ABSTRACT
Universities were drivers of knowledge internationalization since they were founded. Yet, it can be argued that today’s globalization of knowledge is different. It is a process that creates a global knowledge regime dominated by a few truly globalized institutions at the core, which establish the rules, norms, and practices of the regime. Competitors at both the core and periphery must play according to the rules of the regime to be successful. What can be labelled as the knowledge space is characterized by imbalances between institutions, and in particular by internal divisions where some actors are more powerful and influential than others. Such divisions can occur at both the national and the global levels. This chapter examines some of those divisions and will argue that the emergence of a knowledge economy—very much driven by private actors—puts new and intense pressure on traditional knowledge producers like universities. By analyzing some of the key mechanisms of convergence, this chapter shows that national higher education systems are undergoing a partial converge towards the Anglo-Saxon regime and this process simultaneously leads to homogenization and differentiation on a global scale. The result, so far, is a layered regime with leaders and followers whose interplay creates differing versions of globalization.
