State and university tensions in Baltic higher education language policy

Abstract

This article explores state and university language policy (LP) agents in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to illuminate their relationship and standpoints in higher education language management. Being interested in who stands for what and whose positions are legitimised, we study the higher education LPs of each state, language principles of universities, and public debates. We conceptualise active LP agents as people with power, people with expertise, people with influence, and people with interest, and consider them to exercise agency in five stages: policy initiation, involvement, influence, intervention, and implementation. By means of argumentation analysis we examine the nature of agents together with the standpoints they express. The findings reveal the central role of most of the nationally oriented state policymakers in university language management in all three settings. Other state policymakers, university administrators, staff, and students become active agents when they disagree with the policies. Agents in each setting share the overarching policy goal, but the main difference of opinion that arises among them is about agency: Should the state or universities implement higher education LPs? And is the state capable of achieving the common policy goal when it takes the task upon itself?

Keywords

• language policy agency
• multi-layered policy
• nation-state
• higher education
• university autonomy
• argumentation analysis
• the baltic states