CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

this paper analyses the delivery of social policies at the regional level from the standpoint of policy diffusion processes. Our goal is to shed light on policy diffusion processes that led to institutional and normative change within member States by identifying and studying actors and mechanisms of influence. We built our inquiry from a case-study approach: the assessment of the regional policy for the accreditation and quality assurance (AQA) of undergraduate degrees. We argue that dissimilar starting conditions among member States ?that is to say, structural and regulatory asymmetries and diverse academic cultures and higher education traditions? led to the control of the regional AQA policy by the most advanced (?more experienced?) country in this issue area (Argentina). As a result of the leadership, the Argentinean model of AQA diffused to the regional level and to the domestic level in those countries that had no previous regulation, posing institutional and normative change in some cases. Asymmetries among parties also explain the differential levels of domestic change achieved and the coexistence of dissimilar regulatory frameworks within different levels of governance. ?MERCOSUR´s way? to pursuit AQA regional policy reflects likewise a ?compromise solution? due to the pressures and / or influence of several actors (public, private, intra-regional, extra-regional, etc.) during the policy process. Currently, this model is being contested as a result of the constraints posed by the co-existence with other schemes (in a context of overlapping regionalism) and the influence of both a renewed impetus for the emulation of the Bologna Process and the deepening of a competitive model of internationalization of higher education

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