Catching up and Objecting to Europe: Modernity and Discursive Topoi in Greece’s Higher Education Reforms

Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities recognizes the historical precedence of Western patterns of modernity as fundamental points of reference for other modernities, but argues that each country defines its individual path to modernity through its own internal conflicts. Since the end of the Cold War, EU integration and access to EU membership have steadily become the dominant, if not the exclusive, institutional frameworks representing the paradigm of Western modernity. Against this background, we consider the way in which Greece’s pathway to modernity has oscillated between a dominant European definition and an individual one particular to its own internal conflicts. Specifically, we examine the position of state actors, civil society representatives, and lay people on higher education in the context of the Bologna process, the EU institutional framework aimed at educational integration, itself a means of defining identities, pursuing modernity, and protecting tradition.