Governmentality and field transformations in neoliberal higher education

This chapter systematically reviews the literature addressing how global trends in higher education—specifically international rankings, research collaborations, student mobility, and policy convergence—shape research agendas and institutional priorities worldwide. Keywords such as “global trends in higher education,” “internationalisation of higher education,” and “student mobility” were used alongside a dual threshold selection strategy for the number of citations to search ERIC, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science with clearly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. From an initial 200 papers selected at a first phase, this review synthesised 36 articles published in English between 2000 and 2023. Findings indicate that universities increasingly converge towards policies driven by competitiveness and visibility, with funding models tied to the recruitment of fee‐paying international students and international research collaborations. Yet, tensions persist between the neoliberal economic imperatives of global competitiveness and broader debates regarding equity, access, and affordability. Theoretical perspectives from Bourdieu’s concept of field and habitus and Foucault’s governmentality framework were drawn upon to analyse the influence of macro-level global policies on national and institutional practices. This chapter concludes by discussing opportunities for policy adaptations that can reconcile the neoliberal initiatives with inclusivity.