“Access to Finance” and the Death of Development in the Asia-Pacific

Regulating higher education: Quality assurance and neo-liberal managerialism in higher education—A critical introduction

“…Indeed, the recurrent mantra of neo-liberalism has been to 'get the state out of the way,' reduce costs, red-tape and regulatory burdens in order to enhance economic activity, innovation and wealth creation. The OECD, for example, as part of its ongoing engagement with governments around the world, suggests the use of 'regulatory impact assessments,' check lists to encourage regulatory reform and 'deregulation,' and periodic efforts of 'sunsetting' inefficient or ineffective regulatory regimes, recommending that governments utilize 'performance measurement instruments' to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of existing regulations (see also Cammack, 2006;Carroll, 2014;OECD, 2005, p. 16).…”

“…The rise of the 'evaluative' and 'regulatory' state and the implementation of what have variously been depicted as new public management (NPM) tools have become an increasingly ubiquitous mode of governance applied equally to the higher education sector (Christensen & Laegreid, 2010;Dill, 1998;Levi-Faur, 2005). Like numerous other sectors (electricity, water, sanitation, telecommunications, roads, rail, ports and airports, finance and health -among others), higher education too has become progressively subject to regulation by agencies who 'undertake the classic regulatory functions of setting standards, monitoring activities, and applying enforcement to secure behaviour modification where this is required' (King, 2007, p. 413; see also Carroll, 2014) Unlike other sectors, however, the sheer scale of governance by regulation, especially through specific instrumentalities like quality assurance regimes, has been remarkable in its geographic reach (Christensen & Laegreid, 2010;Dill, 1998;Levi-Faur, 2005). By one count, for example, nearly half the countries in the world now have quality assurance systems or QA regulatory bodies for higher education (Martin, 2007; see also Jarvis, this issue).…”

Markets and Development: Civil Society, Citizens, and the Politics of Neoliberalism

“…The guest editors acknowledge the generous financial assistance of the Singapore Ministry of Education and the award of a Tier 1 Academic Research Fund grant. The grant supported travel, workshop meetings and provided the basis for the inception of several published outcomes (Carroll, 2012;Carroll & Jarvis, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2015.…”

“…We hope that readers of Globalisations will find this collection of use in disentangling the complicated relationship between citizens, civil society and neoliberalism and encourage readers to seek out the three other SIs and two edited volumes that have been part of this broader research project (Carroll, 2012;Carroll & Jarvis, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2015.…”

Introduction: Financialisation and Development in Asia under Late Capitalism

“…Access to finance refers to a variety of methods for extending financial capital to the "unbanked" and "underbanked", often via micro, small and medium-size enterprise lending. This last strategy, most prominently championed by the World Bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), seeks to expand micro, small and medium-size enterprise sectors by supporting and transforming the financial institutions working with these sectors and bolstering the extension of financial services generally through, for example, the proliferation of mobile and other communication platforms (see Carroll, 2013). To put this work in context, in 2010, the IFC's FI clients provided 8 million microfinance loans and 1.7 million loans to the SME sector.…”