Commentary to Part IV: Institutional Identities in Flux: Internationalisation and Elite Making in Higher Education

Abstract

Much has been written about how the acceleration of global capitalism has led to the rise of a stateless 'transnational capitalist class', or 'global elite', whose commonality of interests transcends national borders and loyalties (Robinson 2004; Sklair 2001; Struna 2013). With high concentrations of wealth and power, its members move freely across the 'global cities', where they have organised their own spaces, and from which they direct financial flows and influence political decisions (Andreotti et al 2014; Tannock 2010). Common career, lifestyle, consumption and mobility patterns allow them to present themselves as cosmopolitan, 'global citizens' impervious to border regulations and rising above narrow national concerns (Birchnell and Caletrio 2014; Ong 1999). There is much debate on the extent of overlap between the global elite and 'traditional' national elites, and on the position and movement of global elites between the local, national and global (Robinson and Harris 2000). Similarly, there is little consensus in the literature on the conditions of production and reproduction of this supposed global elite through education. The rise of the MBA and the growing visibility of international schools suggest that specific educational spaces play a role in these processes. However, it is also argued that the symbolic power of educational credentials is still very much defined within national spacesand that elite universities in the US and UK, in particular, define what it means to be elite both nationally and internationally.