Authors

Mareike zum Felde¹;  ¹ Research Centre for East European Studies, Germany

Discussion

The policy field of higher education (HE) has gained importance and salience in recent decades as an increasing share of the population attends HE, public investment in the sector rises, and universities are progressively expected to foster the national economic development. At the same time, the autonomy of universities is increasingly under pressure in countries undergoing authoritarian backsliding in Central Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. This development indicates that HE policies reflect central questions of state governance like privatization, centralization and autonomy. Against this background, this case study shows by means of a qualitative content analysis of debates in the Polish parliament how the content, policy framing and voting patterns concerning HE policies developed since 1990.

Poland was chosen since the country underwent different stages of democratization and authoritarian backsliding after 1989 and exhibits a strongly polarized and rather fluid party system. Similarly, the HE sector underwent different changes from the restoration of university autonomy in 1990 to centralization efforts in disciplinary questions by the currently governing populist right party Law and Justice in 2021.

Preliminary results show a continuous consensus on the need for HE reforms while there is a rising level of contestation indicated by increasing shares of MPs participating in voting as well as rejecting law proposals.