Governing university by numbers: A comparative case study of Australia and Taiwan

• In Event: University governance through a comparative lens

Proposal

Introduction
Higher education (HE) systems around the world have witnessed massive expansion since the post-war era (Altbach, 2007). This growth has been predominantly driven by the belief that increased student participation in HE can bolster national economic growth (Marginson, 2011). Many countries have therefore developed HE enrolment policies to achieve greater – or more focused – student participation. Numbers, data, statistics, and national statistical systems play a vital role in this mode of governance, and has restructured HE systems worldwide. Most extant research primarily investigates the change in policy tools and their effectiveness (e.g., Chan & Lin, 2015). Scant research, however, has delved deeper to explore the coupling or decoupling strategies employed by universities within the rise of governing by numbers and data flows.
Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s (1991) conceptual tool of governmentality, this study aims to examine how exactly ‘governing’ occurred by investigating the everyday practices of universities. The notion of governing is not a particular institution or state action; rather, it should be understood as a complex web of power that fabricated and manipulated by heterogeneous techniques, strategies, and procedures (Foucault, 2008). This complexity does not solely originate from the heterogeneity of policy instruments, but the intricate function that linked the sovereign power to the lowest levels of interpersonal power relations disseminated in society (Miller & Rose, 1990). This study employs a Comparative Case Study (CCS; Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017) methodology to explore the varied rescaled processes of HE governance as well as trace the power dynamics in Australia and Taiwan over time.

Policy context
In this study, Australia’s Bradley Review of 2008 and Taiwan’s Standard of 2009 serve as two cases. In Australia, the Bradley Review aimed at rectifying the mismatch between university provision and job market demands. This policy eliminated government micromanagement, permitting universities to enrol as many students as they wished, but simultaneously obligated them to publicly state their commitment to increasing low SES student participation (Bradley, 2008). Conversely, Taiwan's Standard aimed at reducing university places to address public concerns regarding university quality deterioration due to oversupply of university places and declining student population. Each university was not only prohibited to enhance its number of places, but also required to annually publish its registered volume of student places (Ministry of Education, 2009). Both policies established windows for public scrutiny that (re)shaped the recruitment strategies of universities within the number and data regime. This study hence explores the number and data infrastructures shaping the mentality and leadership conduct of the various policy actors in Australian and Taiwanese HE systems.

Methodology
This study draws on an innovative new research methodology known as Comparative Case Study (CCS) that includes horizontal, vertical, and transversal axes of analysis (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2017). Beyond examining and comparing similarities and differences across two similar sites – such as universities or countries, the CCS traces how a certain ‘history’ has been constituted, thereby understanding policy and its context in-depth. First, as Taiwan and Australia have similar sizes of population and centralised systems of HE governance in allocating university places, the horizontal axis provides a useful perspective to explore the varied attempts to balance demographic demands and the provision of HE. Second, the vertical axis examines the complexity of power dynamics among university, government, and other stakeholders (e.g., union). The vertical analysis helps understand how data-driven governing mechanism unfolded and influenced various policy actors. Last, this study historically traces how governing student enrolment by numbers occurred during certain periods of time. This third axis helps to consider what has remained the same in one locale or across much broader scales.

Research Methods
The study involved 40 in-depth interviews with former Education Ministers, legislators/MPs, senior policy analysts, union officers, and university executives in Australia (n=21) and participants of similar backgrounds in Taiwan (n=19). It secondarily collected a considerable corpus of archival sources from the two countries, including but not limited to education policy documents, university submissions, newspapers, and public speeches of Cabinet/Parliament members (n=66). The interview transcripts and policy documents were transcribed and analysed using an iterative and inductive approach to generate its themes.

Research Findings
The preliminary findings suggest two key insights concerning the governing of university places by numbers in Australia and Taiwan. First, both policies created a form of ranking system. This ranking systems was not designed by the governments but evolved from the accompanying power-effect inherent in the data and number infrastructure, where universities received varying degrees of reward and punishment. Second, the manifestation of information disclosure intensified the ranking effect and considerably influenced the conduct of universities. Governing by numbers, as embedded in both selected policies, represented a complex mechanism where data and statistics fabricated the supervision, administration, and regulation of universities.

References
Altbach, P. (2007). Tradition and transition. Sense Publishers.
Bartlett, L., & Vavrus, F. (2017). Rethinking case study research: A comparative approach. Taylor & Francis.
Bradley, D., Noonan, P., Nugent, H., & Scales, B. (2008). Review of Australian higher education: Final report. Australian Government.
Chan, S., & Lin, L. (2015). Massification of higher education in Taiwan: Shifting pressure from admission to employment. Higher Education Policy, 28(1), 17-33.
Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect (pp. 87-104). The University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France. Palgrave Macmillan.
Marginson, S. (2011). Higher education in East Asia and Singapore: Rise of the Confucian model. Higher Education, 61, 587-611.
Miller, P., & Rose, N. (1990). Governing economic life. Economy and Society, 19(1), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085149000000001
Ministry of Education (2009). The Conditional Standards of Developmental Enrolment and Resources for Tertiary Education. Author.

Author

• Ren-Hao Xu, University of Western Australia