Some analysts have argued that globalization, the Internet and the scientific community will level the playing field in the new age of knowledge interdependence. Others claim that globalization means both worldwide inequality and the McDonaldisation of the university. It is argued that all of the contemporary pressures on higher education, from the pressures of massification to the growth of the private sector, are the results of globalization. There is a grain of truth in all of these hypotheses - and a good deal of misinterpretation as well. The purpose of this essay is to "unpack" the realities of globalization and internationalization in higher education and to highlight some of the ways in which globalization affects the university.

The pattern of development in post-war Japanese higher education has been marked by changes in the balance between expansion (especially of the private sector), and control (manifested most frequently by government planners). Amano identifies cycles of expansion and consolidation corresponding to changes in social circumstances. The most important of these social factors has been the impact of demographic variations on demand and supply. Amano shows how government control was significantly eroded by the double impact of the “second baby boom generation” and the resulting response by the private sector to the relatively sudden increase in demand. In effect, Japanese higher education could be moving towards the market model of provision as institutions, mindful of the prospect of declining cohorts in the future, seek to maintain their levels of recruitment.

Most African Universities were established to produce personnel to man mainly government ministries, prior to independence or soon thereafter. Initially European models transplanted to Africa and  thus alien to the social structure, African Universities have nevertheless accomplished a lot in achieving their initial objectives and overcoming some of the problems associated with colonialisation. However, this article argues that, as the end of the twentieth century approaches, these Universities must undergo a process of adaptation from their European heritage and reform themselves.

Arocena and Sutz compare changes and continuities concerning academic values and attitudes, governmental policies, university-industry relations and endogenous knowledge generation in Latin American universities. They also analyze the connection between the ‘structurally unachieved’ National Systems of Innovation in Latin America and the social ‘loneliness’ of universities. They conclude by sketching alternative scenarios for the future interaction between knowledge generation and university transformation.

The authors challenge the conventional explanation of the role of the state in skill formation in the high performing Asian economies as advocated by World Bank economists. They do this through an examination of the institutions which supported beneficial strategic state intervention in the process of skill formation in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. These enabled governments to produce a pace of skill formation so high that it achieved within the space of one generation something that took the advanced industrial countries three generations to achieve. Our research has identified a set of government strategies and associated institutional structures in the field of education and training in these economies which, it is argued, played a crucial role in ensuring that economic growth could proceed without employers experiencing severe skill shortages.

Banya and Elu critically examine World Bank and other donor agencies' policy changes toward financing of higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. They conclude that policy vicissitudes have adversely affected these institutions.

The apartheid state provided higher education in very differentiated ways. After 1994, the issue of how new policies would address the issue of unjust differentiation was widely discussed via the concept of ‘redress’. After 1994, the idea of redress for the cohort of historically disadvantaged institutions went through many shifts and competing definitions. The article shows that by 2001 the stage was set for a number of centrally imposed proposals to address the problems of institutional inequality that relied more on notions of developing institutional fitness for mandated missions within given financial constraints than on reparation for past discrimination or injustice.

For all the diverse elements and values of the South African Higher Education system, its historic mission and the role that it plays in society were defined for it in the previous era. However, the author argues that this existential crisis stems only partially from its Apartheid past. Its intellectual and organizational shape stems also from its place on the edge of the global academic metropole from which it attempts to draw its academic legitimacy. That metropole itself is currently shaken by large transformatory processes heralded by the burgeoning role of knowledge and information in the production processes of modern societies. This new epoch is characterized by a tremendous distribution of knowledge generation and dissemination activities in society thus undermining the hegemony of the 'modern university' in these enterprises.

Benjamin describes the ‘severe economic difficulties’ of higher education – a trend begun with enrollment growth in the 1970s. Benjamin believes this fiscal crisis will serve to increase economic stratification and social and economic conflict. Benjamin advocates for the following steps for faculty to address the fiscal crisis: faculty organizing efforts, coalition-building, federal funding for federally-mandated state obligations, a response to the health care crisis, and confronting the issue of a ‘fair’ and ‘adequate’ system of federal taxation.

Berlie provides an overview of the history of Vietnam and its higher education before and after 1975. Berlie describes the current status of the universities and other academic institutions, indicates their difficulties, and attempts to find constructive solutions.