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;a 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.

Introduction: the Transnational Politics of Global Higher Education Meng-Hsuan Chou, Isaac A Kamola, and Tamson Pietsch 2 Between the local and the universal: academic worlds and the long history of the university Tamson Pietsch 3 Situating 'The Global University' in South Africa Isaac A Kamola 4 The political economy of international higher education and the academic labour in the Persian Gulf Neema Noori 5 'We come in peace': ideology and higher education policy in Latin America J. Salvador Peralta and Thiago Pezzuto Pacheco 6 Contestation over integration and autonomy of universities in the former Yugoslavia: how global and European ideas are used in domestic politics Martina Vukasovic 7 Human-capital strategies to build world-class research universities in Asia: impact on global flows Anju Mary Paul and Victoria Long 8 Administrators and the free movement of researchers in Europe Meng-Hsuan Chou 9 Global University Rankings and Transnational Politics of Higher Education Tero Erkkilä