levels of governance. This chapter asks how the development of European- networked administrative capacity can be understood taking into consideration the traditional national sensitivity of higher education and whether these connections represent a challenge to the assumed hegemony of the nation state in the higher education policy area.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Peter Maassen, Maria Martens, Ulf Sverdrup, Johanna Witte and participants at the Connex Conference in Oslo, 27–28 May 2005 and Douro 6 Seminar, 30 September – 3 October 2006 for their valuable comments. I also thank Øivind Bratberg for his assistance in data collection.

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  1. Arena – Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Åse Gornitzka

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  1. Åse Gornitzka
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CIPES, Universidade do Porto, Rua 1 de Dezembro 399, Matosinhos, 4450, Portugal

    Alberto Amaral

  2. Ensino Superior (CIPES), Centro de Investigação de Politicas do, Rua 1 de Dezembro 399, Matosinhos, 4450-227, Portugal

    Guy Neave

  3. Centre de Sociologie des Organisations,, CNRS, rue Amélie 19, Paris, 75007, France

    Christine Musselin

  4. Fac. Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, 0318, Norway

    Peter Maassen

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Gornitzka, Å. (2009). Networking Administration in Areas of National Sensitivity: The Commission and European Higher Education. In: Amaral, A., Neave, G., Musselin, C., Maassen, P. (eds) European Integration and the Governance of Higher Education and Research. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 26. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9505-4_5

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