Introduction

In this contribution to the PROSEPS symposium on the state of European Political Science, we seek to complement the individual-level primary data collected by the PROSEPS project and analysed by our colleagues in this special issue (see papers by Tronconi, Engeli, Kapidzic, Janusauskiene and Csanyi) by adding the consideration of national policy environments. Do structural conditions in some European countries encourage the internationalisation of the discipline more than others?

A wide variety of national policies we might consider as relevant in this context. Among these we find historical trajectories of national governments and academic systems, as well as more recent developments such as the timing and circumstances of EU membership, as relevant. Our initial choice of cases sought to ensure diversity among these conditions. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland and France were selected accordingly. These countries seem to exemplify various types of institutionalisation and internationalisation of political science in Europe. To the extent that historical or institutional variables prove relevant, their example can give us a sense of the influence of policy on the process of internationalisation and contribute to the debate on the impact of internationalisation on the scientific standards of political science in European countries. While France and Finland are consolidated democracies with a longer tradition of academic political science, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic are relatively young democracies in which political science started to develop after the political transition of 1989. The four also represent different stages of EU enlargement. While France is a founding member, Finland joined the Union in 1995, the Czech Republic in 2004, and Bulgaria in 2007. We begin from the premise that these geographical and historical differences have an influence on scientific policy, and that policy in turn will contribute to explaining both the extent and the nature of internationalisation in political science.

Our data on policies come from the original country reports of political scientists, prepared for the PROSEPS project. These take into account the specific context of political science, but also policies aimed at all fields of science or to the social sciences as a whole. While quantitative information, when available, is included for indicative purposes, the approach of this paper is qualitative and discursive. We seek above all to complement the more data-driven articles in the present special issue by setting their findings into a broader background.

Internationalisation: how and why?

In the broader context of this symposium, internationalisation is generally taken to be a good career incentive. Data collected for the PROSEPS study suggests that the internationalisation of political scientists brings cooperation and better understanding of countries’ development (PROSEPS 2019a). This impacts political science in the direction of increased professionalisation. It encourages teamwork and transfers of know-how. Internationalisation brings inclusiveness and building of academic networks, sharing of different experiences, solutions of problems (Bardi Reference Bardi2011). Although metrics are hard to come by, internationalisation is also often assumed to lead to higher standard research and teaching. More generally, internationalisation has become one of the attributes of a “world-class university” model that has come to influence higher education policies globally (Mittelman Reference Mittelman2017; Rider et al. Reference Rider, Peters, Hyvönen and Besley2020). This model and its European adaptions are also linked to global university rankings (Erkkilä Reference Erkkilä2014), some of which measure the number of international students and staff (THES and QS rankings), as well as internationally co-authored papers (THES). The rankings have also shaped the publication patterns of the social sciences and humanities, making English language peer reviewed journal articles the norm, while publishing in other European languages has become discouraged.

But what in practice is “internationalisation”? Its multiple dimensions, ranging from collaborative publishing to personal international mobility, are discussed in the contribution by Tronconi and Engeli. To have an internationalised career as a political scientist can mean spending significant time engaged in research or teaching outside one’s country of principal residence, but it can also include hosting foreign colleagues, engaging in collaborative research, and publishing in books or journals aimed at an international audience. In the responses to the PROSEPS survey, only 3% of respondents considered that international activity was not meaningful for their career. Significantly, in light of the conclusions that emerge from the present article, political scientists from countries where the discipline is relatively underdeveloped are more convinced than their colleagues in other countries that international activities may help to promote their academic career (PROSEPS 2019a).

Despite this seeming enthusiasm for internationalisation, nevertheless, it remains worth asking why national policies might-or might not-choose to encourage one or more of these dimensions and, to the extent that they do, how they might most effectively go about it. To ask such deceptively simple questions (especially the first: why?) is necessary because one point on which there is little doubt is that internationalisation has costs. The generally perceived difficulty in obtaining funding for international projects is only the most obvious barrier; to the extent that it can be surmounted, it brings higher competition, that some may wish to avoid. It is true that strategies can be identified that seek to minimise these costs. Improved communication channels as well as greater data availability can facilitate distant communication, permitting one to be international, without being mobile. To a certain extent, even studying, and teaching abroad and participating in international research and publications can be done without leaving home. Even in the best cases, however, other costs remain. These may include the role of the English language, and the associated challenges in communication and publication to those for whom it is not a native language. For nations on the periphery, the issue of “brain drain” remains as well, as researchers from Eastern or Southern Europe move for better paid positions in the West.

Consideration of these costs goes far towards explaining why various internationalisation activities-despite the value that is claimed for them-are not universally practiced. Only half of the respondents to the PROSEPS survey claim that they have published intensively (three or more times) in a journal outside their country and/or in peer-reviewed international journals during the last three years. Approximately 20% of respondents claim to have moved abroad three or more times for a research stay or for teaching experience during the last three years. Less than 40% have participated in international research collaborations with the same frequency. The most frequent “international activity” concerns the participation in international conferences as 75% of the respondents declare that they have presented a paper or have acted as a discussant three or more times during the last three years (PROSEPS 2019a).

To what extent do national policy environments either contribute to this gap between aspirations and behaviour or, conversely, help to overcome it? In any given country, answers are found at various levels: (university, national) along several dimensions (mobility, international research, publications, conferences, services). Research on the topic tends to emphasise this multiplicity, noting that actual policies are characterised by a variety of distinct norms, regulations, and motivation in generating academic mobility, cooperation and dissemination (see Tronconi F. and Engeli I. in this volume, Norris 2020, Wagner Reference Wagner2018, Wihlborg and Robson 2017, Eisfeld and Pal 2010). In many ways the discourse on “internationalisation” is an indication of transnational synchronisation and translation of higher education policies (cf. Alasuutari and Qadir Reference Alasuutari and Qadir2013; Sahlin and Wedlin Reference Sahlin, Wedlin, Greewood, Oliver, Suddaby and Sahlin2008). Yet, local application of a global model can create potential mismatches, often discussed as “decoupling” or “loose coupling” (Ramirez Reference Ramirez2012), and “glocalisation” (Drori, Höllerer and Walgenbach Reference Drori, Markus, Peter, Gili, Markus and Peter2014). Indeed, policy diffusion does not necessarily mean convergence (Radaelli Reference Radaelli2005) and the existing institutional traditions have the ability to buffer, filter and channel transnational policy scripts (Gornitzka Reference Gornitzka2013).

Often insightful in detail, this literature taken as a whole does not readily generate emergent and comparable conclusions. It is for this reason that we seek, in the pages that follow, to return to a more descriptive starting point with the aim of generating through induction a set of more straightforward, and hopefully more testable, hypotheses. What is it that makes some national systems more (or less) conducive to, more (or less) supportive of, the various international strategies sketched above? The discussion above provides us with a starting point. Beyond contingent issues of political or institutional path dependence, whether the weight of political history or of academic tradition, internationalisation implies costs, of which travel is only the most obvious. We begin our search for cross-cutting variables, accordingly, with the resources needed to meet these costs.

The power of resources

To a certain extent, European political scientists benefit from a common and supportive policy environment at the European level. In the four countries studied, as elsewhere in Europe, mobility programs for students and academic staff through the Erasmus program are an important source of support for internationalisation in teaching and studying. Beyond this, however, a high degree of national variation is evident. Funds for research and teaching may stem from the universities themselves or from national, regional and international sources, and the requirements for obtaining funds are based on the policies and priorities of each funding institution. This diversity makes direct term-to-term comparison impossible, but in a broader sense the overview of national systems is extremely useful in providing an overall indication of significant differences in the level of available resources, which in turn impacts the chances of international activities for political scientists.

In countries such as Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, the relative scarcity of national resources makes European funding more substantial for knowledge transfer. Funds from North American foundations also remain significant, but in comparison with EU funding their importance is decreasing in contrast to the 1990s when international influences and standards came predominantly from the USA (Kostova and Avramov 2010: 75ff., Holzer and Pšeja 2010: 103ff.). For Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, the EU’s regional funds are of particular importance.Footnote ¹ They aim to standardise the educational and research models of the region and contribute to their better knowledge and understanding (Eisfeld and Pal 2010: 9ff.). Complementing EU funding, are funding opportunities for East European scholars financed by individual countries, Austria, Switzerland and Norway as an example.Footnote ²

Support from private funds is significant in the Czech Republic, but there are high requirements for innovations to get these funds. In comparison, in Bulgaria there are insignificant private funds for research as the private institutions are not motivated through taxes to support science.³ This is an important barrier to research and internationalization. Additionally, the available funds for research and development in Bulgaria did not exceed 1% of the GDP in 2018 and increased only slightly, to 1.3%, in 2019.Footnote ³ Despite this overall increase, political scientists consider the financial support as insignificant because the social sciences receive less than 10% of the financing. In 2019, 8.4% of the budget for research and development was directed to the social sciences. Of 33 applications for funding by social scientists only 7 were financed, from which only one was for political science.Footnote ⁴ In the case of the Czech Republic the national financial resources are significantly higher and in 2017 the allocation for research and development amounted to 90.4 billion CZK, which is approximately 1.79% of the GDP. In the last decade, the allocation for research has increased from 1.24% in 2008 to 1.97% in 2014 and 1.68% in 2016. For the most part, increased funding from private companies drove this rise, while the state expenses for research and development remained the same. Data from the national reports reveal that financing for internationalisation of political science came predominantly from international resources. To ensure transparency of the funding process, 75% of the international resources are governed by both national and EU partners to achieve the objectives of the financial support (PROSEPS 2019b, 2019c).

The more general condition of political science also has a significant impact on its internationalisation in Eastern countries where the strength and professionalisation of the discipline remain fragile. Although the financial situation of these countries has gradually improved, the low salaries of scientific staff still limit the number of academic staff willing to come from abroad and also serves as a disincentive for Czech and Bulgarian PhD graduates who have studied abroad to return to their country. There are still no well-developed and organised post-doc and early-career offers in both of these Eastern countries. This leads to the potential for a brain drain that impedes the establishment of coherent and resilient European political science communities (PROSEPS 2019b, 2019c).

Taken together, thus, the relative lack of material resources available for international activity by Czech and Bulgarian scholars provides a compelling explanation for the relative underdevelopment of international activity in these countries, in light with the broader pattern found by Tronconi and Engeli (see especially Fig. 1) in their contribution to this symposium.

At first glance, the situation for political science in France seems stronger. In 2015, the budget allocated for research and development in France was 49.8 billion Euro which represents 2.27% of the French GDP according to its Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (PROSEPS 2019b). For French political scientists, bilateral agreements with foreign countries and institutions represent an important resource. These typically take the form of agreements between the French National Research Agency (ANR) and its equivalents in partner countries.

In such programs, each national representative funds their own expenses for the cooperation. As a rule, these are long-term collaborations that have proven significant for both sides. Financially they are supported by national funds, regional cohesion grants and the objective is to promote regional relations. Prospects for the future of funding for internationalisation in France, however, are uncertain. The predominant role of public funds means that international activity is affected by budget cuts and structural pressure to downsize state budgets in general and funding for research and mobility in particular. Consequently, French political scientists rely increasingly on international and European funds for international cooperation.Footnote ⁵

In Finland, more than in any of our other cases, national public funds are very significant and play an important role in pushing towards international collaborations. EU funding may have even been somewhat less attractive for Finnish researchers, considering the high effort required to secure them and relatively low success rate. However, in recent years, ERC funding has become a means for obtaining tenure, as individuals in tenure track positions (assistant/associate professors) are strongly encouraged to apply for ERC grants, while post-docs and lecturers who are able to secure an ERC grant can obtain access to the tenure track as a result of this. The Academy of Finland has a central role in research funding, which makes the system in the country quite centralized. In this respect, the universities are in a contradictory position. On the one hand, they are autonomous actors but on the other hand, they are under strict supervision by the Ministry for Education and Culture. The key mechanism for supervision is the performance agreements between the universities and the Ministry that also include guidance on internationalisation and funding. In funding projects, the Academy currently emphasizes their social impact more than was the case before. Research mobility is even a criterion for obtaining post-doctoral funding from the Academy, though this can also imply mobility within Finland. The Academy also prefers multi-disciplinary projects, which provides an indirect but important incentive to diversify the number of partners, including from abroad.

All disciplines combined, Finland distributes 2.7% of its GDP for research and development. As we noted in the case of France, the economic crisis of 2008 and onwards has had a clear impact on funding in Finland as well. In comparison with the time before 2008, there is a decline of research funding in Finland. As a result, this has led to a decline of funds for international activities and to greater job uncertainties as the number of staff decreases, and the many temporary positions created on a project basis lead to uncertainty for researchers and their activities. The new financing instruments have also created a pool of political science scholars characterised by a high degree of precarity, working from one year to another on a project basis (see Norris 2020).

Looking to the present and likely near future, the situation with respect to resources continues to evolve in directions that risk adding to the divergences noted here. With the recent rise of new international funding schemes, there is a clear tendency for larger grants to be given competitively to a limited number of projects, while previously smaller grants for several projects tended to be offered. This is explained as a need to cope with global competition over research “excellence”. This approach to funding is not without serious consequences for the development of political science. Success in obtaining funding tied to perceived “world class” standards can be achieved only based on collaboration between a critical number of scientists who have prepared for this for a long time. Within and among countries, this approach risks emphasising and increasing the distance between an already established internationalised elite and all others.

Taken together, the observations collected in this section suggest that while diversity of national policies and definitions makes direct comparison impossible, the initial hypothesis that the availability of material resources plays an important role in determining the likelihood of international initiatives in research and higher education is largely supported. To the extent that explicit information concerning political science is available, it follows this general pattern and contributes to explaining observed divergences in behaviour. Other things being equal, more resources (and easier access to them) do indeed encourage the various elements of internationalisation. But is this the only, or even the most important, factor? A further look at our four cases suggests that additional factors must be considered.

Career Incentives as Motivation for Internationalisation

If access to resources for international activities is a push factor explaining rates of internationalisation, we suggest that career incentives act as a pull factor, inciting political scientists to find or create opportunities. This section explores the significance of these “pull” factors and their interaction with the availability of resources. Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, as we noted above, faced a relative lack of national resources. We explore now whether and to what extent “pull” factors, which are strong in both countries, can make up for this. France and Finland, for their part, shared a relatively positive situation with respect to resources compared to the two East-European countries. Their differences in this second dimension, however, are significant. Taken together, the variation among the four cases allows us to carry out at least a preliminary assessment of the necessity and sufficiency of “push” and “pull” factors.

In all of our countries, as in Europe more generally, competition among national governments to be seen as playing a leading role in science encourages a declaratory policy supporting international collaboration, and (vaguely defined) “internationalisation” more generally, with much talk of “international standards,” “international recognition,” and the like.Footnote ⁶ How much of an impact, however, does this have in the explicit incentives governing the career decisions of academics in general and political scientists in particular? Our two Eastern European cases provide an initial basis for considering this question.Footnote ⁷ Both are gradually adopting the Bologna model and the Salzburg Principles recognising the importance of internationalisation and mobility experiences (EUA 2010) to ensure comparability of standards and quality of higher education qualifications.Footnote ⁸ In this way, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic are following the European requirements and adapting to their principles to move toward a European model of scientific assessment and professional and technical training for students (Heilbron et al. Reference Heilbron, Sora and Boncourt2018; EACEA 2018; Keim et al. Reference Keim, Çelik, Ersche and Wöhrer2014; Holzer and Pšeja 2010). This is a policy response to global competition that urges these countries to develop, in the last decades, a culture of increasing internationalisation.

Our data for both countries, however, reveal that there is a clash between funding for internationalisation, which remains significantly low, and declared evaluation principles within which a very significant criteria are international publications and especially the ones in highly ranked journals. In terms of career advancement in both countries internationalisation is strongly taken into consideration. The procedure of habilitation and professorship depends on requirements of international recognition. A minimum standard is to publish abroad; it is often also connected with the indicator of the quality of journals (Wos, Scopus, citation index) or of the publishing houses. Other factors considered include teaching classes in foreign languages (mostly English) and participating in international conferences and congresses. Some forms of other international activities are positively encouraged, such as research collaboration, teaching in foreign countries in a position of visiting professor/lecturer, a position as editor in chief or co-editor of international journals and holding a position in international associations (IPSA, ECPR, CEPSA). Our empirical data from the PROSEPS survey reveal that for these two studied countries, publication in international journals and with international publishers is the most important criteria for individual careers and for the evaluation of the institutions. Political scientists from these countries where political science is less developed are more convinced than their colleagues from the other countries that international activities may help to promote their academic career (PROSEPS 2019a).

The observed outcome, as indicated in the contribution to this symposium by Tronconi and Engeli, is that while a small number of scholars from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic may benefit from these incentives, they are not sufficient to make up for the overall low level of resources. We suggest that this mismatch between resources and expectations is likely instead to contribute to a bifurcation of the profession between a small number of internationalised scholars and the bulk of their colleagues. But what of resource-rich environments? If lack of resources is sufficient to provide a significant check to internationalisation, is the opposite true: does the relative abundance of resources suffice to ensure internationalisation? Even a superficial comparison of France and Finland suggests that this is not the case.

There are strong internationalising incentives in Finland for political science academic beginners. The PhD students are encouraged to undertake study visits (fellowships) abroad and to be engaged with international research collaboration. Peer reviewed journal articles in English are also strongly prioritised as career incentives. At the face of international competition, the trend toward interdisciplinary programs in Finnish political science for PhD students has considerably accelerated in the past decade. This is a result of changes in higher education policies for multidisciplinary departments and curricula. An additional pull factor in the Finnish model is the structure of competition for resources. At present and looking forward to 2021, about 70% of financial resources are divided by using performance indicators (such as degrees, publications, earned credits and ability to attract competitive funding). That makes the Finnish system one of the most strongly performance-based in the world, and further reinforces the necessity of international activity as an indicator of performance (PROSEPS 2019d).

The French case provides an instructive contrast to what we see in Finland (PROSEPS 2019e and the article by Thibaud Boncourt in this symposium). There has been a limited move towards the institutionalisation of evaluation in France with the creation of an autonomous body devoted to that task in 2006 (AERES, then HCERES). The evaluation procedures require the participation of scholars from external institutions and takes international activity, particularly publication, into account (Conseil National des Universités 2018). The practical impact of evaluation appears to be more limited than in Finland. Previously meant to inform the French ministry of higher education and research, reports are now produced directly for each institution and do not have a direct impact either on funding or on accreditation.

With respect to individual careers, an important feature of the French situation is the size of the political science community working in 67 universities and 10 Institutes for Political Studies (IEP), in contrast with 5 in Finland. In the context of a much larger university and research system, an internationalised trajectory is one among several ways to organise a professionally successful career in political science. It is of central importance chiefly for those wishing to pursue a career in the elite IEP. For the faculty of Sciences Po Paris where, significantly, the English term assistant professor is used to designate its entry-level hires, internationalisation is the norm. Faculty typically have either a PhD from a non-French university or a significant post-doc abroad-usually in North America. English is their principal-sometimes only-language of publication. This is reflected in the teaching program, with a large proportion of international students, a mandatory period abroad, and a significant proportion of dissertations written in English. A significant proportion of the faculty of the regional Instituts d’Études Politiques, also hold degrees either from international institutions or from Sciences Po Paris. Internationalisation, for these candidates, was typically found either in a comparative thesis topic or through publication in English. International post-docs, usually in Europe, were also relatively common.

Elsewhere in the French university system, the pattern is very different. Dissertations are produced in English only in the relatively rare case of dissertations co-directed with a foreign institution. The data available at the Bibliographical Agency of High Education (ABES) reveal that out of about 3,000 doctoral dissertations defended in political science in French universities since the mid-1980s, about 80 are written in another language, mainly English (Conseil National des Universités 2018). Another indicator can be found in hiring patterns. A report produced by the French political science association (Boncourt, Thibaut et al. 2018) notes that of the 123 persons hired from 2013 to 2018, 7 earned doctorates from a non-French University and an additional 7 produced their doctoral thesis through a co-direction between a French and a non-French university. Once hired, the French practice of granting tenure to all permanent faculty members decreases incentives for costly endeavours such as international collaboration. The most recent wave of evaluation reports carried out by HCERES for French research units (Boncourt, Thibaut et al. 2018: Table 3, p.18) suggests that between a quarter and a third of publications by French political scientists are in a language other than French (overwhelmingly in English).

The analysis reveals that France relies on its strong historical legacies and traditionally disputes innovations, while Finland shows the highest degree of adaptation to world models. Being a small state is a significant factor, allowing certain flexibility in adopting policies, which have had significant impacts on the further internationalisation of both the discipline of political science and political scientists individually. But Finland is also more likely to adapt and implement global standards in political science, as it has a more peripheral position in terms of geographic location, population size and language. In Gornitzka’s (Reference Gornitzka2013) terms, the existing institutional traditions may buffer, filter and channel transnational policy scripts. While France may be in the position to better buffer and resist some of these changes, the Finnish institutions are more likely to filter the scripts, leading to their editing and translation in the local context.