Governing Europe by comparison, peer pressure & self-interest : On the Bologna Stocktaking Process as operator of national education policy

The Bologna Process and the creation of a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) signify that European nations commit to making different education systems comparable and advancing quality by competition. Employing a governmentality lens, this article scrutinizes the Bologna Process as a set of transnational political technologies at work. The Open Method of Coordination appears as the key political technology to advance the Bologna Process. In a voluntarily based political process the OMC brings about a transnational forum by simultaneously catching national players between the lures of peer pressure and self-interest. This complex of advancing national educational policies by means of on-going and gradual transnational consensus-building is exemplified in analyses of the crucial 2009 Bologna Stocktaking Report and its context.