ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the globalisation of capitalism and the institutions shaping transnational education policy and comparison. It argues that education and cross-cultural comparison have been 'Europeanised', in the sense that they are permeated by the imaginary of unlimited mastery and control, but at the same time they are 'de-Europeanised', as the critical and self-reflective spirit of Modernity has retreated. Overall, capitalist reorganisation in Europe since the last quarter of the 20th century has altered occupational structures and work arrangements. The project of autonomy in European education has been expressed as knowledge seeking the truth, empirical observation, logical reasoning and argumentation, as well as emotional energy cathected on the pedagogic relationship and the act of learning. Education politics in European universities, as deliberation and decision making on behalf of the academic community and as governance of their institution, is being displaced by transnational policymaking and corporate management.
