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This chapter focuses on the contributions of German scholars to two of the three main research questions that have defined EU studies. Leaving aside the debate on the drivers of European integration, i.e. European integration theory, we will discuss the «governance turn» Fritz Scharpf, Beate Kohler-Koch, Arthur Benz, Ingeborg Tömmel and others promoted in studying EU institutions as well as the more policy-oriented approaches by Adrienne Héritier and again Fritz Scharpf and their students. We will then address the ever-growing literature on Europeanization on how EU policies, institutions and political processes have been affecting the domestic structures of member states, membership candidates, as well as neighborhood and third countries. In this context, German scholars also contributed to EU studies in what could be coined in methodological rather than substantial terms. Whereas Thomas König, Gerald Schneider, and others promoted the application of quantitative approaches, scientists like Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Markus Haverland dealt with general questions on research designs like case selection and causal inference. Finally, we will also discuss German contributions to diffusion research. The European Union as a most likely case for the diffusion of policies has attracted considerable attention by scholars dealing with the question of when and how policies spread across time and space. So it comes as no surprise that EU studies as well as diffusion research mutually benefitted from each other. In this regard, German scientists like Katharina Holzinger, Christoph Knill, Tanja Börzel, Thomas Plümper, Thomas Risse and others played a prominent role, too.
Although there is a growing interest of policy makers in higher education issues (especially on an international scale), there is still a lack of theoretically well-grounded comparative analyses of higher education policy. Even broadly discussed topics in higher education research like the potential convergence of European higher education systems in the course of the Bologna Process suffer from a thin empirical and comparative basis. This paper aims to deal with these problems by addressing theoretical questions concerning the domestic impact of the Bologna Process and the role national factors play in determining its effects on cross-national policy convergence. It develops a distinct theoretical approach for the systematic and comparative analysis of cross-national policy convergence. In doing so, it relies upon insights from related research areas — namely literature on Europeanization as well as studies dealing with cross-national policy convergence.