After globalization: A reconceptualization of transnational higher education governance in Singapore and Hong Kong

Research on transnational higher education governance has provided a thesis explaining how East Asian states have successfully selectively blended elements of globalisation in higher education with their pre-existing regulatory regimes. This paper however argues that the thesis overlooks the significance of local politics in understanding the formulation of higher education policy, thus insufficiently acknowledging the indeterminacy that arises in the globalisation process. To address this argument, this paper examines the transnational higher education development in Singapore and Hong Kong and explains how political resistance and corresponding policy changes that emerged in these two societies help reconceptualise transnational higher education governance. Copyright © 2017 International Symposium on Contesting Globalization and Implications for Asian Pacific Higher Education.