The Transnational Politics of Higher Education (Routledge Studies in Global and Transnational Politics)

This edited volume introduces readers to the relationship between higher education and transnational politics. It shows how higher education is a significant arena for regional and international transformation as well as domestic political struggle replete with unequal power relations.

This volume shows:

• The causes and impacts of recent transformations in higher education within a transnational context;
• Emerging similarities in objectives, institutional set-ups, and approaches taking place within higher education institutions across different world regions;
• The asymmetrical relations between various kinds of institutional, commercial and state actors across borders;
• The extent to which historical and colonial legacies are important in the transformation of higher education;
• The potential effects these developments have on the current structure of international political order.

Drawing on case studies from across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, the contributors develop diverse perspectives explaining the impact of transnational politics on higher education―and higher education on transitional politics―across time and locality. This book is among the first multi-disciplinary effort to wrestle with the question of how we can understand the political role of higher education, and the political force universities exert in the realm of international relations.

Meng-Hsuan Chou is Nanyang Assistant Professor in public policy and global affairs at NTU, Singapore and an Associate Fellow at the European Union Centre Singapore. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of European Public Policy, Politics and Governance, and PS: Political Science & Politics.

Isaac Kamola is assistant professor at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. His scholarly work has appeared in International Political Sociology, African Identities, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, British Journal of Political and International Relations, Third World Quarterly, and Transitions as well as a number of edited volumes.

Tamson Pietsch is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the imperial and international histories of universities in the 19th and 20th centuries. She is the author of Empire of scholars: universities, networks and the British Academic world, 1850-1939 (Manchester, 2013).