ABSTRACT
This paper contributes to discussions about the nature and scope of higher education (HE) business in light of some of the emerging ways in which countries seem to be reframing the impact of globalism. In particular, it develops a discussion about spatialities and temporalities of HE policy by drawing on the Kingdom of Bahrain’s distinctive approach to free markets, transnational capitalism, trade of international services and foreign influence. The paper draws on key HE policy documents and regulatory frameworks issued by the Higher Education Council in Bahrain. In the paper, we ask about priorities that drive HE investment in Bahrain, as well as their impact on the role of international input in HE policy building. We find that policymaking in Bahrain is driven by ‘nationalisation’ as a pragmatic strategy at the time of transition to a knowledge economy. We also find that these goals are transient, thus providing suggestions for policy analysis from the perspective of time intervals in a space.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Developed by Robertson (Citation1992, Citation1995), the theory of ‘glocalisation’ captures the process of submerging the global into the local, positing that globalisation (the process of strategically engaging with new relations of interconnectedness and interdependence in politics, society, economy and culture that captures the decline or increase of globalism in the world) is realised in specific forms that are local. This theory has been mainly developed along ‘spatial’ lines (i.e. geographical dimension of sociocultural life), emphasising the geographical locations of people and their cultures as factors affecting the global–local relationship.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Aneta Hayes
Aneta Hayes is a lecturer in education at Keele. She is interested in transnational education, higher education markets, student experiences and communities.
Sally Findlow
Sally Findlow is a senior lecturer at Keele University. She is interested in Middle East studies, cultural anthropology, citizenship education and higher education in an interdisciplinary frame.