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Masked youths have set dozens of cars on fire and attacked police officers in several Swedish cities. In Gothenburg alone, at least 88 vehicles were destroyed or damaged. The authorities are not ruling out the possibility that this was a coordinated action. What will the unrest mean for the parliamentary elections at the start of September?

Poland has registered Ludmila Koslovska, president of the NGO Open Dialog Foundation, in the Schengen Information System for "security reasons". Because she is now on the list of persona non grata in this database she was refused entry to Brussels on Thursday and forced to return to her home country, Ukraine. Journalists disagree about the authorities' motives.

Student and civil rights movements came to a head in many countries 50 years ago in 1968. In Western Europe the so-called "68ers" championed democracy, social freedom, emancipation, the environment. During the Prague Spring in the Czech Republic, civil rights activists seeking to make the communist system more democratic were forced to capitulate in the face of Soviet tanks.

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

University of Burundi. Photo from http://www.ub.edu.bi/

Olivier Provini

The main focus of the paper ‘Transnational circulations of university reforms: the policy-making of the LMD in Burundi’ is to question public policy processes in so-called “fragile” states. Indeed, my research deals with policy analysis in non-western contexts with a special focus on African case studies. Analysing public action in the majority of African contexts raises a certain number of questions given that analytical frameworks are mostly based on empirical and sectorial experiences from studies conducted in North America and Europe. Moreover, institutional and social capacities in Africa are sometimes so low that the very concepts of the state or policies could be problematic. The category of “fragile” states would question several results of the literature on policy science, especially on policy transfer studies. In “fragile” states, the policy process would be delegated to external agents, who would implement internationally manufactured and projected models into national and local policy sectors. The specific aim of my research is to discuss the relation between the dependence of international aid and the circulation of public policies. Therefore, I use the empirical example of the implementation of the European higher education model LMD (“Licence-Master-Doctorate”) at the University of Burundi in Africa.

 

What is the LMD model at the University of Burundi about?

Since 2007, the Burundian higher education sector has been involved in a reform process which is financed by the French cooperation. Through the implementation of the PARES programme (“Projet d’Appui au Renforcement de l’Enseignement Supérieur”), the Burundian government, with the assistance of the French donors, has organised a new tertiary system, which has been widely destructured through the Burundian civil war (1993-2006). The aim of the French cooperation and the Burundian government has been to implement the LMD reform throughout the whole territory including the private institutions in order to improve the recognition of the university community. The reform is structured into several steps: i) the creation of a steering group to supervise the reform; ii) an overview of the situation of the sector after the civil war; iii) and an audit of the university curricula and different classes to develop new programmes at the University of Burundi. The making of new curricula and classes for the University of Burundi is achieved by imitating the programmes offered in European universities, where most of the Burundian experts, lecturers and professors have pursued their university education. A Burundian expert explains this copy-and-paste practice:

“First, there is the task of doing literature research. Which means, for instance, at the Faculty of Law [of the University of Burundi], we use the example of the Faculty of Law of [the French University of] Nanterre. And we study the structure of the organisation of the teaching units, the included teaching elements, and after that, depending on the needs and the priorities of the country, we then see which courses we have to adjust and which one we pick. That is the way we proceed. We do not invent the wheel which is turning”[i].

 

How can policy-makers (re)negotiate the policy process in Burundi?

The making of the university curricula and classes implicates discussions on numerous technical aspects, which are widely depoliticised in Burundi. Given this technical nature of the policy, experts play a major role in the reform process which can also explain the top-down circulation of the external engineering. Nevertheless, some elements of the LMD reform aggregate critical challenges, which involve political stakeholders and issues. In the paper, I show that the transfer of the LMD model in Burundi presents an opportunity for political and academic stakeholders to reshape the system of elite formation and to reconsider the delicate balance between Hutu and Tutsi in the administration, which is one of the core questions of the higher education system in the Burundian post-conflict situation.

 

For instance, the debates on the Law on Higher Education of November 2011 question the norms regulating the appointment process within the university administration regarding the ethnic balance between Hutu and Tutsi occupying higher positions of political responsibility or in the public administration. During an interview, one of the policy makers reveals that the debates in the Burundian Parliament are essentially related to the issue of the appointments of Deans based on ethnic criteria rather than on technical aspects of the implementation of the LMD in the private and public institutions:

“The law was not well understood by the Assembly. I have to say that our Parliament is not like yours, the quality of debates is very poor [he is laughing]! […]. We could see that the tendency was rather to consider only political aspects rather than academic and scientific aspects. The debates were related, for instance, to the appointment of Deans, it was rather that: of which ethnicity and of which political party must the Deans come from?”[ii].

 

What are the impacts for the theoretical debate?

The case study of the LMD reform in Burundi reveals several insights to the theoretical debate:

– First, the empirical study of the circulation of the LMD reform highlights two contrasting results. When focussing on the technical aspects of the reform, like the establishment of the curricula offered at the University of Burundi, we observe a top-down transfer. The local administrators of the institution imitate, copy and paste the programmes offered in European universities. However, by shifting the focus on the voting process of the Law of November 2011, my paper highlights new and diverging results. The transfer of the LMD model in Burundi presents an opportunity for political and academic stakeholders to transform the system of elite formation and power-sharing between Hutu and Tutsi, which constitutes one of the core question of the higher education system in the Burundian post-conflict situation.

 

– Second, the study confirms broader results of the scientific literature on policy transfers in Western contexts about the (re)negotiation of policy models. Even in a “fragile” state, which heavily depends on the financial support of donors and international organizations, policy circulations are shaped by bargaining and compromising between international, national and local actors.

 

– Finally, we can discuss, through the theoretical framework of policy analysis, the adjectives describing and categorizing the capacities and attributes of states (as “fragile”, “failed”, “ghost”, “neopatrimonial”, “liberal” or “developing”). By using concepts of policy analysis, this paper questions the category and the nature of “fragile” states. I demonstrate to what extent policy analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of the state rather than restricting its shape to one characteristic.

 

 

This blog post is based on the paper “Transnational circulations of university reforms: the policy-making of the LMD in Burundi”. This paper won the 2017 Award of Excellent Paper from an Emerging Scholar from the ECPR Standing Group ‘Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation’. The paper was presented at the International Conference on Public Policy in Singapore in 2017.

 

Olivier Provini is an Assistant Professor of political science at the University of La Reunion (France) and an affiliate member of the Legal Research Center (CRJ, University of La Reunion). In his PhD he dealt with the circulation of higher education reforms in East Africa, by comparing reform processes in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. His scientific interest lies in public policy analysis, state building and higher education reforms. He currently coordinates the research programme “Making public policies in Africa” (FAPPA) at Sciences Po Bordeaux (France). He is the editor of a special issue dealing with public policies in Africa published in the French review “Gouvernement et action publique”. He has also published a comparative study on the marketization of higher education reforms in Kenya and Tanzania in the journal Higher Education.

 

[i] Interview with a Burundian expert (27/03/2013, Bujumbura).

[ii] Interview with a policy maker (27/03/2013, Bujumbura).

The post What we can learn about policy circulation by using non-western case studies appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The next EU budgetary framework period starts at the beginning of 2021. It is none too early for a serious debate about what should be the priorities. The only suggestion that has received publicity so far is President Macron’s proposal for a euro zone budget. This could be a good idea but not for the reasons given by him or most others. The euro has lasted for almost two decades without a budget of its own and can continue to do so. One country, Greece, needs debt relief. Other countries may need help with crucial public services and investments at a time when their own constraints, including their debt, make these difficult to afford. But suggestions that stronger economies should help weaker economies for no other reason than that they are stronger will always be resisted by the stronger economies, given that they are already making significant net contributions.

The purposes of EU budgetary spending need to be re-examined from first principles. Most spending over the last 30 years other than agricultural support has been on helping poorer countries improve their transport and communications infrastructure, based on the proposition that this is a condition for economic growth. Most EU countries now have fairly good infrastructure of this kind and there is little reason that its further expansion is necessary.

New priorities: migration

There are however major priorities that have recently emerged. The most obvious is the handling of migration pressures, which are not likely to go away. One priority should be for EU countries to make a contribution, along with other countries from Lebanon to Uganda, in receiving migrants fleeing wars in Syria, Sudan and elsewhere. Many of the newer EU member states do not want to make such a contribution. That should be respected as their right but given that this issue is now one of the major ones confronting the world including the EU, the EU budget should be accordingly re-oriented to helping those countries that are willing to take in refugees. Given that the new member states may resist that – and budgets require unanimity—the only answer may be to have a euro zone budget because it is primarily euro zone countries that are –whether voluntarily or involuntarily—taking in refugees from war, as well as other migrants.

Funding is specially needed for the handling of the migration flows coming across the Mediterranean. Many of those coming from sub-Saharan Africa can possibly be returned. For example, while there is war and terrorism in parts of Nigeria, other parts are peaceful so those fleeing the unstable parts of the country should be able to go to the more stable parts. But it is clear that this can only be managed in a way which respects human rights, if Nigeria is helped financially and in other ways to absorb internal migrants while for those who reach Europe sorting those who clearly have refugee rights under the Geneva Convention from those who can be returned is itself an expensive and demanding process which countries like Italy and Greece struggle to afford. The idea that there is a clear division between refugees and economic migrants that can easily be identified is a myth. Between those clearly one or the other is a very large grey area, including those mentioned above from countries where some regions are in conflict.

And environment

Another priority area which has come to the fore since the EU’s current budgetary policy was formulated when Jacques Delors was Commission president is the wide range of environmental challenges facing EU member states and the world as a whole. The terrible and lethal fires both sides of Athens in July are only the latest example of increasing damage to the environment and human life from such forest fires affecting all south European countries and more recently also north European countries. Research and action is needed for example through breaks in forests to halt or reduce the spread of such fires but there is also a need for more investment and current spending on fire-fighting services, that budgetary constraints in Greece and elsewhere have instead reduced. Such spending should be another priority of EU budgets in both the short and medium term.

The EU budget effectively limited to 1% of GDP is very small in relation to the public expenditure controlled by member states and it is unrealistic to suppose that this is going to be changed in the foreseeable future. But some items of spending should be reduced and others increased. Moreover, there should no longer be a bias in favour of capital over current spending given that current spending for example on migration is an urgent priority. There may well be a case for reducing EU-wide spending, if agreement on priorities cannot be reached. A significant euro zone budget could then be initiated without necessarily increasing the total for euro zone members of the EU plus the euro zone budget above the present 1% of GDP.

 

The post EU needs to make radical reforms to its budget appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Council has transposed UN Security Council resolution 2428 (2018) which imposes an arms embargo and adds two persons to the list of persons and entities subject to restrictive measures.

The EU will continue to stand up for indigenous peoples and support them to ensure they can retain their cultures, identities and way of life, that are part of our common culture, identity, way of life.

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the conflict between Russia and Georgia, the EU reaffirmed its firm commitment to a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Georgia and to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders.

The US Secretary of State has imposed new sanctions on Russia in response to the poison attack on the Russian double agent Skripal and his daughter in Britain. While some commentators believe Putin is immune to Trump's unpredictable Russia policy, others see tough times ahead for the Russian president.