GATS and the Education Service Industry: The Politics of Scale and Global Reterritorialization

Comparative Education Review

Volumn 46, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 472-496+535

  Robertson, Susan L ^a   Bonal, Xavier ^c   Dale, Roger ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND   (New Zealand)

^c NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0141503306     PISSN: 00104086     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/343122     Document Type: Review

References (73)

1. For important accounts, see Martin Carnoy, "Globalization and Educational Restructuring" (International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, 2000); Phillip Jones, "Globalization and Internationalism: Democratic Prospects for World Education," Comparative Education 34, no. 2 (1998): 143-55; Roger Dale, "Specifying Globalization Effects on National Policy: A Focus on the Mechanisms," Journal of Education Policy 14, no. 1 (1999): 1-17, and "Globalization and Education: Demonstrating 'A Common World Educational Culture' or Locating 'A Globally Structured Educational Agenda'?" Educational Theory 50, no. 4 (2000): 427-48;
2. For important accounts, see Martin Carnoy, "Globalization and Educational Restructuring" (International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, 2000); Phillip Jones, "Globalization and Internationalism: Democratic Prospects for World Education," Comparative Education 34, no. 2 (1998): 143-55; Roger Dale, "Specifying Globalization Effects on National Policy: A Focus on the Mechanisms," Journal of Education Policy 14, no. 1 (1999): 1-17, and "Globalization and Education: Demonstrating 'A Common World Educational Culture' or Locating 'A Globally Structured Educational Agenda'?" Educational Theory 50, no. 4 (2000): 427-48;
3. For important accounts, see Martin Carnoy, "Globalization and Educational Restructuring" (International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, 2000); Phillip Jones, "Globalization and Internationalism: Democratic Prospects for World Education," Comparative Education 34, no. 2 (1998): 143-55; Roger Dale, "Specifying Globalization Effects on National Policy: A Focus on the Mechanisms," Journal of Education Policy 14, no. 1 (1999): 1-17, and "Globalization and Education: Demonstrating 'A Common World Educational Culture' or Locating 'A Globally Structured Educational Agenda'?" Educational Theory 50, no. 4 (2000): 427-48;
4. For important accounts, see Martin Carnoy, "Globalization and Educational Restructuring" (International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, 2000); Phillip Jones, "Globalization and Internationalism: Democratic Prospects for World Education," Comparative Education 34, no. 2 (1998): 143-55; Roger Dale, "Specifying Globalization Effects on National Policy: A Focus on the Mechanisms," Journal of Education Policy 14, no. 1 (1999): 1-17, and "Globalization and Education: Demonstrating 'A Common World Educational Culture' or Locating 'A Globally Structured Educational Agenda'?" Educational Theory 50, no. 4 (2000): 427-48;
5. and Sandra Taylor and Miriam Henry, "Globalization and Educational Policymaking: A Case Study," Educational Theory 50, no. 4 (2000): 487-504.
6. Fredric Jameson, "Globalisation as Political Strategy," New Left Review 4 (July-August 2000) : 49-68, quote on 49.
7. Martin Shaw, "The State of Globalization: Toward a Theory of State Transformation," Review of International Political Economy 4, no. 3 (1997): 497.
8. Bob Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare: Recent Trends in Its Primary Functions, Scale and Modes of Coordination," Social Policy and Administration 33, no. 4 (1999): 348-59.
9. The Millennium Round refers to the new round of negotiations that opened at the meeting in Seattle in November 1999 and that replaced the previous Uruguay Round. In essence, this takes negotiations into the new millennium over a 10-year period. See World Trade Organization, Services: Agreement (Geneva: World Trade Organization, 1994).
10. See David Harvey, The Limit to Capital, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1999), and The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Neil Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organisation and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales," Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 16, no. 1 (1998): 459-81, and "Globalization as Reterritorialization: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union," Urban Studies 36, no. 3 (1999): 431-51; Chris Collinge, Spatial Articulation of the State: Reworking Social Relations and Social Regulation Theory (Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1996); Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare."
11. See David Harvey, The Limit to Capital, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1999), and The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Neil Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organisation and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales," Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 16, no. 1 (1998): 459-81, and "Globalization as Reterritorialization: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union," Urban Studies 36, no. 3 (1999): 431-51; Chris Collinge, Spatial Articulation of the State: Reworking Social Relations and Social Regulation Theory (Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1996); Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare."
12. See David Harvey, The Limit to Capital, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1999), and The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Neil Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organisation and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales," Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 16, no. 1 (1998): 459-81, and "Globalization as Reterritorialization: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union," Urban Studies 36, no. 3 (1999): 431-51; Chris Collinge, Spatial Articulation of the State: Reworking Social Relations and Social Regulation Theory (Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1996); Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare."
13. See David Harvey, The Limit to Capital, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1999), and The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Neil Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organisation and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales," Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 16, no. 1 (1998): 459-81, and "Globalization as Reterritorialization: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union," Urban Studies 36, no. 3 (1999): 431-51; Chris Collinge, Spatial Articulation of the State: Reworking Social Relations and Social Regulation Theory (Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1996); Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare."
14. See David Harvey, The Limit to Capital, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1999), and The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Neil Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organisation and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales," Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 16, no. 1 (1998): 459-81, and "Globalization as Reterritorialization: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union," Urban Studies 36, no. 3 (1999): 431-51; Chris Collinge, Spatial Articulation of the State: Reworking Social Relations and Social Regulation Theory (Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1996); Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare."
15. See David Harvey, The Limit to Capital, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1999), and The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Neil Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organisation and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales," Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 16, no. 1 (1998): 459-81, and "Globalization as Reterritorialization: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union," Urban Studies 36, no. 3 (1999): 431-51; Chris Collinge, Spatial Articulation of the State: Reworking Social Relations and Social Regulation Theory (Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1996); Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare."
16. See David Harvey, The Limit to Capital, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1999), and The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Neil Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organisation and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales," Environment and Planning D. Society and Space 16, no. 1 (1998): 459-81, and "Globalization as Reterritorialization: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union," Urban Studies 36, no. 3 (1999): 431-51; Chris Collinge, Spatial Articulation of the State: Reworking Social Relations and Social Regulation Theory (Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1996); Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare."
17. See Harvey, The Limits to Capital; Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion."
18. See Harvey, The Limits to Capital; Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion."
19. See Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion," p. 461.
20. See Roger Dale, The State and Education Policy (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1989).
21. As early as the 1970s, Henri Lefebvre posed the "the scale question" - in particular its social production and sociopolitical contestation.
22. Harvey, The Limit to Capital, p. 423.
23. Ibid., pp. 422-24.
24. Erik Swyngedouw, "Neither Global nor Local: Globalization and the Politics of Scale," in Spaces of Globalization: Re-asserting the Power of the Local, ed. K. Cox (New York: Guilford, 1996), p. 96.
25. Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion," p. 460.
26. See Harvey, The Limit to Capital, pp. 398-405.
27. See Brenner, "Between Fixity and Motion" (n. 6 above), p. 472.
28. See Harvey, The Limit to Capital (n. 6 above), pp. 422-23.
29. See Bob Jessop, "Reflections on Globalization and Its (Il)Logics," in Globalization and the Asia Pacific: Contested Territories, ed. Kris Olds, Peter Dicken, Paul E. Kelly, and Henry Wai-Chung Yeung (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 19-38.
30. Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare" (n. 4 above), p. 352.
31. See Education International, "The WTO and the Millennium Round: What Is at Stake for Public Education?" (Educational International, Brussels, 1999), p. 4. Available at http://www.ei-ie/pub/eng/epbeipsiwto.html.
32. See, e.g., the OECD-US Forum on Trade in Educational Services, Washington, D.C., May 23-24, 2002.
33. See the Ministry of Education website - and documents such as "Export Education in New Zealand: A Strategic Approach to Developing the Sector" (New Zealand Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2001). The report notes that in New Zealand there are over 700 export providers (New Zealand has a population of 3 million), which in 2000 contributed $700 million to the economy. It is noted that the export of education services had the potential to realize $1 billion. For an analysis of the early stages of this development, see Roger Dale and Susan Robertson, '"Resiting' the Nation, 'Reshaping' the State: Globalization Effects on Education Policy," in Education Policy in New Zealand; The 1990s and Beyond, ed. Mark Olssen and Kay Morris-Matthews (Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore, 1997), p. 224.
34. See the Ministry of Education website - and documents such as "Export Education in New Zealand: A Strategic Approach to Developing the Sector" (New Zealand Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2001). The report notes that in New Zealand there are over 700 export providers (New Zealand has a population of 3 million), which in 2000 contributed $700 million to the economy. It is noted that the export of education services had the potential to realize $1 billion. For an analysis of the early stages of this development, see Roger Dale and Susan Robertson, '"Resiting' the Nation, 'Reshaping' the State: Globalization Effects on Education Policy," in Education Policy in New Zealand; The 1990s and Beyond, ed. Mark Olssen and Kay Morris-Matthews (Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore, 1997), p. 224.
35. See Robert E. Quinn, "The WTO and Education 180/MDE" (Earthsystems, 1999), p. 2. Available at http://www.earthsystems.org/seac/seac-discussion/0767.html. Earthsystems is a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization, originally based at the University of Virginia.
36. See Jagdish Bhagwati, "After Seattle: Free Trade and the WTO," International Affairs 77, no. 1 (2001): 15.
37. See http://www.wto.org.
38. This section of the WTO agreement, Article 9, sees. 3-5, establishing the WTO is discussed by Ngaire Woods and Amrita Narlikar, "Governance and the Limits of Accountability: The WTO, the IMF and the World Bank," International Social Science Journal 53, no. 170 (2001): 569-83, quote on 572.
39. Ibid., p. 572.
40. The whole of the Asian region is regarded as a huge potential market for services; almost 3.1 billion people - over 60 percent of the world's population - lives in Asia. A number of these economies have high rates of growth that are predicted to continue well into the twenty-first century - with a growing middle class and growing discretionary income to spend (Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Hong Kong). These markets have proved lucrative ("World Investment Report" [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, New York, 1995]). See, e.g., WTO-GATS, "Communication from New Zealand - Negotiating Proposal for Education Services" (World Trade Organization, Geneva, June 26, 2001) - where the export of education is promoted as critical for generating revenue for public and state sector institutions - and "vital" for the development of human capital (available at http://www.wto.org).
41. The whole of the Asian region is regarded as a huge potential market for services; almost 3.1 billion people - over 60 percent of the world's population - lives in Asia. A number of these economies have high rates of growth that are predicted to continue well into the twenty-first century - with a growing middle class and growing discretionary income to spend (Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Hong Kong). These markets have proved lucrative ("World Investment Report" [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, New York, 1995]). See, e.g., WTO-GATS, "Communication from New Zealand - Negotiating Proposal for Education Services" (World Trade Organization, Geneva, June 26, 2001) - where the export of education is promoted as critical for generating revenue for public and state sector institutions - and "vital" for the development of human capital (available at http://www.wto.org).
42. See Woods and Narlikar; Chakravarthi Raghavan, "After Seattle, World Trade System Faces Uncertain Future," Review of International Political Economy 7, no, 3 (2000): 495-504.
43. See Bernard Hoekman and Michel Kostecki, The Political Economy of the World Trading System: The WTO and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
44. In the Seattle Round of the WTO, the Coalition of Service Industries (CSI) outlined their goals: (i) ensure the right of U.S. companies to establish operations in foreign markets, including the right to wholly own these investments; (ii) ensure that U.S. companies get "national treatment" so that foreign investors have the same rights as domestic companies in a given market; (iii) promote procompetitive regulatory reform focused on an inadequacy of appropriate and consistent rules as well as transparency and impartiality of regulatory administration; (iv) remove barriers to cross-border trade; and (v) remove obstacles to the free movement of people and business information. A second group - British Invisibles - have also been prominent in the WTO forums. Otherwise known as International Financial Services London (IFSL), British Invisibles are a London-based organization who work for the removal of barriers to trade in the global market for "invisible" financial services. British Invisibles played an important role in the negotiations that led up to the 1997 Agreement on Financial Services under the WTO (see IFSL website: http://ifsl.org.uk).
45. Article 1.3 of GATS.
46. See Education International (n. 20 above), p. 6.
47. Using public-choice theory, the New Zealand government has argued - successfully - that the private benefits of education arising from higher education should be paid for privately through a fee structure. For an account of this, see Robert Stephens, "Financing Tertiary Education," in Olssen and Morris-Matthews, eds., pp. 190-208. For a discussion on World Bank policy in this regard, see Christopher Colclough and Keith Lewin, Educating All the Children: Strategies for Primary Schooling in the South (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993).
48. Using public-choice theory, the New Zealand government has argued - successfully - that the private benefits of education arising from higher education should be paid for privately through a fee structure. For an account of this, see Robert Stephens, "Financing Tertiary Education," in Olssen and Morris-Matthews, eds., pp. 190-208. For a discussion on World Bank policy in this regard, see Christopher Colclough and Keith Lewin, Educating All the Children: Strategies for Primary Schooling in the South (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993).
49. While it might be inferred that this has arisen as a result of particular players attempting to put a "brake" on the process in the face of U.S. pressure, it should be noted that at the time of writing the United States had only offered one sector - the adult sector - in the voluntary negotiations over education services.
50. See Education International, p. 3.
51. These are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Switzerland, Turkey, the EU, Albania, China, Chinese Taipei, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Jordan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Moldova, Oman, and Sierra Leone
52. See OECD/CERI, "Current Commitments under the GATS in Educational Services" (a background document prepared for the OECD/US Forum on Trade in Educational Services, Washington, D.C., May 23-24, 2002), p. 7.
53. See Marjorie Griffin Cohen, "The World Trade Organization and Post Secondary Education: Implications for the Public System" (British Columbia Teachers' Federation, Vancouver, 2000), p. 4. Available at http://bctf.bc.ca/social/globalization/CohenPaper.html.
54. See Susan Robertson and Roger Dale, "Local States of Emergency: The Contradictions of Neo-Liberal Governance in Education in New Zealand," British Journal of Sociology of Education 23, no. 3 (2002), in press. For a discussion of NAFTA on the Canadian and Mexican education systems, see Roger Dale and Susan Robertson, "The Varying Effects of Regional Organizations as Subjects of Globalization of Education," Comparative Education Review 46, no. 1 (2002): 10-36.
55. See Susan Robertson and Roger Dale, "Local States of Emergency: The Contradictions of Neo-Liberal Governance in Education in New Zealand," British Journal of Sociology of Education 23, no. 3 (2002), in press. For a discussion of NAFTA on the Canadian and Mexican education systems, see Roger Dale and Susan Robertson, "The Varying Effects of Regional Organizations as Subjects of Globalization of Education," Comparative Education Review 46, no. 1 (2002): 10-36.
56. See Bob Jessop, State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in Their Place (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990), p. 343.
57. Ramesh Mishra, Globalization and the Welfare State (Cheltenham: Elgar, 1999).
58. Roger Dale, The State and Education Policy (n. 9 above).
59. See, e.g., the work of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a research group formed in reaction to NAFTA. They currently publish widely on GATS - e.g., see Scott Sinclair, GATS: How the World Trade Organization's "New Services" Negotiations Threaten Democracy (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2000).
60. OECD/CERI.
61. See John Dunning, "The Future of the WTO: A Socio-Relational Challenge?" Review of International Political Economy 7, no. 3 (2000): 475-83, on the differential capacities of member nations in the negotiation process; he refers to difference of intellectual capital and social relational capital that mediate and thus produce uneven outcomes for different members.
62. See Bob Jessop, "The Changing Governance of Welfare" (n. 4 above).
63. See Saskia Sassen, "Servicing the Global Economy: Reconfigured States and Private Agents," in Olds et al., eds. (n. 18 above), p. 159.
64. See Basil Bernstein, Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique (London: Taylor & Francis, 1996). See also Xavier Bonal, "Managing Education Legitimation Crises in Neo-Liberal Contexts: Some Semi-peripheral Evidence" (paper presented at the Travelling Policy/Local Spaces: Globalisation, Identities and Education Policy in Europe conference, University of Keele, U.K., June 27-29, 2000).
65. See Basil Bernstein, Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique (London: Taylor & Francis, 1996). See also Xavier Bonal, "Managing Education Legitimation Crises in Neo-Liberal Contexts: Some Semi-peripheral Evidence" (paper presented at the Travelling Policy/Local Spaces: Globalisation, Identities and Education Policy in Europe conference, University of Keele, U.K., June 27-29, 2000).
66. See William Robinson, "Social Theory and Globalization: The Rise of the Transnational State," Theory and Society 30, no. 2 (2001): 189.
67. See Phillip Jones, World Bank Financing of Education: Lending, Learning and Development (London: Routledge, 1992); Woods and Narlikar (n. 26 above).
68. See, e.g., the need for the Australian government to regulate the provision of private education services following financial losses by some companies; this was seen by key Asian countries to be an international political issue to be dealt with by the national state.
69. See seminal works such as Michael Young, ed., Knowledge and Control; New Directions for the Sociology of Education (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1971); Apple, ed. (n. 9 above); Pierre Bourdieu, "The Forms of Capital," in Education, Economy and Society, ed. Albert H. Halsey, Hugh Lauder, Phillip Brown, and Amy Stuart Wells (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
70. See seminal works such as Michael Young, ed., Knowledge and Control; New Directions for the Sociology of Education (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1971); Apple, ed. (n. 9 above); Pierre Bourdieu, "The Forms of Capital," in Education, Economy and Society, ed. Albert H. Halsey, Hugh Lauder, Phillip Brown, and Amy Stuart Wells (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
71. See seminal works such as Michael Young, ed., Knowledge and Control; New Directions for the Sociology of Education (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1971); Apple, ed. (n. 9 above); Pierre Bourdieu, "The Forms of Capital," in Education, Economy and Society, ed. Albert H. Halsey, Hugh Lauder, Phillip Brown, and Amy Stuart Wells (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
72. For an excellent analysis of knowledge production and appropriation, see John Frow, "Knowledge as Gift and Commodity," New Left Review, no. 219 (1996): 108.
73. Bourdieu.