Abstract:

Higher education is a sector that has been subject to global pressure and is characterized by different levels of policy formulation: regional, national, and local (Scott, 2017). This paper analyse Italian higher education policy for internationalisation. Italy was one of the first countries to join the European arena of higher education by the Bologna Declaration 1998. The Government’s impetus for internationalisation stems from article 2 of Law 240/2010. The legal background of the Internationalisation Policy in the Italian higher education system takes into account the law above, as well as its implementation using a university ministerial decree (M.D.) and the national planning documents for 2011-13 (M.D. n. 835/2013) and 2013-2016, (M.D. n. 635/2016).

After describing the empirical elements that constitute the policy itself and which characterise the phases of problem recognition and issue selection, this paper highlights how the national policy, on courses entirely taught in English, has reacted to an unexpected decision taken by a different institutional system, namely the judiciary, due to concerns raised at the local level. This episode will be analysed from a twin perspective: that of the policy cycle, focusing on the implementation phase, and that of “judicialisation” of the policies, i.e. judicial intervention in the policy process. The first point of view highlights a resistance during the implementation phase and the system's reaction that tends to incorporate - neutralising it - the decision itself. The second approach emphasises the role, as actors and leaders of policy, played by judges, particularly on issues of "pure policies" (Hirschl, 2011). This will consider the reaction of the implementation game players while agency (Capano and Galanti, 2018). The conclusions will attempt to draw recommendations for policymakers to reduce the impact of judicial opposition by evaluating the possibility of their occurrence up to the design of the policy itself, using different styles of technical drafting of legal
texts.

References:
[1] Capano, G. and Galanti, M.T. (2018), Policy dynamics and types of agency: From individual to collective patterns of action. Eur Policy Anal, 4: 23-47.
[2] Hirschl, R. (2011), The Judicialization of Politics, The Oxford Handbook of Political Science

Keywords:

Internationalisation, Higher education, public policy, judicialisation.