Simon Marginson Research Articles

China and Europe on the New Silk Road: Connecting Universities across Eurasia, edited by Marijk van der Wende, William C. Kirby, Nian Cai Liu, and Simon Marginson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. xviii+421 pp. US$115.00/£90.00 (cloth); also available as an e-book.

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsChina and Europe on the New Silk Road: Connecting Universities across Eurasia, edited by Marijk van der Wende, William C. Kirby, Nian Cai Liu, and Simon Marginson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. xviii+421 pp. US$115.00/£90.00 (cloth); also available as an e-book.Ruth HayhoeRuth HayhoeUniversity of Toronto Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 88July 2022 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/720193 Views: 49Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Potential benefits of reciprocity between Sinic and Anglo-American values in higher education

ABSTRACT This paper was invited as a commentary on the keynote paper for this special issue by Simon Marginson and Lili Yang. The paper begins by noting the importance of a fully balanced approach to comparison in higher education, that gives equal value and weight to Sinic and Anglo-American views by adopting a transpositional approach and also recognising the linguistic challenges involved. It then considers strengths of the Sinic approach and of the contrasting Anglo-American approach and their outcomes over history, using a frame drawn from recent work by Francis Fukuyama. Finally it turns to weaknesses on both sides, and ways in which learning from the other could make a difference.

ELSEVIER’S SLAVES: THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?

This paper investigates the mechanisms of subordinating the system of science and higher education to the needs of boosting capital in the conditions of a new business model characteristic of neoliberal capitalism. The author uses as a theoretical framework of critical studies of science and higher education systems developed in Poland by Krystian Szadkowski based on political economy (Simon Marginson and Gigi Roggero). The weakness of the recently implemented reform of Polish education, the essence of which is making the status of ‘scientist’ dependent on publication in high-ranking journals belonging to publishing corporations’ oligopoly, is that the natural and technical disciplines have been places on an equal evaluation footing with social sciences and humanities. This practice impoverishes the educational and critical functions of humanities, impoverishes the research questions, impoverishes the research methodology, and consequently, their cognitive values. The assessment of the quality of a social researcher’s work, to be reliable, should include several other components—the presence of an “invisible university” in international networks (e.g. measured by selected citation indicators), but also problematization and interpretative innovation, as well as an original contribution to the achievements of the discipline. Monographs mainly document this. Qualitative expert assessment is required for evaluation. Therefore, the publication of monographs in reputable Polish and foreign publishing houses should become a showcase of the Polish social researcher, rather than contributing journal papers. In the paper, the author synthesizes his various analyses of contemporary capitalism and the role that science and the research and development sector play in accumulating capital.

The Overall Status of International Values Education Research in the Recent Ten Years

The revival and development of values education in the world has become a hot topic in the field of education development in the new century. With the increasing demands of the government and people from all walks of life on the values education, the research on values education has begun to increase in the international academic circles. This paper tries to adopt the method of knowledge mapping, select the literature on “values education” in the SSCI database from 2009 to 2018 as the analysis object, and use CiteSpace software to analyze values education. The paper finds that the number of publications on international values education is increasing year by year, forming a core research field focused on pedagogy, psychology and sociology. The mainstream authors on international values education research are Simon Marginson, Pierre Bourdieu, John Dewey, Albert Bandura, etc. In recent ten years, the hot topics on international values education research mainly focus on six themes. Teacher education, physical education, personal values, choosing the caring setting, digital storytelling and professional identity, and teacher education has become the most popular research topic.

Responses to Yang Rui’s “China’s Strategy for Internationalization of Higher Education: An Overview”

Few decisions of the 20th century have had as profound an impact on the 21st century world as Deng Xiaoping’s announcement of the open-door policy in late 1978. Deng was prophetically ambitious: He wanted to bridge minds by sending Chinese students to study overseas and encourage Chinese universities to exchange and cooperate with their counterparts worldwide. Three decades later, China’s rise is becoming increasingly clear. The rate of returnees rises every year. Those coming to China to learn have outnumbered Chinese people studying abroad, and this is a historic change. The new administration of Xi Jinping has pledged to rely on the people and bring benefit to the people in achieving the “Chinese Dream” and with this a fresh phase of the internationalization of higher education has begun. The new phase requires a more balanced two-way flow of knowledge and culture between China and the outside world. On preparing for its global roles, internationalization has an even more significant place. Its development in this new era requires a similar mixture of vision and boldness. It is now high time to reflect on the experience of internationalization in the previous era and look to what the future has in store. Against such a backdrop, Frontiers of Education in China presents an overview of China’s strategies for the internationalization of higher education by Professor Yang Rui. To enter into further debate on this theme, we have invited four scholars of both Chinese and non-Chinese cultural backgrounds who work in various parts of the world, to offer their comments on Professor Yang’s viewpoints. They are Professor Ruth Hayhoe from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto in Canada, Professor Simon Marginson from the Institute of Education, University of London in the United Kingdom, Professor Yuzhuo Cai based at the Higher Education Group of the School of Management at the University of Tampere in Finland and Associate Professor Jiang Kai from the Graduate School of Education at Peking University. We hope our readers will find their discussions helpful in providing rich food for further thoughts on the internationalization of higher education in China.

Simon Marginson: The Dream is Over. The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education

Simon Marginson: The Dream is Over. The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education

Ly Tran, Simon Marginson, Hoang Do, Quyen Do, Truc Le, Nhai Nguyen, Thao Vu, Thach Pham and Huong Nguyen: Higher education in Vietnam: flexibility, mobility and practicality in the global knowledge economy

1. Education for Flexibility, Practicality and Mobility PART I: STUDENTS AND STRUCTURES 2. Higher and Tertiary Education in Vietnam 3. Towards More Flexible Organization 4. Curriculum and Pedagogy 5. The Student Self PART II: THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE 6. Internationalisation 7. Policy Borrowing 8. Foreign Language Policy PART III: EXTENDING THE BOUNDARIES 9. Research in Universities 10. Vocational Education and Training CONCLUSION 11. Modernization with Vietnamese Character

Akiyoshi Yonezawa, Yuto Kitamura, Arthur Meerman and Kazuo Kuroda (eds): Emerging international dimensions in East Asian higher education

In Emerging International Dimensions in East Asian Higher Education Japanese editors Akiyoshi Yonezawa, Yuto Kitamura, Arthur Meerman, Kazuo Kuroda have compiled a collection of original essays which comprehensively maps the reality of rapidly evolving international dimensions in East Asian higher education, which is ‘‘attracting international attention because of its rapid development both in quantity and in quality’’ (p. 1). The purpose of the book is to take an in-depth and holistic look at the internationalization of higher education in East Asia. With the contribution of scholars from East Asia and other parts of the world, the volume provides the readers with a detailed set of policy-oriented discourses through governmental visions and institutional behaviors at global, regional, subregional and national levels. The common issues related to higher education internationalization are examined, including academic mobility, cross-border activities, quality assurance, interuniversity cooperation, regional integration, trade agreements, and among others. The regional uniqueness of East Asia is highlighted through comparative studies with Europe and North America. The edited volume is organized into 12 chapters. Chapter 1, The Emergence of International Dimensions in East Asian Higher Education: Pursuing Regional and Global Development, serves as an introduction to the issues discussed throughout the book. It traces the changing landscape of higher education in East Asia and presents an excellent overview of theoretical dynamics for the following chapters. Chapter 2, entitled Higher Education as a Public Good in a marketized East Asian Environment, defines and identifies public good and public goods in higher education in the globalizing world under the influence of market ideologies. UK author Simon Marginson emphasizes the shared and collective benefits of East Asian higher education, where ‘‘no system is truly organized as a commercial market’’ (p. 20). The rapidly evolving role and functions of Asian universities in global knowledge production is the subject of Chapter 3. In Asia many states have

Universities and the Public Sphere: Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization ed. by Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika (review)

Universities and the Public Sphere: Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization ed. by Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika (review)

Universities and the Public Sphere: Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization edited by Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika. New York: Routledge, 2011. 276 pp. $141.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-415-87847-0.

Previous articleNext article No AccessUniversities and the Public Sphere: Knowledge Creation and State Building in the Era of Globalization edited by Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner, Simon Marginson, and Imanol Ordorika. New York: Routledge, 2011. 276 pp. $141.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-415-87847-0.Christopher S. CollinsChristopher S. Collins Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 56, Number 4November 2012Special Issue on the Local and the Global in Reforming Teaching and Teacher Education Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/668487 Views: 42Total views on this site © 2012 by The Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Roger King, Simon Marginson, and Rajani Naidoo (eds.): Handbook on globalization and higher education

Roger King, Simon Marginson, and Rajani Naidoo (eds.): Handbook on globalization and higher education

The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World (review)

Reviewed by: The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World Stephen P. Heyneman Ben Wildavsky. The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. 240 pp. Cloth: $26.95. ISBN: 978-0-691-14689-8. Those who liked The World Is Flat (Friedman, 2005) will probably like The Great Brain Race. Its journalistic style is accessible, almost beach reading. It covers why global higher education is important; how the “race” for university notoriety is emerging in Asia and Europe, the public perception of “world-class universities,” and why they are so difficult to obtain. Further, it delves into the nature of international rankings, how for-profit colleges and universities are filling a unique niche, and why issues of free trade in postsecondary education services are important. In the course of writing the book, Ben Wildavsky has interviewed most of the major personalities In international higher education: Jamil Salmi, William Tierney, Andreas Schleicher, Edward Fiske, Philip Altbach, Daniel Fallon, Peggy Blumenthal, Jan Sadlak, Daniel Levy, and Simon Marginson. Additionally, he has spoken with the leadership of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the Center for Higher Education Development (CHE), the California Institute of Technology, Qatar Foundation for Education, and the School of International and Public Affairs (Columbia University). He has sat through a (fascinating) seminar on “the relationship of government and religion” (pp. 48–49) taught in Abu Dhabi by the president of New York University. This book, to say the least, has mastered the territory. Other than entertainment value, however, the book has two principal assets, and one problematic drawback. The first asset is the book’s strongest chapter, which concerns international ranking. Wildavsky edited the U.S. News & World Report ranking system in the mid-2000s, and his knowledge of this arena is unsurpassed. He begins the story of college rankings in 1895 and works his way through the many new international ranking systems and their various weaknesses and strengths. To his credit, he does not attempt to sell the notion of ranking. He makes a helpful distinction between ranking and rating, between science weighting systems (Shanghai Jiao Tong) and those which place weight on the humanities (Times Higher Education). Distinctions are also made between empirical (Times Higher Education) and “more holistic” methods (Fiske and Yale guides). New outcomes initiatives from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO), originally drawn from the U.S. Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), are discussed in depth. For reasons of accountability, Wildavsky’s conclusion is that more outcome assessments should be expected. Criticisms of particular ranking systems and of ranking in general are spelled out. The author specifies each objection and distortion created by systems of both ranking and rating but, in the end, advises readers that both will be an increasing part of the higher education landscape for the foreseeable future. In sum, he advises his readers to know the characteristics of each system but not slavishly follow their mandates. Unique high quality is its own reward. What makes this approach to international higher education so lively is the combination of professional mastery of the material accompanying interviews with those involved in the process. Therein lies the book’s second principal asset. For instance, he discusses ranking systems with the rectors of INSEAD (Institut Européen d’administration des affaires), the China-Europe International Business School, London School of Economics, KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), and the Indian Institute of Technology. Wildavsky analyzes for-profit education but then includes descriptions by senior officials at Raffles Education, Laureate, De Vry, Sylvan Learning, and India’s IT training firm Aptech. More problematic is what the book leaves out. It hardly mentions the role of the World Trade Organization in lowering education trade barriers. The (often vehement) objections to WTO’s role are given short shrift. The ethical requirements for achieving world-class universities are not even mentioned. The absence of world-class ethical standards may prevent China from achieving a world-class university...

Creativity and the Global Knowledge Economy by Michael A. Peters, Simon Marginson, and Peter Murphy. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009. 289 pp. $33.95 (paper). ISBN 978‐1‐4331‐0426‐8.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewCreativity and the Global Knowledge Economy by Michael A. Peters, Simon Marginson, and Peter Murphy. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009. 289 pp. $33.95 (paper). ISBN 978‐1‐4331‐0426‐8.Victor KobayashiVictor KobayashiUniversity of Hawaii Search for more articles by this author University of HawaiiPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 54, Number 1February 2010 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/650708 Views: 21Total views on this site © 2010 by The Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

ACADEMIC CREATIVITY UNDER NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: FOUNDATIONS FOR AN INVESTIGATION

Abstract In this essay, Simon Marginson focuses on self‐determining academic freedom in universities, and especially the conditions and drivers of the radical‐creative imagination that is manifest in sudden intellectual breaks in knowledge. Marginson’s objective is to establish foundations in political philosophy for a sociological study of the effects of the new public management (NPM) on academic self‐determination and radical creativity. After discussing the radical‐creative imagination, Marginson identifies the core elements of academic self‐determination as agency freedom, freedom as power, and freedom as control. He then annotates each of the particular administrative and financial practices fostered by NPM in the light of these constituents of freedom, explores the implications for the radical‐creative imagination, and identifies possible lines of empirical inquiry for further sociological study.

FEMINIST RESEARCH IN A CLIMATE OF INSECURITY

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. The transformation has led Simon Marginson and Mark Considine to describe the Australian university as The Enterprise University (Marginson and Considine 2000 Marginson, Simon and Mark, Considine. 2000. The enterprise university: Power, governance and reinvention in Australia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). 2. The current Australian government schemes are (a) Research Training Scheme: research Masters and PhDs completed 50 per cent; research income 40 per cent; research publications 10 per cent; (b) Institutional Grant Scheme: research income 60 per cent; research student load 30 per cent; research publications 10 per cent; and (c) Research Infrastructure Block Grant: research income 100 per cent.

The University, The State; and The Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas (review)

Reviewed by: The University, the State; and the Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas Simon Marginson (bio) Robert A. Rhoads and Carlos Alberto Torres (Eds.). The University, the State; and the Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. 360 pp. Paper: $24.95. ISBN: 0-8047-5169-2. The University, the State, and the Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas is an important book. Though confined to the Americas, it is the best critical collection on globalization and higher education so far produced. It is required reading for those who understand higher education in historical-social and policy contexts: in diachronic terms, not the synchronic methodologies that—as Marcela Mollis remarks in her chapter on "Latin American Identities in Transition"—often dominate in the USA. Rhoads and Torres use globalization as their "central lens" (p. 327) for understanding the problems and dilemmas of public institutions, particularly research-intensive universities. Because universities are both object and subject of social transformation, globalization has elevated their importance. Yet public higher education, once overwhelmingly dominant throughout the world, appears to be in difficulty. Governments have discovered that they can shift costs onto students without losing office, consequently destabilizing the resource base of institutions. In much of Latin America, especially, private sectors are fostered and now command 40% of enrollment. Faculty cultures and faculty power in governance are fragmenting, business models are gaining traction, and administration and marketing have ballooned at the expense of teaching and research. Older notions of the democratic public mission of higher education have faltered, and must be renovated and renewed if public higher education is to move forward. In other words, higher education has been gripped by neo-liberal policies and the techniques of New Public Management. The University, the State, and the Market explores the consequences of this trend, which play out differently between public institutions in the globally hegemonic USA and those in the globally peripheral Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. The core premises of the book are (a) globalization is the medium of neoliberal ascendancy; (b) neoliberalism in turn has stamped the character of globalization; and (c) this association is not inevitable. It is a product of historical conjuncture and is made (and can be unmade) by politics. The chapters by the editors and Noam Chomsky emphasize that there is nothing wrong with globalization itself—with the integration of populations, economies, and cultures. Rhoads and Torres like the Internet and worldwide systems of knowledge, the dissemination of rights and the spread of education, our more intensive and extensive encounters with each other, and the resulting new potentials for human creativity and freedom. But the positive possibilities of cosmopolitanism and the "creolization" of cultures are undermined by economic injustice, the refusal of linguistic plurality and cultural respect, and the weakening of democratic institutions. Spreading via global policy imitation and the requirements of lending agencies, neoliberal policies have shaped and limited the cross-border flows of people, capital, and knowledge. [End Page 208] Neoliberalism is not so much an ideology or a political program as a particular zone of imagining and sensibility, where the problems and solutions are predefined in economic terms and behaviours are moulded in the interests of business. Neoliberal reform is strategically flexible, with scope for adaptation to local conditions and possibilities. But the contents of neoliberal policies standardize higher education everywhere in terms of models derived from the USA. All other universities are reduced to inferior substitutes. The values embodied in the distinctive models developed in Latin America are discarded by their own nations. This is not new. What makes The University, the State, and the Market important is the quality of those chapters that take the analysis forward, treating the global as not just a zone of problems but a zone of solutions. The brilliant chapter on "The University in the 21st century" by Portuguese sociologist Boaventura De Sousa Santos, which explores the democratic potential of higher education, is alone worth the book's asking price. It is a mark of the imperial, monocultural character of the globalization of knowledge that while U.S. scholars of higher education are often translated...

ENGAGING DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION IN THE NEOLIBERAL AGE

For the democratic tradition to return to a vanguard position in education requires a thorough exploration of the problems of democratization in education and an inventory of possible new forms. In this essay, Simon Marginson reviews five books concerned with democracy and education: Michael Apple’s Educating the “Right” Way, Denis Carlson’s Leaving Safe Harbors, A. Belden Fields and Walter Feinberg’s Education and Democratic Theory, Trevor Gale and Kathleen Densmore’s Engaging Teachers, and Klas Roth’s Democracy, Education and Citizenship. While these authors imagine democracy in somewhat different ways, they have a common interest in the role of public schooling in the formation of democratic agents and practices. The books do not offer a definitive account of the problems of democratization, nor do they embody a major breakthrough in democratic educational thinking, but they all provide helpful explorations of these issues. Marginson concludes with some thoughts on commodification and neoliberal economism in education, a contemporary focus of discussion in democratic educational circles.

Virtual universities are not about to replace face‐to‐face teaching

On the basis of evidence and experience [1], it now seems that conventional teaching is not about to be supplanted by the arrival of virtual universities. I like to teach face-to-face, and I value the body language of a class reacting to the subject matter, the pace, and the humor. Even though I have produced a large amount of multimedia teaching resources over 25 years, I have not tried to use these materials in any other than a support role. It now seems that the overwhelming majority of students want face-to-face contact in their studies and are not prepared to take virtual studies as a replacement. Students still want lectures, tutorials, and text books. Simon Marginson is the Director of the Centre for Research in International Education at Monash University, Australia, and I know him as a methodical and thorough researcher in education. His article on the many attempts to mount on-line distance higher education programs [1] shows that in general global ventures have faltered or collapsed. High-profile ventures have included Universitas 21 Global, Cardean University, Fathom, NYUOnline, and the UKe-University. An exception cited is the University of Phoenix Online that is viable in targeted markets. The Universitas 21 is a failed initiative that I have been involved with and watched as high expectation and funding turned to nothing over an 8-year period. A primary target of virtual universities has been Asian nations, especially China, given the potential demand. Marginson places the failure of English language global e-learning in the light of industry marketing strategies, the economics of on-line education, and the difficulties of cross-cultural targeting. Exporter universities have been insensitive to cultural and linguistic variations, let alone failing to establish local markets for a virtual product. Marginson calls for “greater skepticism about commercially driven scenarios and claims of company prospectuses, and about the viability of market-controlled paths of development.” Marginson's writing style has ever been stolidly academic, and although his subjects are important he can bury key conclusions in inaccessible prose. I was impressed by a newspaper reporter, David Read, who rose to the challenge of invigorating the message and crafted a lively article for the Melbourne Age newspaper [2]. This is a metaphor for good teaching approaches too, given that the subject remains faithfully treated. Does the journalist advance style over substance in the following excerpts? At least the message is clear in the following extracts from Read's article. Global virtual universities have been a catastrophic failure despite early predictions that web-based learning was a “tsunami that was sweeping (the) ivy-clad university of the past away.” Global e-learning ventures have not attracted a critical mass of students because they failed to understand that online degrees do not command the same status from students, academics and the community as traditional qualifications. There are serious implications for the beleaguered Universitas 21 Global—a consortium of 16 universities including Melbourne University and United States publisher Thomson Learning—which has fallen dramatically short of student and financial forecasts. Higher education is not an entirely standardisable product, a Starbucks or McDonald's that can be rolled out everywhere just like that. It is 40 to 50% more expensive per student to run a successful online teaching program than a face-to-face one.

Competing Conceptions of University Governance: Negotiating the Perfect Storm (review)

Reviewed by: Competing Conceptions of University Governance: Negotiating the Perfect Storm Brian Pusser Competing Conceptions of University Governance: Negotiating the Perfect Storm edited by William G. Tierney. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 264 pp. Cloth $36.95. ISBN 0-8018-7920-5. This book arrives at an important moment in the evolution of university governance. As the editor, William Tierney, notes in his introduction, rarely has the topic of governance been more relevant, as postsecondary institutions across the world find themselves buffeted by globalization, neo-liberal policies, market competition, and the increasingly rancorous politics of institutional governance. Beginning with Mary Burgan's excellent overview of the array of demands shaping contemporary institutional governance contests, the research and scholarship in this volume provide a detailed depiction of the challenges faced by governing boards and postsecondary leaders. Three themes predominate here: the changing context shaping governance, the governance of state systems, and the changing role of faculty in shared governance. The editor's introduction and the opening chapters provide useful perspectives on the contextual shifts shaping the "perfect storm" of the title. Taken together, these authors suggest that institutional governance mechanisms are being transformed by the complexity of contemporary forces and in turn are responsible for increasingly contested institutional transformations. Simon Marginson uses data from a variety of national postsecondary systems to argue persuasively that while global forces now shape national and local postsecondary policies, those forces remain beyond the reach of national and local postsecondary governance mechanisms. Marginson draws on a number of disciplines and theoretical standpoints in building a "glonacal" (global, national and local) framework for understanding governance challenges, and in the process turns attention to the role of higher education in creating global public goods. David Collis contends that as postsecondary institutions have become more elaborate, their governance mechanisms have become increasingly ineffective. He takes a novel approach to postsecondary complexity (Clark, 1993) through a focus on the "paradox of scope," the notion that while the core of the university governance structure is shrinking, the obligations at the periphery are growing rapidly, with significant consequences for resource allocation, strategic decision making, and coordination (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997). He concludes with a number of suggestions for dramatically reshaping governance, including increasing attention to corporate board processes, decreasing institutional scope, and instituting greater degrees of privatization. To illuminate the role of state systems in postsecondary governance Neil Hamilton offers four case studies, with particular attention to shared governance. [End Page 602] He highlights the lack of faculty voting power at the system level and the increasing administrative influence in institutional governance at every level. Hamilton's findings on the unique relationship between knowledge producers and managers support earlier work on the increasing importance of union activity in governance (Rhoades, 1998). He also points to peer review as a linchpin of academic freedom, adding an important perspective to the study of faculty self-governance. Terrence McTaggert also uses case studies to analyze the interactions between state systems and state policy makers during the restructuring of postsecondary systems. Given the relative dearth of attention to politics in research on higher education (Hardy, 1990; Pusser, 2003), this comes as a welcome addition to the existing literature. He quite usefully points to the role of individual political actors and to the power of market discourse and private sector models in shaping legislative action, and he suggests it is imperative that state systems and state policy makers agree on a public agenda for higher education. The chapters by James Duderstadt and George Keller are not optimistic about the future of shared governance and the faculty role in guiding the contemporary university. Duderstadt argues that lay board members, faculty senates, and academic administrators lack the expertise to manage an increasingly complex organization. Keller places some of the blame at the campus level, arguing that student unrest and political correctness have contributed to the undermining of shared governance from within. Duderstadt suggests that faculty should focus on curriculum development, faculty hiring, and tenure decisions, leaving finance, management, and external relations to administrators. Both authors are apprehensive about increased legislative oversight of the university and each offers a number of provocative responses to current challenges. In one of...

Bright Networks and Dark Spaces: Implications of Manuel Castells for Higher Education

The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, sociologist Manuel Castells argues that information and communication technologies are associated with a new kind of economy, society, and culture that he calls informationalism. In this new economic order, generation, information processing, and symbolic communication action of on knowledge are the main sources of productivity and profit. The commanding heights of the new economy (though not the whole of it) have become global: information and communication technologies make possible for the first time in human history an economy that operates in real time on a planetary scale through computer-based financial transactions. This is a staggering change. Simon Marginson is professor of education at Monash University, Australia, and director of the Monash Centre for Research in International Education. He is also editor of the Australian Journal of Education.