A Long Night's Journey into the Day

Quality assurance has been a long-standing concern for research in higher education. However, empirically substantiated analyses of higher education quality assurance policies, drawing on public policy implementation theory, have been rather sparse. Aiming at reducing such scarcity, the book analyses the implementation of Czech system-level policy on higher education quality assurance in the period from 1990 until 2010. By the application of the instrumental approach to policy implementation, attention is paid to the rationale, functioning, and effects of several implementation instruments in combination ¿ the point often missed in policy implementation literature. More specifically, the enquiry undertaken in the book identifies the stick-carrot-sermon instrument set-up as a distinct implementation style. Due to the recognition of a number of shortcomings of the policy in question and the formulation of recommendations how to ameliorate them in policy practice, the book is of interest for a broad range of higher education stakeholders, including researchers, managers, administrators, and decision-makers.