Governing the International University

Abstract

By the end of the twentieth century, many universities worldwide were describing themselves as international or global in vision, mission, and reputation. In doing so, they came to be represented in normative discourse as instruments of progressive cosmopolitanism. Under the guise of establishing “world class” status, university leaders have drawn on international benchmarks and models of good practice without sufficient regard to the persistence of colonial imaginaries of empire and nation in their revisionings. The chapter interrogates the global reach of governing rationalities such as “corporatization,” and “world class” reputation-making and the ethical and intellectual challenges they have presented for universities. Michel Foucault’s ideas of critique provides the analytical lens from which to interrogate normative understandings of the international university in Japan and Australia. Lessons learnt from two sets of crises, a natural disaster and a health pandemic, guide the discussions on using Foucault’s conceptualization of critique to consider university leadership anew.