Poliitilise ideoloogia mõju kõrghariduse rahastusele
Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
This Bachelor thesis discusses the relevance of political ideology in the funding of higher education, concentrating more on Estonia`s example but also analyzing cases in other countries. The topic is relevant in Estonia in 2012 due to the ongoing reforms in higher education. The influence of political ideology has been generally little explored, with articles on funding of higher education concentrating more on economic and demographic than political factors. The author aims to fill this gap in previous research and concentrates on political ideology.
Theoretical framework for the study is built on Esping-Andersen`s model of capitalist welfare states. Esping-Andersen divides welfare states into three categories – social democratic, liberal and corporatist-statist. Traditional examples of such welfare states are Sweden, USA and Germany. The author of this thesis chooses one more example for each category (Denmark as part of the social democratic, Austria as part of the corporatist-statist and Great Britain as part of the liberal model) and analyzes whether funding of higher education in the mentioned countries fits into the model proposed by Esping-Andersen. First hypothesis set by this study is that higher education in countries that are part of the social democratic model is funded by the state in a bigger proportion than in countries part of the liberal or corporatist-statist model and this hypothesis proves to be true.
The paper also sets a second hypothesis about changes in funding of higher education. It is proposed that when a right-wing party rises to power, the state funding of higher education goes down and when a left-wing party gets the power, state funding of higher education goes up. To prove such correlation, the author draws different graphs based on the statistics about state funding in different countries and then compares bigger fluctuations in funding to the changes in government. The hypothesis does not hold true.
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It is concluded that changes in funding of higher education are influenced by other factors and not so much by the ideology of party in power.
As mentioned, a big part of this thesis concentrates on the case of Estonia. It analyzes party programs prior to parliamentary elections from 1992 to 2011. Four different parties are chosen for this study – Estonian Reform Party (liberal right-wing party), Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (conservative right-wing party), Estonian Centre Party (centrist party), Social Democrats (social democratic party). First it is analyzed whether the programs regarding higher education fit the ideology of the parties and that by and large seems to be the case. It is then analyzed; similarly to the second part of this thesis, whether fluctuations in state funding can be connected to the changes in government and as in previous cases, the author finds no expected correlation.