Placing Faith in Sectoral Actors During a Pandemic: Actorscapes and Networked Higher Education Governance in Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and New York

• In Event: Education Governance Future(s) in a Permacrisis World – Policyscapes, Timescapes, and Actorscapes (Part 3): Local Dynamics and the Critical Politics of Crisis

Proposal

This paper examines the role of the external environment, specifically the sectoral actors influencing the Covid-19 response at 17 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and New York. I analyze decision-making practices during the pandemic to understand how sectoral actors influenced the decisions of institutional managers. The central research question guiding this study is: How, if at all, has the external environment impacted the institutional response to Covid-19? I use empirical data to examine how institutional managers developed their responses to the pandemic in consultation with the sectoral actors.

I find that sectoral actors, particularly the non-state entities representing higher education interests within each higher education system (HES) in these urban locales, have shaped the Covid-19 response through various channels. Using semi-structured interviews and documents, this paper sketches three HES actorscapes, showcasing the plurality and diversity of actors involved in the pandemic response in each city across various levels and scales. To conceptualize this finding, I use the networked governance theory to highlight the characteristics of each policy environment shaping the HEIs’ Covid-19 response. Furthermore, I present the typology of non-state sectoral actor functions, illustrating these actors’ pivotal role in devising the institutional response.

Given the myriad ways sectoral actors have supported HEIs, they serve various functions depending on different stages of the pandemic, urban locale, and specific nuances of the sociopolitical systems within which HEIs are located. Drawing on the interviews with institutional managers and several sectoral actors, I introduce and typify the following seven functions of sectoral actors: (1) advisory, (2) brokerage, (3) coordination, (4) data collection, (5) material support, (6) lobbying, and (7) translation. This paper provides insights into how institutional disaster response in higher education is informed by policy networks and characteristics of networked governance in urban settings through comparative analysis. A better understanding of how sectoral actors shape higher education’s response to crisis events such as Covid-19 may help inform the response to such future disasters.

Author

• Abbas Abbasov, The University of Texas at El Paso