A critical analysis of higher education accreditation policy processes in the emerging CARICOM Single Market and Economy Territories (original) (raw)
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Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2014
In this era of amplified regionalisation, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean's (ECLAC) conceptualisation of ‘open regionalism’ is pertinent to examine the role of regional governance mechanisms in constructing what I call the Caribbean Educational Policy Space. With the aid of a latent content analysis of policy documents that focuses on the current wave of regionalism within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, I argue that open regionalism is the instrument that facilitates the expansion of education into a regional tradable commodity that is embedded and linked to the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME). I suggest that open regionalism can be further finessed to consider the modalities that make the operationalising of the integrative project possible. In essence, open regionalism is used as a governance framework by CARICOM's states to enact national educational reform. I conclude by arguing that open regionalism is an approach that is driven by the knowledge-based economy, premised upon innovation and inventiveness, which facilitates regional entry into hemispheric relations, and focused on the deepening global relations
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MERCOSUR, regulatory regionalism and contesting projects of higher education governance
Higher education (HE) governance is far from being shaped exclusively by national policy-making frameworks. In fact, territorial politics of the State is being challenged by a complex set of regulations and norms established at international and regional arenas. At the same time, these regulations and norms generate ideas and discourses of HE governance that also stimulates practices within HE institutions (HEI). Therefore, in order to surpass this methodological nationalism, avenues for research have been opened by the study of how regional integration schemes are transforming the scales for policy delivery (Jayasuriya & Robertson, 2010). Many regional integration agreements (RIA) –including Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) regionalism– have settled norms for the HE sector and most of the regional policies are by-passing the territoriality of politics of the State. As a result, the concept of regulatory regionalism is fruitful to assess these thick configurations of norms, regulations and policies that are crafting HE governance across the globe. MERCOSUR’s regional regulations, norms and policies are by-passing domestic policy process in certain agendas of integration (HE agenda), mainly supported by transnational (and transoceanic) epistemic communities and/or advocacy networks, in order to prompt domestic change (policy change / institutional change) so as to support these groups’ interests. Consequently, the concept of regulatory regionalism (Hameri & Jayasuriya, 2011; Jayasuriya & Robertson, 2010) is fruitful to assess MERCOSUR´s regionalism in HE, the implications of regional policies on domestic arenas and the contesting projects for HE regionalism. We argue that the development of MERCOSUR´s regulations for higher education has shaped at least three contesting projects of governance.