This chapter suggests that that the similarities in approaches to internationalization lead to convergence across higher education systems, actual practices and governance arrangements also show continued divergence. By adopting a cultural / phenomenological approached as part of the world society theory perspective (Meyer et al., 1997), this chapter aims to provide a cultural rather than a functional explanation for the remarkable degree of convergence, while not losing sight of divergence. Taking this cultural perspective to both frame and explain the proliferation of the internationalization discourse in higher education — and the resulting convergence and divergence — has, to the best of our knowledge, not been done before in the academic literature. To further our understanding of the internationalization discourse and the implications for governance of higher education, we ask the following research question: how can the rationales and practices underpinning the internationalization of higher education be understood from a world society perspective? To answer this question, we first outline the world society theory. We then highlight patterns of convergence, followed by signs of divergence, in rationales and practices.

Systemic governance in higher education – that is, the way in which higher education policy is coordinated through institutionalized arrangements and practices – has received particular attention from scholars in recent decades, the exact period during which the inherited characteristics of HEs have been significantly changed by the effects of massification, welfare state financial crises, and globalization/internationalization. These changes have mostly been the effects of governmental policies that have apparently followed the same template to solve a common set of problems (how to make higher education more competitive, inclusive, effective and accountable). However, these consistent shifts in systemic governance of higher education do not look to have really driven to a global convergence towards the same way to organize the systemic arrangement of higher education governance. This chapter focuses exactly on the question of whether and how there has been convergence in the process of reforms of systemic higher education. The conclusion, based on a policy instrumental perspective, is that more the convergence there has been a kind of complex process of hybridization.

Although accountability is touched on in nearly every account of current higher education developments (HE), only a few HE scholars have attempted to further theorize accountability, its forms, implications, and practical significance. In this chapter, we attempt to advance the debate by focusing on European HE in the age of Bologna, international rankings, massification, and underfunding. We begin our analysis by addressing the manifold socio-economic forces which have put accountability centre stage in contemporary HE discourse and reforms. We then outline numerous state-of-the-art conceptualizations of accountability in general, and in HE specifically. Following the lead of Huisman and Currie (2004), we wish to move beyond normative statements and generalized descriptions by analysing the emergence of ‘accountability regimes’ in four large European countries — Germany (North-Rhine Westphalia), France, Poland, and Romania — with distinctly different paths of development in HE. The analysis allows us to identify cross-national cases of convergence and divergence in the emergence of accountability regimes.

This chapter presents the evolution of the higher education sector and some policy reforms in Africa, looking particularly at the area of university governance. It situates the trends in African higher education governance reform within the broader context of international, continental, national, and institutional policy shifts. It highlights a range of factors, control mechanisms, and challenges that continue to impede the progress of university reform in African higher education. After presenting the general trends of higher education governance and its reform in the continent, the chapter focuses on the governance of Ethiopian higher education as an illustrative case.

One of the most noticeable changes in the governance of higher education has been the introduction of systematic external quality assurance and the establishment of new national agencies with particular responsibilities in this area. In Europe these developments have been accompanied by the establishment of new pan-European meta-organizations in the quality assurance area. These meta-organizations incorporate a wide range of functions, including building and exchanging knowledge and expertise, regulatory responsibilities, and expanding their own influence in higher education governance. This chapter analyses two European meta-organizations in the field of quality assurance — ENQA and EQAR — and discusses their role in influencing the emerging multilevel and multi-actor governance of higher education in Europe.

This chapter argues that changes to the academic labour process have fundamentally deskilled or deprofessionalized academic labour. The chapter is based on a neo-Marxist appraisal of the proletarianization of academic labour. We argue, first, that universities in Anglosphere countries have become commodified due to the privatization of their funding. Second, the decline in public funding and rise of student fees has resulted in a decomposition of academic labour that minimizes costs and increases the surplus from student fees. Third, the capacity of the state and universities to break down the skills of academic labour is enhanced and then restructured in terms of market veridiction. In the process universities become corporatized and locked into a state regulatory regime that interpellates and cajoles academics into that market-driven mission. Lastly, the chapter contends that academics are alienated from their labour and proletarianized in the process, though they do show forms of resistance which can be regarded as ‘weapons of the weak’ to counterattack the commodification process, and they rely on the remnants of professionalism to defend their conditions.

The chapter focuses on the linkage between governance and academic corruption in higher education in Asia. The analysis initially reviews the literature on governance in higher education and argues the close, if complex, link between governance and academic corruption. Subsequently, the chapter details instances and forms of corrupt behaviour in China and several ASEAN member states, in both public and private sector higher education, revealing the close connection of governance to corrupt practices, and underlining the force of, what is, in effect, the product of a wider culture of corruption and fraud.

This chapter focuses on developments in governance in European higher education, with a focus on Western Europe. It presents an overview of the literature on this topic, including the various modes of governance as well as the changes in European higher education in recent decades. The chapter starts by describing different conceptual models used to address and analyse higher education governance. Next, it portrays general tendencies with regard to governance and shows that states have been delegating some of their powers to other levels in the higher education system in four directions: an upward shift to the supranational level, a horizontal shift to ‘independent’ agencies, a downward shift to the institutions (‘autonomy’), and an outward shift (‘privatization, contracting’). As a result of these shifts, often cited as a move from government to governance, the modes of system steering and coordination have become more complex and dynamic, including more stakeholders at different policy levels. The chapter then considers that governance configurations in European higher education not only have similarities, but also differ in various ways.

This chapter considers the national reforms that all the European governments have continuously designed and implemented. These reforms have been inspired by the same common template — the Anglo-American university governance model, actively promoted by the European Union — but national strategies have clearly interpreted this template according to their inherited legacies, and national reforms have subsequently been elaborated and implemented by the universities’ internal actors — with their power resources, culture, learning abilities — which have acted as ‘filters’ vis-à-vis the planned reforms. Even more importantly, as shown in this chapter, this has meant that the consequences of national reforms of university governance have largely differed from the expected results.

This chapter address the rise of research performance measurement as an instrument of governance designed to steer the higher education sector in a specific direction. Performance measurement is always a political decision and it is about both accountability and control. Performance measurement is directed at many different entities, it serves multiple purposes, and it represents a variety of goals and values. In order to focus on the level of convergence between nations in the use of performance measurement of research in higher education institutions, this chapter examines the range of stated purposes behind the decision to measure performance. The chapter address research performance measurement in Australia, Canada, and the UK, and focuses on assessing convergence in ‘talk’ about performance measurement by senior administrators. It seeks to uncover how performance measurement is labelled and represented in these countries, and to examine the level of similarity across these nations. Hence, performance measurement is an example of a governance instrument which is utilized to shed light on how the higher education sector is being steered in various locations.

This chapter reports data from a comparative study of academic governance within England, the USA, and Australia showing that, overall, opportunities for academics to contribute to decision making about matters that affect teaching and research have declined. The chapter highlights the reduced opportunities for student participation in university decision making and substantial gaps between those who support students and staff, and those who make decisions about the provision of support services and their mode of delivery. The chapter address the current dimensions of university decision making within the context of institutional level academic governance before analyzing the ways in which university decision making has changed in recent years and the forces causing such changes. The chapter also highlights the potential impact of these changes on the effectiveness of university decision making, addressing four specific consequences and unanticipated risks. The final section briefly explores two alternative models of university decision making and considers the extent to which these models demonstrate some capacity to respond to consequences and unanticipated risks.