Government Composition and Higher Education Development Is There a Left-Right Divide? Perspectives on the New Democracies of Central and Eastern

This paper analyses the relevance of the political orientation of parties in government for the development of higher education (HE) in 10 former communist countries that have become European Union member states. HE development is defined along two dimensions: (i) public funding devoted to HE and (ii) HE enrolment. It aims to test whether the commonly used classification of parties on a Left-Right axis and the cleavage implied by this classification can explain the decisions of parties in government concerning HE. The data suggests that governments dominated by rightist parties have tended to spend more on HE in the period considered. This is in contrast with earlier findings in the literature focusing on advanced industrial countries. It explains that the reasons that have led to this outcome are related to different voter preferences in Central and Eastern Europe. This contribution aims to integrate the partisan dimension into the analysis of skill formation and adds to the literature explaining policy outcomes in relation to cabinet composition.