Systems Theoretical Perspectives on Higher Education Policy and Governance

Since the days of Talcott Parsons (1973), Joseph Ben-David (1977) and Burton Clark (1983), higher education research has been deeply rooted in the analysis of individual national higher education systems and in their comparison. For a long time this has been an appropriate and fruitful approach, since in many countries of the world higher education has predominantly been organized as a service of the public sector, and universities and other higher education institutions have been mainly regarded as national institutions. But this approach becomes inadequate in our days. This is one of the arguments which will be made in this chapter.