Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:03:11.796Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Between the Market and Solidarity: Commercializing Development Aid and International Higher Education in Socialist Yugoslavia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2020

Peter Quinnan Wright Open the ORCID record for Peter Quinnan Wright [Opens in a new window]
Peter Quinnan Wright*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines how self-managed faculties in socialist Yugoslavia adopted market mechanisms in the 1970s and 1980s to attract international students and thus contributed to a commercialization of higher education. In the 1950s, Yugoslavia became a destination for students from postcolonial states because of its nonaligned politics. While Yugoslav officials first emphasized aid to students through scholarships, this article argues that projects based on profit seeking began to dominate thinking about aid in the late 1960s. Using archival records in Croatia and Serbia as well as UNESCO and World Bank reports, this article shows how domestic and international factors influenced these changes. Domestically, decentralizing political reforms and decreased funding for higher education allowed republic policy makers to disconnect technical aid from political priorities and to pursue self-financing international students. Detached from centralized policy making, Yugoslav university and republic leaderships, primarily in SR Croatia and SR Serbia, chose the immediate profits of international students over long-term investments in scholarship students. Internationally, reforms promoted by UNESCO and the World Bank shifted aid away from university training abroad to vocational training in situ. These new policies complemented an emerging international division of labor suited more to the economic interests of OECD states and multinational corporations than developing states.

Keywords

Yugoslaviasocialismnonalignmentdevelopment aidhigher education
Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 49 , Issue 3: Special Issue on Internationalism in Times of Nationalism: Yugoslavia, Nonalignment, and the Cold War , May 2021 , pp. 462 - 482
Check for updates
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Abrokwa, Clemente K. 1995. “Vocational Education in the Third World: Revisiting the Debate.” The Vocational Aspect of Education 47 (2): 129–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Archer, Rory, Duda, Igor, and Stubbs, Paul. 2016. “Bringing Class Back In: An Introduction.” In Social Inequalities and Discontents in Yugoslav Socialism, edited by Archer, Rory Duda, Igor, and Stubbs, Paul, 1–20. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bačević, Jana. 2016. “Education, Conflict and Class Reproduction in Socialist Yugoslavia.” In Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism, edited by Archer, Rory, Duda, Igor, and Stubbs, Paul, 77–94. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Barber, Elinor, Altbach, Philip G., and Myers, Robert G.. 1984. “Introduction: Perspectives on Foreign Students.” Comparative Education Review 28 (2): 163–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benveniste, Guy. 1983. “Modernization and Declining Political Support for Education: Some Implications for the Developing Countries.” European Journal of Education 18 (4): 345–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bondžić, Dragomir. 2014. “Školovanje studenata iz zemalja u razvoju kao deo spoljne politike Jugoslavije 1950–61.” Annales 24 (4): 637–648.Google Scholar
Bok, Derek. 2003. Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Buckner, Elizabeth S. 2017. “The Changing Discourse on Higher Education and the Nation-State, 1960–2010.” Higher Education 74 (3): 473–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bürgi, Regula. 2017. “Engineering the Free World: The Emergence of the OECD as an Actor in Education Policy, 1957–1972.” In The OECD and the International Political Economy since 1948, edited by Leimbruger, Matthieu and Schmelzer, Matthias, 285–309. London: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, Jeffrey James. 2009. “Our Own Special Brand of Socialism: Algeria and the Contest of Modernities in the 1960s.” Diplomatic History 33 (3): 462482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, Jeffrey James. 2015. “Beyond Continents, Colors, and the Cold War: Yugoslavia, Algeria, and the Struggle for Non-Alignment.” The International History Review 37 (5): 912–932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cammelli, Andrea. 1991. “Foreign Students in Italy.” Higher Education 21 (3): 359–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnoy, Martin. 1980. “International Institutions and Educational Policy: A Review of Education-Sector Policy.” Prospects 10 (3): 265–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“CEPES Activities.” 1976. Higher Education in Europe 1 (4/5): 29–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cerych, Ladislav. 1990. “Renewal of Central European Higher Education: Issues and Challenges.” European Journal of Higher Education 25 (4): 351–359.Google Scholar
Crnobrnja, Bogdan. 2016. Neočekivana promjena: Kako je stvoren pokret nesvrstanih. Belgrade: Muzej Istorije Jugoslavije.Google Scholar
Cvjetičanin, Biserka. 1971. Efekti školovanja i stipendiranja studenata iz zemalja u razvoju u Jugoslaviji preko Jugoslavenske tehničke suradnje. Zagreb: Institut za zemlje u razvoju.Google Scholar
Dyker, David A. 1990. Yugoslavia: Socialism, Development and Debt. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eide, Kjell. 1990. 30 Years of Educational Collaboration in the OECD. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Engerman, David C. 2004. “The Romance of Economic Development and New Histories of the Cold War.” Diplomatic History 28 (1): 23–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Richard L., and Seid, Melinda J.. 2000. “Introduction.” In Critical Perspectives on Globalization and Neoliberalism in the Developing Countries, edited by Harris, Richard L. and Seid, Melinda J., 1-26.International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Heyneman, S.P. 2003. “The History and Problems in the Making of Education Policy at the World Bank, 1960–2000.” International Journal of Educational Development 23 (1): 315–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivić, Ivan. 1991. “The Internationalization of Higher Education: A Point of View from a Developing Country.” Higher Education in Europe 16 (2): 10–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivić, Ivan. 1992. “Recent Developments in Higher Education in the Former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” European Journal of Education 27 (1/2): 111–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacković, Zdravko, and Kovač, Zdenko. 1992. “Medicinski fakultet i napredak svjetske medicine, 1970–1990.” In Medicinski fakultet sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 1917–1992, edited by Petrak, Jelka, Buneta, Zoran, and Kostović, Ivica, 79–108. Zagreb: Medicinski Fakultet.Google Scholar
Latham, Michael E. 2010. “The Cold War in the Third World.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 2, edited by Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, Odd Arne, 258–280. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marković, Andrej, and Obadić, Ivan. 2017. “A Socialist Developing Country in a Western Capitalist Club: Yugoslavia and the OEEC/OECD, 1955–1980.” In The OECD and the International Political Economy since 1948, edited by Leimbruger, Matthieu and Schmelzer, Matthias, 89–111. London: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neave, Guy. 1982. “The Changing Boundary Between the State and Higher Education.” Higher Education 17 (3): 231–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nkrumah, Kwame. 1957. Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson.Google Scholar
“OECD Programme on the Management of Higher Education Institutions Enters Its Third Phase.” 1977. Higher Education in Europe 2 (3): 22–25.Google Scholar
Platt, William J. 1974. “Educational Development and the United Nations System.” Prospects 4 (2): 244–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popivoda-Endresen, Nataša. 1979. Higher Education in Yugoslavia. Belgrade: ZAMTES.Google Scholar
Popivoda-Endresen, Nataša, and Kljaković, J.. 1987. Higher Education in Yugoslavia: Guidebook for Foreign Students. Belgrade: ZAMTESGoogle Scholar
Pribićević, Branko, and Gligorijević, Jovan. 1973. “Self-Management in Yugoslav Universities.” Prospects 3 (4): 515–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajak, Svetozar. 2014. “No Bargaining Chips, No Spheres of Interest: The Yugoslav Origins of the Cold War Non-Alignment.” Journal of Cold War Studies 16 (1): 146–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiff, Hans. 1983. “International Co-operation in Education with the Least Developed Countries.” Prospects 13 (4): 449–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resulovic, Sulejman. 1980. “Present Situation and Functions of Yugoslav Universities.” Higher Education in Europe 5 (3): 43–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reubens, Edwin P. 1975. “The New Brain Drain from Developing Countries: International Costs and Benefits, 1960–1972.” In The Costs and Benefits of Education, edited by Leiter, Robert, 178–214. New York: Twayne Publishers.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Alvin. 1970. Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salifou, André. 1974. “On Refusing the Balkanization of the African University.” Prospects 4 (4): 471–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SID (Society for International Development). 1974. “From the Crisis in Educational Systems to the Redeployment of Aid.” Prospects 4 (2): 220–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slobodian, Quinn. 2012. Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Šoljan, Nikša Nikola. 1979. “Educational Needs and the Philosophy of Democratization in Higher Education in Yugoslavia.” Prospects 9 (1): 58–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Šoljan, Nikša Nikola. 1991.“The Saga of Higher Education in Yugoslavia: Beyond the Myths of a Self-Management Socialist Society.” In “Education and Socialist (R)Evolution.” Special issue, Comparative Education in Review 35 (1): 131–153.Google Scholar
Šoljan, Nikša Nikola, and Schutze, Hans Georg. 1989. Higher Education and the World of Work: And OECD/CERI-Yugoslav Report. Belgrade: ZAMTES.Google Scholar
Symonds, Richard. 1970. “The Problems of Training Abroad.” Prospects 1 (1): 48–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Touraine, Alain. 1973. “Death or Change of the Universities?” Prospects 3 (4): 469–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nations, United. 1978. Developments in Technical and Vocational Education: A Comparative Study. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Unkovski-Korica, Vladimir. 2016. The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-Alignment. London: I.B. Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uvalić-Trumbić, Stamenka. 1990. “New Trends in Higher Education in Yugoslavia.” European Journal of Education 25 (4): 399–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Alan, and Schnitzer, Klaus. 1991. “Programmes and Policies for Foreign Students and Study Abroad: The Search for Effective Approaches in a New Global Setting.” Higher Education 21 (3): 275–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Peter. 1984. “Britain’s Full-Cost Policy for Overseas Students.” Comparative Education Review 28 (2): 258–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, Susan. 1986. “Orthodoxy and Solidarity: Competing Claims and International Adjustment in Yugoslavia.” International Organization 40 (2): 505–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, Susan. 1995. Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945–1990. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bank, World. 1971. Education Sector Working Paper. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Zimic, Darinka. 1982. “Yugoslav Universities and Developing Countries.” Higher Education in Europe 7 (1): 13–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Archival Sources

Arhiv Jugoslavije (AJ), the archival fonds: Savez studenata Jugoslavije, Savezni zavod za međunarodnu tehničku saradnju, Savezno izvršno veće, and Socijalistički savez radnog naroda Jugoslavije.Google Scholar
Hrvatski Državni Arhiv (HDA), the archival fonds: Republički zavod za međunarodnu znanstveno-tehničku suradnju, Republički komitet za odnose sa inozemstvom 1977–1991, and Prosvjetni Savjet.Google Scholar
Arhiv Srbije (AS), the archival fond: Republički zavod za međunarodnu naučno-prosvetnu, kulturnu i tehničku saradnu.Google Scholar

Interviews

Dias, Raoul Alberto. 2016. Interviewed by author, October 28. Belgrade, Serbia.Google Scholar
Kourouma, Amadou. 2017. Interviewed by author, March 7. Belgrade, Serbia.Google Scholar