The role of vocational education and training (VET) has been shifting in recent decades with the influence of globalisation and social-economic events such as the downturn in the economy and financial crises. In this regard, the role of international organisations like UNESCO, the European Union (EU), the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in shaping VET policies in developing countries have been debated in the scholarship. On the one hand, neo-institutionalist scholars who endorse the World Culture Theory argue that politicians at the national level are subjected to and subsequently borrow or transfer policies backed by international players such as the World Bank or the EU in order to be perceived as legitimate (Ramirez, Meyer, and Lerch 2016). For these scholars, multinational organisations articulate universal norms, values and virtues and these common values influence the education policy decisions and preferences of decision-makers operating in different countries which leads to convergence. However, the opposite string of scholars, without ignoring the influence of globalisation on the national police arena, indicate that convergence cannot be reduced to the formal adoption of specific policies and policy instruments (Verger and Fontdevila 2022). Thus, there are factors of a different nature (global, local, material and ideational) that drive national policymakers towards borrowing these policies but similarly, these factors influence the recontextualization of the borrowed mechanism.

In the case of EU members, various directives featuring mechanisms (like metrics and indicators) were adopted at the macro-institutional level, and states were expected to enact policies that would meet certain models and standards in national VET strategies (Lawn and Lingard 2002; Witt 2018). However, the situation differs in the case of non-member European neighbourhood nations, particularly when countries that do not aspire to EU membership follow policies and processes devised and endorsed by the European Union. The research looks at the experience of Azerbaijan, an EU neighbour country that reformed its VET system based on EU-encouraged policy models and procedures.

The study's purpose is to identify the primary factors and elements influencing the Azerbaijani government's decisions to accept EU-supported VET mechanisms within the reform initiative. It also seeks to clarify the mechanisms by which European policy models appear on Azerbaijan's national policy agenda, as well as the contextual (political, economic, and cultural) factors that influence national policymakers in their adoption or rejection of those ideas. The main purpose is to better understand the EU-Azerbaijan policy borrowing and try to identify elements that impact decisions on policy borrowing that go beyond past studies on international political and economic aspects (Langbein and Börzel 2013). Nonetheless, to uncover these factors, the study employs the Cultural Political Economy (CPE) concept developed by Jessop (2010) and further enhanced by Verger et al. (2016), which would help to understand reasons and methods of policy dissemination, adoption, and change with the content and the ideological drivers in the national context.

The study concentrates on change agencies, i.e. stakeholders, the institutions and policymakers that decide on policy adoption, by examining their motivations as well as the environment surrounding them during the decision-making process. For this purpose, the research primarily seeks and answers the following question: To what extent has the EU influenced the reform of the VET system in Azerbaijan? The study also aims to answer the following supportive questions: which VET policy concepts are appealing to Azerbaijani policymakers, and why? Why did certain EU-encouraged VET mechanisms make it to the policy agenda and be adopted as a policy while others did not? what are the primary elements (motivations/incentives) that influence Azerbaijan's policymakers' decision to embrace EU-encouraged VET policy models in the VET system reform?

The objective is to take VET policy reform in Azerbaijan as a case study, identify the dominant policy paradigm formulated as a result of the reform and find out the degree of influence of the EU on policy change. Building on the previous work on policy borrowing/transfer that was done using the Cultural Political Economy matrix (Verger 2016, 30; Valiente, Zancajo, and Jacovkis 2020; Maurer 2012; Sung, Turbin, and Ashton 2000), the study will utilize the historical institutionalist perspective and focus on four factors that influence the policy change: Global, Domestic, Soft and Hard elements. The global material factors that influence the policy change will explore the economic and political influences of the EU, whereas the global soft factors will be used to identify the cultural and ideational factors that influence the policy adoption in the Azerbaijani context. In parallel, the contextual analysis will cover domestic hard elements that cover the material factors that influence the decisions, whereas domestic soft elements will investigate the local culture and political ideology when the decisions were made. The research employs critical realist philosophy and qualitative research methodology. It's major findings were derived from a primary examination of grey literature, 20 policy documents, and 24 interviews with high-ranked officials who were involved in the reform of the VET sector in Azerbaijan. The themes, categories and groups of questions are determined based on the CPE conceptual matrix and the documents analysed in the first stage of the data collection. This research utilises an interpretative or explanatory case study strategy, as indicated by Merriam and Yin, which focuses on developing conceptual categories deductively to examine initial themes identified from document analysis (Merriam 1998; Yin 2014). Since a case study allows an in-depth assessment of a single, real-life policy from multiple angles in order to capture its 'complexity and uniqueness', this technique is utilised in this research because it enables the multi-scalar analysis of a complex phenomenon. The discourse analysis (Rogers et al. 2016) of primary qualitative data conducted based on the CPE approach examined contextual elements framed on the complexity of intersecting multi-level, multi-scalar (local, national, regional, and global) political forces, social structures, cultural traditions, and economic factors (Verger, Novelli, and Altinyelken 2018). The coding of the interview data was conducted using NVivo qualitative data analysis software. The research was approved by the University of Glasgow College of Social Sciences Ethics Committee.

The study found that the EU played a significant role in both problematizing the human capital issue and proposing a VET development model framed with its institutional priorities. The findings suggested that the decision-makers were attracted to the European VET model because of its aim to integration of employers into the system to make VET more responsive to the needs of the labour market. Though the hidden motive was sharing the burden of financing the VET system. Hence, the government was not keen to make structural changes which led the borrowing policies discourses but changing the instruments and processes it envisages. The research findings of this case study support the idea that external pressure is not enough to converge in VET policy. The education sector creates its own demand independent of economic reality, and social demand plays a significant role in shaping policies, affected by the political architecture and institutional capacity of the country. Hence, even though international actors like the EU play a role of knowledge hub and influence the spread of policy ideas in the form of programs, the translation of these programs in the local context changes elements of this policy. Path dependency makes it exceedingly difficult to bring about dramatic change, even when policies are adopted. In summary, the study highlights that Azerbaijan borrowed EU practices in the VET sector to tackle domestic challenges, but local actors adapted them to suit their priorities, leading to a policy that reflects the country's centralized governance system. The study demonstrates the importance of considering the political and institutional context of a country when implementing policy changes. Finally, the study contributes to the ongoing debate on the transferability of education policies across contexts, suggesting that policy transfer is complex and requires careful consideration of local contexts and actors.

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