Towards Global Governance in Distance Education

Abstract

Increasing transnational cooperation in open and distance education provides opportunities for non-state actors to meet around common interests, objectives, values and create a synergy. Besides transnational cooperation, these members of global civil society also motivate intergovernmental cooperation processes. International organizations and professional networks in the field, share common normative values and lead to the construction of a regime.This presentation is about the findings of a research project that aims to make a comparative analysis of the communication networks and cooperation models of international distance education organizations. The major research question asks “the extent to which decision making procedures of the regional organizations are transformed into a regime and provide tools for sustainability of cooperation”. The theoretical framework of the research is epistemic regime theory which concentrates on epistemic communities (such as academicians,professional networks, practitioners, associations, organizations, companies and interest groups) and their roles in creating implicit and explicit common principles, norms, rules and procedures towards regime building.