Bringing universities to account? Exploring some global and local policy tensions

Increased accountability is at the centre of widespread educational reforms which feature the rhetoric of deregulation in many countries across the gl obe. Not only have educational systems, institutions and practitioners been required to be more accountable, but arguably the nature of accountability has also changed from professional and democratic to managerial and market forms. In particular, within the hegemonic discourses of the market ideolo gy associated with globalization, market accountability to paying customers (both within a nation-state and internationally) has been foregrounded. Ho wever, the hegemony is not complete. Governments have often positioned them selves as 'market managers', creating a complex and often contradictory rel ationship between new forms of market and managerial accountability, layere d on top of more traditional notions of professional and democratic account ability. This paper explores the changing nature of accountability in Australian and English higher education, and makes comparisons between them. As we enter the twenty-first century, central higher education authorities in both coun tries are conducting major reviews and revisionings of mechanisms to enhanc e the accountability of universities in the new global knowledge-based econ omy. While the analysis finds convergence of policy objectives and discours es, it also finds divergences in the particular structures and processes em ployed. Further, it finds a disjunction between macro-level policy intent a nd institutional-level reactions and practices in both countries. We argue that with globalization 'talk', it is important not to gloss over policy di fferences between individual nation-states, and to problematize potentially globalizing concepts such as accountability within policy debates at both national and global levels.