ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the knowledge production, educational practices and societal interaction of universities are understood as a key source of national success and national prosperity. Education and higher education were essential elements in the genesis of the Keynesian national welfare state as a particular geopolitical unit. Universities are scaled in political decision making, policymaking and in scientific and educational practices by different actors. Higher education was central in the building of the Keynesian national welfare state as a geopolitical object. In the geopolitical perspective, higher education is much more than a purely pragmatic and technocratic enterprise. A related aspect of the geopolitical discourses of the knowledge-based economy is their emphasis on spatial relationality and mobility. One of the ways in which the state has responded to the demands of the knowledge-based economy is by way of producing new learning environments of higher education.
