Withering the State? Globalization Challenges and Changing Higher Education Governance in East Asia

Abstract

The revolution of 1989 in Eastern Europe and their aftermath have led to a growing concern about whether modern states are losing their capacities for governance, and whether national-level processes are ceding their primacy to global ones. Believing capital is becoming more mobile and has no national attachments, national politics and political choices are considered to have been sidelined by the global market forces while transnational corporations are perceived as the key players in defining not only economic, but also social and political agendas. Hence, national-level governance is regarded as ineffective in coping with challenges generated from globalizing economic and social processes (Horsman & Marshall, 1994). The rise of “the borderless world economy,” “global politics,” and “global civil society” seems to suggest the sovereignty of the state and the capacities of any government are being eroded (Garrett, 2000; Woods, 2000).