Models of State and Market in the 'Modernisation' of Higher Education

Higher education (as learning and teaching) is increasingly regulated by the state yet is simultaneously being opened up to market forces. Is the system being nationalised or 'marketised'? Opinion is divided, but the debate is often confused by a lack of theoretical explicitness so that inconsistencies, contradictions and dubious elisions are allowed to persist unremarked. Through a critical engagement with the literatures on quasi-markets, the free economy and the strong state, neo-liberalism, and 'steering at a distance', this article identifies three models implicit in discussion of the 'modernisation' of higher education. The first treats marketisation and state intervention as incompatible strategies for reform, the second argues that state intervention may contribute to the success of a higher educational market economy (thus subordinating the state to the market), while the third proposes that market relations are mobilised in the cause of centralised policy objectives.