The Bologna Process in a global setting: twenty years later

Abstract

This article considers the conceptualisation of the “external dimension” of the Bologna Process and debates around it in the light of the 20th anniversary of the Bologna Declaration. The term began to be used in the early 2000s and referred to the articulation of possible relationships between the then emerging European Higher Education Area and the rest of the world. We analyse issues related to the drafting of the Bologna Global Strategy (2007), also by taking into account less well-known policy documents, and the reactions to the Bologna Process from various global regions. Further, we critically elaborate on the thesis of the “Bologna model” and its alleged “export” to the world. We argue that this thesis is controversial and that its background should be sought in dichotomies related to the Europeanisation process, in particular in the dichotomy of “means” versus “ends” as well as the “market” versus “cultural” mission of European higher education institutions.