Heik seminar-200813

Jens JungblutPhD research fellow, Department of Education

Do political parties matter in higher education policy in Western Europe?A critical revision of existing studies and hypotheses for further research

HEIK seminar August 20, 2013

Overview

1. Introduction, aim & research questions

2. Findings of existing studies

3. Socio-economic conflicts

4. Cultural conflicts

5. Varieties of Capitalism

6. Summary

Introduction

• Political parties = key institutions in democracies with distinct policy preferences depending on their ideology & electorate

potential reason for policy differences

• Amount of literature on partisan influence on HE policy rather limited and partially contradicting

Aim

• Critical revision of existing studies, attempting to explain & bridge the contradicting results and offer new hypotheses for further research

• Connecting comparative public policy and welfare state research (actor-focused) with the varieties of capitalism approach (institutional focus)

• Explain inter-party and inter-country differences

Research questions

• How can the partly conflicting results of existing studies on the partisan effects in higher education policy be explained?

• Which role do the existing higher education system, the variety of capitalism and the electoral system play?

• What hypotheses for further research can be drawn from this?

Existing studies

• Only few studies distinguish between education and higher education policy

• 3 groups of studies:1. Classical argument: left parties prioritize higher

education and increase public funding to support electorate or reach out to new groups

2. Due to skewed access to HE favoring the wealthy part of the population right parties should increase public funding

3. Ideological pre-disposition of parties is moderated through institutions (HE system, VoC, policy legacies)

HE in comparative public policy

• Cleavage theory: Political conflicts in Western European countries mainly along two dimensions: socio-economic & cultural

• Existing studies focus on the first one, especially the re-distributive capacities of HE

• Most studies capture the re-distributive effect over changes in public funding for HE and linking it to the ideological composition of the government

Socio-economic conflicts

• Main argument of studies in group 1: More public spending in HE increases participation chances of their own electorate & offers social mobility

• However, link between more spending and increased enrolment is not given (more spending without more enrolment or same spending with more enrolment)

Socio-economic conflicts

• Second problem: Access to HE skewed to wealthy part of population additional spending first favors electorate of right (instrument for reverse re-distribution)

Need to capture re-distribution over changes in public funding & access

Excursus: HE policy and policy framing

• Shifts in role of HE in society in the last decades from elite to welfare to more economic issue

• Thus, today parties can frame HE policy both as a welfare or an economic issue offering them more policy flexibility

• However, left parties are expected to frame HE policy as a welfare policy, while right parties should focus on economic components (H1)

Trilemma in HE policy

• Governing parties can only achieve 2 out of 3 desirable goals: full public subsidization, low total public costs and mass enrolment

• Depending on the choice three different combinations are possible nature of the existing HE system creates path dependency

• Partisan effect conditional on existing level of enrolment elite HE system right parties favor public HE spending, mass HE system left parties favor public HE spending

The role of private HE funding

• If level of enrolment predicts partisan preference, how do HE systems expand from elite to mass?

• 3 possible roads to expansion:– More access without additional funding

– Use expansion of access to cater to new electorate in middle class

– Increase private funding

The role of private HE funding

• As access to HE widens preference for increased private HE funding shifts from left to right to protect the remaining labor market advantage of their core electorate

Analysis of re-distributional character of HE policy has to include three indicators: (1) public funding, (2) private funding & (3) access

Hypotheses for socio-economic conflicts in elite HE systems

• In a country with an elite higher education system a party of the political left is likely to support an increase of access to higher education, while trying to keep the public expenditures stable and possibly increasing private higher education expenditures (H2a).

• In a country with an elite higher education system a party of the political right is likely to keep access to higher education on a stable level, while trying to increase the public expenditures and limiting private higher education expenditures (H2b).

Hypotheses for socio-economic conflicts in mass HE systems• In a country with a mass higher education system a

party of the political left is likely to increase access to higher education, while also trying to increase the public expenditures and limit private higher education expenditures (H3a).

• In a country with a mass higher education system a party of the political right is likely to keep access to higher education stable, while trying to decrease the public expenditures and increase private higher education expenditures (H3b).

Influence of Catholic heritage

• Busemeyer et al found policy legacies stemming from denominational conflicts as an influencing factor on partisan conflicts in HE

• In countries with a strong Catholic heritage the education system is expected to be more segregated and thus access to higher education more limited than in countries with a Protestant tradition. Therefore, in countries with a strong Catholic tradition parties of the political left are the main proponents of educational expansion (H4).

Cultural conflicts

• Classical version: materialist vs. post-materialist; today: managers vs. Socio-cultural specialists value conflict

• In HE the temporal sequence of materialist/post-materialist difference reversed used to be non-materialist, today more managerial/materialist approaches

• One of the ways to introduce materialist changes in HE is through different steering approaches

Cultural conflicts

• 4 different steering modes for public sector by Olsen adapted to HE by Gornitzka & Maassen representing also different partisan approaches to relation between state and HE (sovereign rationality-bounded state, institutional, corporate-pluralist and supermarket)

Cultural conflicts

• Depending on level of participation left and right parties have different preferences concerning steering approach

• Due to the skewedness of access to higher education and due to increasing complexity of the steering as the systems moves from elite to mass levels of participation

Cultural conflicts

• Parties of the political left prefer in a country with an elite higher education system the sovereign, rationality-bounded steering model, while parties of the political right prefer the institutional steering model (H5a).

• Parties of the political left prefer in a country with a mass higher education system the corporate-pluralist steering model, while parties of the political right prefer the supermarket steering model (H5b).

Varieties of Capitalism

• VoC derives from analysis of institutional complementarities and hypotheses of comparative institutional advantages

• Led to a classification in either coordinated market economies (CME) or liberal market economies (LME)

• LMEs and CMEs also exhibit distinct HE systems

Varieties of Capitalism

• HE in a LME country is driven by the market, open to radical innovations and the state works only as an agent for market preservation

• HE in CME countries are negotiation-driven, prone to more incremental innovation and the state provides a legal and regulatory frame

• CMEs are characterised by higher public expenditures for higher education, while LMEs show less public but more private higher education funding

Varieties of Capitalism

• Political parties in LMEs are more likely to support private higher education funding and a rather stable access to higher education, while parties in CMEs favor increased access to higher education and more public funding (H6a).

• Political parties in LMEs prefer supermarket steering models, while parties in CMEs favor corporate-pluralist steering models (H6b).

VoC & the electoral system

• Complementarities cover also the electoral system: CME proportional rep.; LME majoritarian rep.

• However, CMEs with strong Catholic Democratic Party exhibit HE system more similar to LMEs

• Political parties in CMEs with a strong Christian Democratic party are more likely to support medium levels of access to and public funding for higher education (H7)

Summary

• Existing studies demonstrate some conceptual shortcomings & ignore cultural conflicts on HE policy

• More refined approach to partisan differences in HE policy could bridge existing contradictions & offer new insights into a, concerning party politics, rather under-researched policy area

Summary

• Possible research design to investigate relation:– Triangulate quantitative date on policy outcomes

(public & private HE funding, student/staff ratio, student numbers etc.) & content analysis on qualitative data from party manifestos, election programs, coalition agreements, government white papers etc.

– Include control variables for institutional factors, including VoC, Catholic heritage, Catholic Democratic Party, level of enrolment etc.