Abstract
Conventional liberal frameworks – in which power is seen asthe property of states, and repressive in character, and market and stateexclude each other – are unable to comprehend the recent changes inliberal government, including the government of systems and institutions inhigher education. Neo-liberal government rests on self-managing institutionsand individuals, in which free agents are empowered to act on their ownbehalf but are ‘steered from a distance’ by policy norms and rules of thegame. In the universities government-created markets and quasi-markets havebeen used to advance both devolution and central control, simultaneously,and national government and institutional management are increasinglyimplicated in each other. These issues are explored in relation to recenthigher education literature, and empirically, the latter by examining thechanges in the Australian higher education system in the last decade. TheAustralian system provides an example of a quasi-market in which thedevelopment of a stronger institutional management, the introduction ofgovernment-institution negotiations over educational profiles, and the newsystems of competitive bidding, performance management and qualityassessment have all been used to steer academic work and to install aprocess of continuous self-transformation along modern neo-liberal lines.Following a change of government in 1996 there has been some movement from aquasi-market to a more fully developed economic market, but no relaxation ofgovernment control.
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Marginson, S. Steering from a distance: Power relations in Australian higher education. Higher Education 34, 63–80 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1003082922199
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1003082922199