Governing the post-bureaucratic university

Abstract

This chapter outlines the new architecture of university decision-making after implementation of the University Law of 2003. Reform of higher education in Denmark involved fundamental changes to the governance structure of Danish universities. Global policy efforts to transform universities in ways that are perceived as fitting with the needs of the emerging global knowledge economy are taken as a starting point for ethnographic exploration of the enactment of reform after the 2003 ‘policy moment’. The chapter starts by exploring the values and expectations of newly appointed governing board members and follows them as they engage in realizing the university through daily decision-making processes. Whilst the intent of the Law was clear (to transform universities to better serve societal ends, conceived largely in terms of economic relevance) governing board members from outside the university and those elected from within understood this transformational project very differently. Nevertheless, the new regulatory regime for universities, not least contract steering and executive management, together with the often contradictory imperative of market competition shaped and constrained how stakeholders enacted governance processes.