Higher Education Governance under Neoliberalism

This paper focuses on the manner in which governance structure of higher education is re-organized under neoliberalism. It highlights how states have centralized their powers in their relationships with the universities through performance-based accountability; research funding mechanisms; quality assurance; and various administrative mechanisms. These control mechanisms have different forms from previous legal regulations, and exert a more intensive and stronger influence on the university than legal regulations. Although states deregulated universities under neoliberalism, ironically universities are more controlled by states through the deregulations. Managerialism is deeply ingrained in university administration and shared governance and collegiality are fading. As a result, universities are losing their institutional autonomy in their relationships with their external entities; and professors are losing their power on campus. These two dimensions represent ‘decentralized centralization’. The author conceptualizes the social phenomena of ‘decentralized centralization’ of higher education governance and provides some empirical evidence based on his research.