Market Power Europe and the externalization of higher education

Higher education policy has long had important domestic, intergovernmental and values‐based features. However, through the Bologna Process, the European Union (EU) has influenced these traditional features and helped to develop an external dimension to higher education policy in and beyond Europe. Despite these significant changes, scholarship on the EU has not yet interrogated directly the external dimensions of Bologna and the influence the EU wields through this process. This article employs Market Power Europe (MPE) as a conceptual framework to examine the Bologna Process and the EU's role in these important changes. Focusing on the notion of externalization, the article reveals the importance of market factors, multiple means (externalization tools) and actors (beyond intergovernmental) through which the EU influences other actors in higher education policy. The findings contribute to the MPE conceptual framework and encourage further research into the causal mechanisms at play in the under‐studied external dimensions of this policy area.