Policy Diffusion and Higher Education Reforms. Between market and state regulation: Where does MERCOSUR stand?

BOTTO, MERCEDES

Regional Organizations and Social Policy in Europe and Latin America

Palgrave

Lugar: new york; Año: 2015; p. 1 - 24

Botto analyses the way in which the ideas of openness and liberalization of higher education, expanded between the MERCOSUR countries. Focusing on the diffusion theory, the author identifies the mechanisms that were set in motion both issuers as the recipients of such ideas. The author identifies two major global ideas that were promoted from regional and global during the 1990s. The ideas of deregulation and liberalization of national system to global competition (transnationalization) and the ones that promote cooperation among countries, safeguarding the role of states as providers and regulators of higher education (internationalize). Among these two trends, the EU and NAFTA regional integration processes, provide a third wave: to create a regional space with common rules, in order to protect themselves and at the same time improve their position in the global competition. MERCOSUR collects some elements of the global debate and synthesizes them in atypical way: by diffusing ideas and coordinating activities among countries but refusing to harmonize regional rules at national level.