Transnational turn and national models of higher education - The case of Finland
The purpose of the article is to problematize the relationship between the Nordic democratic public higher education tradition and transnational market driven knowledge economy policies. The article illustrates this development with two cases -- quality assurance and internationalisation policies -- where external demands, based mostly on market ideologies, have been introduced with apparently transnational incentives but having national implementations. These transnational pressures are related to a kind of soft governance of higher education policy, characterized by networked decision making and use of expert consultants, which possibly promotes flexible decision-making and efficiency, bu…
Transnationalisation and Nordic higher education - Tensions and possibilities in educational policy
The recent developments in Nordic higher education policy are closely linked with global tendencies, which are in turn reacted to at national and local levels. The financial crisis, massification of higher education, and the attachment to transnational, mainly European policies have set the background for new tendencies in education governance. New governance patterns are the outcome of transnational pressures, which are domesticated at the national level. Thus, these transnational tendencies are (re‐)constructed for different transnational, national and local purposes. This thematic issue analyses how the Nordic countries have reacted to these tendencies, tensions and possibilities. nonPee…