Coercive and mimetic isomorphism as outcomes of authority reconfigurations in French and Spanish academic career systems

Reforms in higher education have been passed in many Europeancountries in the last decades, mostly trying to adapt nationalsystems to new European and global challenges. This studyexamines some consequences of such major reforms in Franceand Spain. Specifically, these reforms introduced new agencieswhose remit was inter alia to provide evaluation of research andto make such assessments pivotal for academic careerprogression. The paper investigates empirically whether, and towhat extent, these new forms of authority have been capable ofengendering the expected change to the system of academiccareer evaluation. The respective policy approaches and policyimplementation in France and Spain reveal that these reformstriggered a reconfiguration of powers at various levels ofacademic life – affecting strategies for successful careerdevelopment. Policy-making implications are relevant when thesetwo countries are compared, suggesting that more radical policyapproaches (coercive isomorphism, the French case) do not resultin more change to academic evaluation practices than mimeticones (the Spanish case). It is also important to note that coerciveisomorphism encountered more frictions in its implementation.