The geopolitical forces behind the rankings game: how local and global status shape university decisions

• In Event: Geopolitics and migration: Universities in the center

Proposal

Academic rankings have become popular classifications in global higher education in the last twenty years, significantly impacting university administration. We have witnessed universities worldwide developing their data gathering and analysis structures to make them more suitable for submitting appropriate data to ranking agencies (Chirikov, 2013). Nevertheless, not every university seems highly concerned with global rankings. For instance, we can barely see a mention of such rankings on Harvard’s or Stanford’s websites. Why do some universities seem more capable of handling (or even resisting) ranking pressures while others are changing governance structures to accommodate them? This study aims to examine how universities use their national and global status to balance ranking pressures and other accountability demands, stressing the ways in which the geopolitics of higher education affects this process.

The body of literature on academic rankings has shed light on the reactivity of these classifications, evidencing how ranked actors react to them. Espeland & Sauder (2016) argue that rankings change sense-making processes in an organizational field, becoming cultural and cognitive references for both internal and external actors. As rank orders give visibility and amplify the significance of even millesimal differences between entities, academic rankings change status hierarchies in higher education, shaping the ways in which quality and reputation are conceived (Brankovic et al.; Sauder, 2006). Nevertheless, rankings do not change status in higher education due to the scientific relevance of their measurement. Instead, their authority relies on their usefulness in orienting second-order observations, i.e., how they express what others may think about ranked entities (Esposito & Stark, 2019). Thereby, if college stakeholders keep their eyes closed on academic rankings, such classifications turn out to be instruments of accountability in higher education (Espeland & Sauder, 2015; Hazelkorn, 2015).
However, universities do not feel these rankings accountability pressures in the same way. Universities’ positions towards academic rankings vary according to their social reputation and perceived commitment to academic excellence (Paradeise & Thoenig, 2013; Brankovic, 2018). Some use rankings as objective assessments that define a straighter path to the top compared to reputation-based evaluations. In contrast, others rely on their reputation to shield themselves from accountability pressures to comply with global standards of academic excellence (Paradeise & Thoenig, 2013). Nonetheless, the very perception of the global may vary among universities from different countries. As the relative value of the local/global is a function of a country’s position in the geopolitics of higher education, the conditions to resist global rankings pressures may differ significantly around the world (Erkkilä, 2013; Gornitzka, 2013; Hazelkorn, 2021).

A comparative case-study approach was applied to examine decision-making concerning academic rankings in four leading public universities in Brazil and the U.S (BR1, BR2, US1, US2). The country selection was based on contrasting positions in the geopolitics of higher education, whereas the universities were chosen to control our analysis for type and local prestige discrepancies: both are best-ranked and elite public universities.

Our data is based on a triangulation of official documents, meeting transcripts and 25 interviews conducted with academic personnel. Then, we used Paradeise & Thoenig's (2013) typology to make sense of the different university strategies, analyzing how the geopolitical factor produces dual/hybrid ideal types when considering local/global positions.

In general, we found divergent interests between Brazilian and American public universities with respect to rankings. Despite the higher percentage of international students in American institutions, they place a significant emphasis on national rankings. Conversely, Brazilian universities predominantly prioritize global comparisons. In both scenarios, where competition is intense and important, universities tend to accentuate more specific rankings aligned with their unique strengths. For instance, US1 places considerable importance on the 'Best Public Schools' ranking, whereas both BR1 and BR2 underscore their dominant positions in the 'Best Latin American Universities' category. This suggests the universities' focus on rankings that enable them to leverage their accomplishments through potent nominal classifications such as 'best,' 'top-3,' or 'top-5.' While rankings promise an ordinalized world, their outcomes are often subject to interpretation within the framework of nominal classifications (Fourcade, 2016)."

American universities demonstrated to be less susceptible to global accountability pressures. On the one hand, the United States' dominant position in the geopolitics of knowledge grants American higher education significant autonomy against external forces due to the strength of national relevancy in the world's most prestigious higher education system. Also, unlike their global-south counterparts, American universities may rely on other sources of international reputation than rankings, such as Nobel prizes and renowned scholars. On the other hand, American public universities may prioritize national over global rankings as the former is more prevalent among their stakeholders, and competition is more important domestically than internationally.

In Brazil, leading public universities exhibit minimum interest in national rankings because they are not judged based on national prominence. Most of their stakeholders are globally focused as the national prestige is only a weak signal of quality at the international level. Martins & Barreyro (2023) show that Brazilian political authorities often refer to global rankings to criticize or praise public universities, while national rankings are barely mentioned. That means complying with global standards of academic excellence is a strong source of legitimacy for Global South universities, whereas American higher education is more capable of setting its own quality references.

Our findings are consistent with Brankovic’s (2018) and Esposito & Stark’s (2019) arguments that both higher-status and lower-status universities tend to focus on rankings that reach broader audiences and have the authority to influence what others might think about them. Thus, we found that because of unequal status in the global hierarchy of higher education, American and Brazilian universities adopt opposite strategies: while the former prioritize national rankings and may increase international status from within, the latter needs international recognition to gain support from key stakeholders, pushing them to focus on global rankings

We hope this study can help facilitate more in-depth discussions about quality metrics for universities in the Global South, encouraging the establishment of autonomous quality assurance policies that take into account national relevance rather than global rankings (Douglass, 2016).

Author

• André Felipe Dutra Martins Rocha Elias, University of São Paulo