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This chapter presents and discusses the value of cultural political economy (CPE) as a theoretical framework for the analysis of the international governance of education. CPE is situated historically as a contemporary example of attempts within the Marxist tradition to explore the relations between the cultural (the world of discourse and practice), the political (actors and institutions), and the economic. The chapter builds on the developed account of CPE to address the challenges presented by the European Union (EU) as an example of international governance. Established accounts of the development of an EU role in the governance of education since the launch of the Lisbon Strategy in March 2000 are examined so as to establish what a CPE approach can offer to attempts to complement and transcend them. In conclusion, the chapter acknowledges the aspects of CPE that remain undeveloped and problematic as well as underlining the terms upon which the CPE as presented here might need to engage with other theoretical approaches.

In a globalised economy, the EU, being self-confident, could shape international standards by defending and promoting its own socioeconomic model. Social democratic parties rhetorically confess the need for a ‘European social model’, but meanings and ways to achieve it differ largely. In a comparative case study on the programmatic positioning of the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands and the Spanish Partido Socialista Obrero Español, the parties' perspectives on the integration mode and their handling of the Economic and Monetary Union framework and its crisis over the last decade are traced. Although similar paths from neoliberal convictions of the ‘third way’ to a positive integration process in a fiscal union setting are found, the scope and levels vary, illustrating the abilities of both parties to meet new transnational challenges. The crisis of the Eurozone was a definitive turning point for the positioning of the Social Democrats in Spain in favour of more political and fiscal integration. In contrast, their German comrades already advocated increased social integration of the EU since 2005 but remained very cautious regarding reforms of the economic framework established by the Eurozone.

The themes of crisis and identity have been discussed endlessly in relation to European unification since 1950, but generally not in their interrelation. After looking briefly at the literature on the notion that integration has often proceeded through crises, and on the relation between European and national and regional identities, the author examines some real or perceived crises and suggests how they may have impacted the issue of identity. These crises include that of the immediate post-war years, the slow emergence of serious reflection on the Holocaust, the imposition of communist rule across half of Europe and the Cold War, the crises of decolonisation and the persistence of European racism, European divisions in relation to crises in the Middle East, Europe’s (non-)response to environmental crisis, the crises of the 1968 years, the crises of post-communist transition and the Yugoslav wars, the Eurozone and refugee crises, the Brexit crisis and finally the current coronavirus crisis. These persistent and often recurring crises (Dauerkrisen) have confronted European political elites with what have been called crises of crisis management, and European populations with different ways of conceptualising their relation to Europe.

European Union (EU) member states are dedicated to a set of sustainable development goals, among them to: (1) promote well-being for all at all the ages and (2) achieve gender equality. This chapter uses the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) methodology that enables comprehensive measurement of intergenerational transfers, both public and private, and differences in the gender equality promotion among the countries. Our analysis is based on the fully comparable NTA results for 25 EU countries from 2010. The authors perform cluster analysis based on five indicators, measuring the importance of different types of age reallocations and the differences in gender equality promotion among the EU countries. Since the economic life cycle (showing the level of dependency) and its financing strongly depend on country-specific institutional and cultural settings, the authors link their results with the typical welfare regimes’ typology. The authors end up with three different groups of countries showing a clear north–south division of countries.

This chapter addresses international educational governance by exploring some of the factors contributing to increasingly internationalized national educational policymaking and the ways that related trends in educational policymaking either constrain or shift to meet particular needs and challenges within specific national contexts. After discussing the phenomenon and the impact of globalization on international educational governance, the role of the state, and some examples of both contextualization and bounded rationality, the impact of national policy convergence is discussed. This chapter concludes by summarizing the ways that national policy convergence became the focus of international educational governance and national educational policy based on the same ideas and structure through seemingly different implementation, but often-identical measurable outcomes. Examples from Japan and Saudi Arabia highlight the discussion.

This article questions how institutional change influences actors’ behavior within organizations affected by the evolution of their institutional environment. This issue is addressed by looking at how university leaders are empowered by the external reviews led by evaluation agencies and research councils and how they use these reviews as managerial tools and to make decisions. It is argued that this process is complementary to the reforms in university governance and structures and amplifies their effects because it is more legitimate, favors organizational coupling and the appropriation of new norms. It draws on a study led in three French universities in 2011.

This chapter presents the principal interpretations that took place in Denmark and Sweden regarding the discourse on ‘Diversity Management’. We organise our presentation around three major themes that are central to the local Scandinavian context: gender equality, migration and moral grounds. This chapter shows the important role of gender equality work practices and how these practices now tend to be progressively incorporated in a broad Diversity Management construct, possibly leading to a less radical stance. Moreover, the comparison between Denmark and Sweden reveals the political associations with Diversity Management and migration in Denmark, but not in Sweden. Our third contribution unveils the tensions between the value of equality, which remains strong in the Scandinavian welfare state model, and the actual practices of Diversity Management.