Globalization, Governance, and the Diffusion of the American Model of Education: Accreditation Agencies and American-Style Universities in the Middle East

Abstract

This article is principally concerned with the transnational and domestic governance regimes that oversee American-style universities in the Persian Gulf region. In the current context of globalization, social scientists have examined the mechanisms by which organizational practices are transferred when transnational corporations establish subsidiaries in other countries or when international nongovernmental organizations collaborate with partners in the developing world to create externally developed prescriptions translated into locally viable action. Comparatively little work, however, has been done on the challenges of exporting, from one cultural and political context to another, an institution of higher education or a particular model for how higher education should be practiced. Although a variety of actors feature in the process of conveying organizational practices and cultural scripts, this article focuses primarily on the role of accreditation agencies and the practice of accreditation. In theorizing the relationship between the following four actors, i.e., external accrediting agencies, locally based quality assurance organizations, ministries of higher education, and Western universities located in the Gulf, Noori argues that the New Medievalism provides an analytically useful explanatory framework for understanding issues of governance with respect to American-style universities in the Gulf region.