Stirring the Lions: Strategy and Tactics in Global Higher Education

In many parts of the world, higher education is viewed as a prime "motor" for the development of a knowledge-based economy. Under the banner of this "new economy", higher education policies, programmes and practices have been increasingly co-opted and shaped by wider geo-strategic political and economic interests. This paper explores three, interlinked, higher education policy spaces--in Europe, the United States, and Australia. It explores how the growing range of educational initiatives at the European level has affected--both directly and indirectly--American and Australian policymaking in higher education. The European higher education project, which is increasingly perceived as having some significance to the global economy, has set off a series of dynamic reactions in both Australia and the United States, which is leading to multiple new logics and new imaginaries about the global higher education landscape. Through this, a more integrated and relational global system of higher education is emerging. (Contains 17 notes.)