Educational Policies in the Face of Globalization: Whither the Nation State?
The role of the national state in shaping national economic and social policy has, according to both academics and popular thinking, been sharply constrained by economic globalization (e.g. Castells 1997; Friedman 1999; Giddens 2002) Another line of argument is that globalization is producing "convergence" in norms and values (institutional culture) concerning human rights and social policies, such as equity, norms of social efficiency, and democracy (Meyer et al. 1992; 1997) Of particular interest to us is whether and how the constraints and influences imposed by economic globalization and ideological convergence apply to educational policy making and the shape of educational systems themselves. In this chapter, I restate an argument I made a number of years ago (Carnoy 2000) that economic globalization does indeed put new pressures on national states. I contend that competition generated by new rising economic players in the system and the specialized skills demanded by high value information technology, financial services, and organizational innovation services induce national states to expand their educational systems, particularly higher education. Second, I argue that ideological convergence as developed in the world system approach to institutional change is partly the result of spreading elite notions of "modernity," but that these elite notions of modernity develop and spread because they are functional to elite interests, including reproduction of elite power and specific economic interests. Particular reforms of educational systems are also promoted by international agencies representing those interests but also incorporating their own "non profit" economic interests. That is, "convergence" may appear to emerge from the autonomous diffusion of institutional norms "caused" by increased interaction among individuals in an increasingly globalized and technologically