Switzerland goes Europe? Swiss Education Policy Making under the Impact of the Bologna Process

In the last decade, comprehensive reforms were introduced in Swiss higher education that modified both the policy making procedures and the structure of the education system. The reforms were promoted by an international initiative – the Bologna Process. It is sup-ported by the EU Commission and gave central impulses for domestic reforms in the non-EU country by applying diverse instruments of soft governance whose impact outstripped domestic obstacles. Despite the high number of veto-players in Switzerland and cultural guiding principles of education that did not completely match the Bologna ideals, this pa-per finds a high approximation of Swiss education policy making towards the propositions and aims of the Bologna Process