The international circulation of higher education reforms such as the Bologna Process and the Licence–Master–Doctorate (LMD) structure is often framed as a process of harmonisation and modernisation. However, critical scholarship in comparative education has shown that these reforms are embedded in implicit power relations and hierarchical academic orders, where some countries define standards while others are expected to conform in order to gain access to funding, mobility, and symbolic recognition (Charlier & Croché, 2012; Cowen, 2009; Ravinet, 2009).

The Algerian case illustrates these tensions. Rapidly adopted in 2004, the LMD reform was intended to align the national system with European higher education frameworks and signal international integration. Yet its concrete appropriation within institutions remains uneven and contested.

Research question and theoretical framework

This study examines how internationally circulating higher education reforms are translated and enacted within national university systems. Focusing on the adoption of the Licence–Master–Doctorate (LMD) reform in Algeria, it asks: How do university actors construct, negotiate, and contest the legitimacy of internationally promoted reform models, and how does this legitimacy work shape what institutions are actually able to implement in practice? Rather than treating reform as a linear process of policy transfer, the study seeks to understand why alignment with global standards does not necessarily lead to substantive organisational or pedagogical change.

The theoretical framework combines three complementary perspectives. First, scholarship on policy transfer and circulation (Musselin, Charlier & Croché, Ravinet) is used to analyse reforms as travelling policies shaped by asymmetrical power relations rather than neutral diffusion. Second, a sociology of legitimacy perspective helps explain how certain models become recognised as “valid” or “modern”, while others are marginalised, thereby structuring actors’ margins of action. Third, insights from the sociology of curriculum and institutional work allow the study to examine how reforms are translated, negotiated, and sometimes reinterpreted at the meso and micro levels of programmes and everyday practices.

The Algerian case provides a particularly relevant lens for understanding these dynamics at a European and international scale. The LMD reform explicitly derives from the Processus de Bologne and aims to align the national system with European higher education standards. Analysing its local translation therefore contributes to broader debates on how European policy models travel beyond Europe, how legitimacy is constructed in North–South academic relations, and how internationally promoted knowledge shapes the conditions for action in diverse higher education contexts.

The study adopts a qualitative case study design focusing on the implementation of the Licence–Master–Doctorate (LMD) reform in Algerian higher education. This approach allows for an in-depth examination of how internationally circulating policy models are interpreted and enacted within specific institutional and national contexts. Empirical data were collected through approximately forty semi-structured interviews conducted with key university actors, including programme coordinators, department heads, vice-deans, and academic staff involved in curriculum design and reform implementation. These participants were selected because of their direct responsibility for translating national and international policy prescriptions into local educational practices. The interviews explored their perceptions of the reform, decision-making processes, constraints, and strategies of adaptation or resistance. To complement interview data, the study also draws on documentary sources, including ministerial texts, institutional guidelines, curriculum documents, and official reports related to the adoption of the Processus de Bologne-inspired LMD structure. This documentary analysis helps situate actors’ accounts within broader policy discourses and institutional expectations. All interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic coding. The analysis focused on (1) justificatory discourses mobilised by actors, (2) references to international standards and models, (3) perceived sources of legitimacy, and (4) situations in which local initiatives were either enabled or constrained. This interpretive analysis makes it possible to connect macro-level policy narratives with meso- and micro-level practices.

The findings show that the LMD reform operates less as a straightforward organisational transformation than as a process of symbolic and institutional legitimisation. While the reform is widely framed as necessary for international alignment and modernisation, its implementation appears uneven and highly negotiated at the local level. Three interrelated dynamics emerge from the qualitative material. First, university actors often prioritise conformity to externally validated standards over locally grounded innovation. References to European models and international recognition function as justificatory resources in decision-making, shaping what is perceived as “credible” reform. Second, this legitimacy work fosters institutional caution: alternative or context-specific initiatives are frequently postponed, discouraged or kept informal, as actors seek to avoid deviating from established norms and expectations. Third, as a result, the reform is sometimes enacted more as a signal of modernisation than as a lever for substantive pedagogical or organisational change, contributing to a gap between formal adoption and everyday practices. Analysing reform through legitimacy helps explain why alignment with international standards does not automatically translate into meaningful transformation, and why compliance-oriented enactments may coexist with local improvisation and selective appropriation. Beyond the Algerian case, the study contributes to European and international debates on the circulation of higher education reforms, particularly those inspired by the Bologna Process. It highlights how policy models travel across unequal academic spaces and how their enactment depends not only on resources but also on symbolic recognition and power relations.

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