Higher education in federal systems: searching a new balance

• In Event: A sustainable university in challenging circumstances. A case from Russia.

Proposal

The development of regional higher education systems is becoming a topic of wide academic discourse (Brown, et al., 1992; McDaniel, 1996). Large territory and high heterogeneity of the regions determine the importance of searching of new balance between national and local authorities in higher education governance especially in federal countries.
Research aims to explore the features of postsecondary regulation and management in “federal type” countries that have arrangements of divided responsibility for the higher education between national and regional levels of power.
The study responds to the following question:
• How does federalism shape the evolution of higher learning, credentialing and research?
• What are the special problems, challenges and advantages of higher education within a federal setting?
• Do the different federal systems of higher education have something to learn from each other?
The study is the result of the international research project, organized by the Institute of Education, Higher School of Economics, Moscow. This research includes a comparative analysis of the nine countries. The criteria for selection of cases are the following:
(1) High level of heterogeneity of regional development;
(2) Relatively large scale of country and higher education system;
(3) A division of responsibility for higher education between national and regional levels of power.
The following countries have been chosen: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China (although it is formally a unitary country but it meets criteria (1) to (3)), India, Germany, Russia, USA, Mexico. The research is conducted by the group of international researchers: Martin Carnoy (Stanford University), Simon Marginson (University of Oxford), Isak Froumin (Higher School of Economics), Oleg Leshukov (Higher School of Economics). The complete results of study were published in “SAGE Studies in Higher Education” in 2018 (for more details please see https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/higher-education-in-federal-countries/book263092).
The authors appeal to the set of conceptual frameworks considering the different perspective of federalism. The first one is the dichotomy of cooperative or competitive federalism (Breton, 1996; Elazar, 1994), which reveals the nature of national-regional arrangements in education. Another framework is the theory of market-preserving federalism (B. Weingast, 1995) that allows analyzing the way how federalism arrangements influence on conditions of regional higher education markets.
The study develops an overarching comparative analysis of the dynamics of central and regional power in higher education, and the national case studies explain how each federal system has evolved and how it functions in highly varied contexts.
The analysis of cases includes the following:
1) Overall context of national-regional relationships in the country, including historical stages of federalism and higher education development.
2) Analyses of the national-regional relationships in higher education by some of the following aspects:
 Regulatory and legal aspects
 Economic aspects
 The organization of R&D
 Features of internationalization, etc.
3) Impact of different models of national-regional relationships on the characteristics of higher education: accessibility, heterogeneity, financial autonomy, etc.
All cases show great variation in how power is shared between the central and regional authorities in federal systems in higher education. In relation to state types and political cultures all cases were divided on the groups: the first one is the limited liberal states (Australia, Canada, United States, Germany); the second one is countries with a tradition of comprehensive states (China and Russia); third group is post-colonial states often combining elements of liberal and comprehensive states (Brazil, India, Mexico). The types of governance in these cases differ in the degree of transfer administrative, political and economic power at the lower levels of authorities. Role of the state in each type also varies: from centralized approach in Russia to the limited federal role in US public education and leading role of provinces in Canada and Germany.
The editors conclude that there are no general rules and every higher education experience of federalism is conditioned by a distinctive history and set of present possibilities. All cases are described considering different modes of federalism in higher education like legal responsibility, real political control, public financing in higher education, private sector development, heterogeneity in higher education system. The internal features of regional higher education systems related to different models of national-regional relationships. Some models provide decreasing heterogeneity of regional higher education systems by coordinated policy. Another type assumes competitive nature of regional universities development as driver for enhancement the efficiency of all system. Research shows that higher education systems in these large countries have a natural tendency to regional unevenness and inequality and are difficult to coordinate and modernize. They are partly influenced by varying and changing approaches to federalism. Comparison shows that Germany and Canada might have the best balance between (1) national coordination, and (2) making decisions close to higher education on the ground and to local stakeholders.
Despite the fact that research discovered fundamentally different models of federalism in higher education, almost all cases show the common trends of development of federalism in higher education. The main trend is the strengthening of federal control over certain aspects of the system of higher education like quality assessment, student assistance, research funding, internationalization support. National governments choose to control those aspects of higher education due to the pressure of globalization and academic competition. On the other hand, countries pay more attention to the task of developing universities that are oriented on local development. In some countries, it led to the model of the multiversity, which simultaneously works for the tasks of regional development and global competitiveness. In other countries, this pressure led to new stratification of university systems.
The research is an original contribution to higher education discourse and defines a new field of comparative analysis. It also provides important insights into comparative governance and the study of federalism and federal arrangements, with their particular historical, political, legal and economic dimensions.

Authors

• Oleg Leshukov, Higher School of Economics

• Isak Froumin, Institute of Education HSE

• Simon Marginson, Institute of Education, University of London

• Martin Carnoy, Stanford University