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;
• 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.

'Illuminating the transnational linkages and interconnections that shape higher education in the global age, the contributors offer critical, insightful, and erudite assessments of how universities around the world are adapting to--and resisting--global neoliberal pressures. Comprehensive and accessible, this collection is a transdisciplinary tour de force!' - Manfred B. Steger, Professor of Sociology, University of Hawai'i-Manoa & Honorary Professor of Global Studies, RMIT University'This book signals a maturation of the global studies of higher education. The authors break from the teleological pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation narratives (the mirror of each other) that still dominate much of the commentary. They provide us with generous theoretical tools and vivid observations that help explain us to understand the global, national and local spaces that we are in-and the spaces that we can make for ourselves.' - Simon Marginson, Director of the ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education, and Professor of International Higher Education at the University College London Institute of Education