Keeping up with coordination: from Clark's triangle to microcosmographia

Abstract

In 1986 (first published 1983) Clark's triangle of coordination compared national higher education systems according to the dimensions of state authority, market and academic oligarchy. The picture was of a particular time, one in which those three factors could be ably used to illustrate major differences in how coordination took place. Subsequent sweeping changes in higher education coordination have led to the alteration of the triangle's features and assumptions as it has been adapted over time. This article argues that the vertices of any such triangle must themselves be alterable in order to indicate changes in the constitution of salient forces that have been observed, and can be expected. A new, less time-bound heuristic – microcosmographia – facilitates such comparisons, with a recast, unified triangle as its kernel.

Keywords:

• coordination
• comparative higher education