UNATTENDED DISTORTION - A study on how EU higher education objectives can appear distorted by level-, actor- and issue-dimensions of governance in Business and Economics bachelor’s programs at Swedish University Colleges

Abstract

The EU agenda for the whole education area is denounced vital for the economic and social growth of the Union. As such it infers involvement of other policy areas such as research and innovation, foreign policy, or migration for example. This can also be seen in higher education where recent developments include reforms that have granted institutional autonomy to universities, signalling changes in the division of competencies and distribution of responsibilities between governments and higher education institutions. And new forms of governing methods where performance management for example enhanced to increase societal relevance and socio-economic development at both national and regional levels. In this policy space and by applying a framework suggested by originated from the theory of multi-level governance by Hooghe and Marks (2003), and refined by Vukasovic, M., Jungblut, J., Chou, M. H., Elken, M., & Ravinet, P. (2018) this study explores how three dimensions of governance, multi-level, multi-actor, and multi-issue, is reflected on local, operational level in Swedish higher education. It presents a context transcending from EU to national level by putting focus on the ‘international dimension’ in bachelor’s programs in business and economics. Investigating how a diversity of governance deriving from the above-mentioned levels, different actors and multitude of issues distorts the aims set out by the EU in the highly praised Erasmus program. And by doing so, trying to find explanations to the low mobility numbers among Swedish students.