In Defense of International Comparative Studies. On the Analytical and Explanatory Power of the...

Kosmützky, A., accepted for Publication in European Journal for Higher Education, to be published 5.2 2015 (June).

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In Defense of International Comparative Studies. On the Analytical and Explanatory Power of the Nation-State in International Comparative Higher Education Research.

Abstract

Higher education is undergoing a process of globalization and new realities of a globalized higher education world are emerging. Globalization also has a profound impact on higher education research. Global and transnational topics are theoretically and empirically elaborated and seem on the rise, whereas the international comparative outlook seems to become outdated in a world where national spaces become more and more global. On the basis of a bibliometric analysis of the state and development of both international comparative and global and transnational higher education studies and based on a critique of the methodological nationalism, this article discusses the analytical and explanatory power of international comparative higher education studies and lessons that both fields can learn from each other. The suggestion is that international comparative studies could embrace transnational and global studies to develop towards a methodological glocalism instead of being outlived.

Key words

International comparative research, global and transnational studies, methodological nationalism, methodological cosmopolitanism, and methodological glocalism

Dr. Anna Kosmützky International Center for Higher Education Research Kassel INCHER-Kassel Mönchebergstr. 17 34109 Kassel - Germany Tel +49 - 561 - 804 2344 Fax +49 - 561 - 804 7415 Email: [email protected] Web: www.kosmuetzky.de


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Introduction: Globalization in Higher Education and International Comparative Higher Education Research

One of the most recent prevalent changes within higher education is its globalization (Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley 2009). Despite a certain level of ambiguity towards the actual dimension of growth of global activities and the transformative effects on higher education (Marginson 2011; Ziguras 2011), there is broad consensus that higher education is undergoing a profound process of globalization. New and rapidly changing realities of a more and more globalized higher education world are emerging and have to be theoretically and empirically researched and elaborated. And it seems at hand that an increasingly globalized higher education landscape and international and global trends and developments in higher education have facilitated a growing interest in international higher education. New journals for international higher education have been established from the mid-1990s onwards (e.g. Journal of Studies in International Education, International Higher Education, or International Journal for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education), and the most recent emergence of handbooks on internationalization and/or globalization in higher education (e.g. ACA and EUA 2008; King, Marginson and Naidoo 2011; Deardorff et al. 2012) also seems to witness it. International higher education research has gained in size and even more in popularity on a worldwide scale in recent years (Kuzhabekova, Hendel and Chapman 2012). However, recent research (Kosmützky and Krücken 2014) also shows that studies with a particularly international comparative approach, which analyze and compare similarities and differences as well as convergences and divergences, have rather been in a steady state over the past twenty years. And it seems that a predication made by Burton Clark in the mid-1990s on the development of international comparative studies was wrong. Clark, one of the founding fathers of international comparative higher education research, forecasted that “we are better positioned in a number of national systems than we were a decade ago and can reasonably expect to be even better positioned a decade from now on” (Clark, 1996, 20). Of course, international comparative higher education research projects, particularly when they are perused as international collaboration and multidisciplinary endeavour, are much more complicated in terms of their funding sources, research design and often hampered by practical constraints (Kosmützky and Nokkala 2014). Nevertheless, an increasingly and profoundly globalized higher education world should benefit an international comparative outlook. Or has international comparative research been outlived by global developments in higher education, because a global higher education world makes it rather obvious that it is not “possible to distinguish clearly between the national and the international” (Beck and Sznaider 2006, 6), and the “connectional world of the national outlook” becomes “stripped of its necessity” (13)? If the local and the national also become global, what is left for the international comparative approach, which genuinely builds on the analysis of similarities and differences between national higher education systems? This article explores the impact of globalization on higher education research both quantitatively and methodologically.

In the first part of the article I will delineate two ideal types of international higher education research based on their approach to comparison: international comparative studies and global and transnational studies. Based on a bibliometric analysis, I will compare the state and development of international comparative studies to that of global and transnational higher education studies in the second part. The findings show that the latter has overshadowed international comparative research quantitatively over time. Global and transnational studies have also criticized – implicitly and explicitly – international comparative studies. Particularly


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their basic analytical category – the nation-state – has been increasingly questioned and critiqued for the bias and limitations of its methodological nationalism. This critique is discussed in the third part of the paper, and two important implications for international comparative higher education research will be drawn from this discussion. As a consequence, I will subsequently suggest two methodological clarifications on the roles the national can play in international comparative studies. On the basis of these clarifications, I propose that international comparative research could embrace transnational and global studies to develop towards a methodological glocalism instead of being outlived.

Types of international higher education research

An article about international and comparative higher education research has to be explicit about what is meant by those terms, particularly about the different types of research they describe. As Linda Hantrais has put it: “Not all international research is comparative, and not all comparative research is international or cross-national” (Hantrais 2009, 1). International higher education research is any research that transcends national boundaries. This definition is somewhat ambiguous, though, because it encompasses international studies without any comparative approach. In turn, comparative research can also be comparative over time and cross-sectionally, not only spatially (Marsh 1967; Blumler, McLeod and Rosengren 1992; Hantrais 2009). Focussing on their international and comparative approaches, one can conceptually distinguish two ideal types of higher education studies, which belong under the umbrella of international higher education research but have somewhat differing intent.

1) International comparative studies (type 1): The usual definition of international comparison starts with the nation-state/national system, and in a pragmatic sense cross-national borders and national higher education systems are used as frameworks and criteria for the definition (Smelser 1976/2013). “Truly comparative research” (Carnoy 2006, 553) is explicitly comparative in the sense that it utilizes systematically comparable data from two or more geographically different macro-social units (whether they are called countries, cultures, societies or nations or systems). But comparative studies do not only collect data about different macro-social units. They also have a comparative research design whereby the same process of data-collection and data-analysis is carried out within a number of spatial units (Ragin 1987/2014). Comparative studies usually proceed simultaneously on at least two levels: at the macro-level (national higher education systems) and at a within-system level (the micro-level and/or meso-level). Whereas the analysis proceeds at one or two within-system levels – the meso-level, e.g. higher education organizations, university boards or decision structures or the micro-level, e.g. academics at work, student experiences or curricula (Teichler 1996, Musselin 2000, Bleiklie 2014) – the explanation is usually situated at the macro-level (Ragin 1987/2014).

2) Transnational or global studies (type 2): For global and transnational higher education studies, which investigate inherently transnational and world-spanning phenomena, the entire world is the conceptual framework, and they go beyond nation-states and national higher education systems as levels of analysis. They focus on the international or cross-national diffusion of topics, the emergence of a sphere of transnational and global networks and communities, globally operating higher education institutions, and on the impact of major international governmental agencies and nongovernmental organizations on policy agencies - but without being necessarily internationally comparative in nature (Dale 2007, Arnove 2009, Schriewer 2014). What differentiates global and transnational from international comparative studies is a “basic conceptual shift” (Section Proposal Global and Transnational Sociology


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2008, 3): The objects and processes under investigation are not defined in terms of geographical boundaries, but rather as de-territorial and largely disconnected from national boundaries. As a consequence, a lot of studies on global and transnational topics see themselves as an alternative to classical cross-national, cross-cultural or cross-societal comparative research. They are often explicitly formulated as criticism of the conditions (the autonomy of nations, cultures or societies) and approaches (highlighting cultural specificities of countries, macro-causal explanations and/or quasi-experimental theory examination) of comparative research (Kaelble 2003, Dale 2007, Schriewer 2014).

Both types of research belong to the same family; they could be described as siblings.1 However, only the first type is interested in identifying similarities and differences among geographically different macro-social units. As Ragin puts it: “The comparativist thus assumes, at least implicitly, that macrosocial units are real and then defines them, sometimes by default, in the course of research. ... For the noncomparativists, however, macrosocial units tend to remain abstractions” (Ragin 1987, 5). Moreover, only the first type deals with comparative data and comparative analysis. Admittedly, there is a lot of overlap and mixed-type research. Additionally, there are also sub-types (for sub-types, see Teichler 1996, and particularly Bleiklie 2014). Nevertheless, it is helpful to delineate particularly international comparative studies and global and transnational studies as ideal types to analyze their state and development and to describe precisely what both can learn from each other methodologically.

State and Development of International Comparative Studies and Global and Transnational Studies

Ideal types are based on an accentuation of a set of certain specific characteristics, whereas empirical cases do not correspond to all of the characteristics of any particular case Weber 1904/2011). For the data analysis presented in this section, I utilized the two ideal types (international comparative and global and transnational studies) to empirically analyze their state and development and thereby turned them into empirical types. I used a bibliometric approach and analyzed international journal articles of eight leading journals in higher education, US-based journals as well as journals based in Europe as covered by the Web of Science (WoS).2 This approach builds on a previous study analyzing comparative research (Kosmützky and Krücken 2014) and a study conducted by Kuzhabekova, Hendel and Chapman (2012) on international higher education. The overall data set covers 4,095 articles from the WoS for the period 1992–2012 (see for a discussion of the limitations of this approach: Kosmützky and Krücken 2014). All articles were coded with a keyword approach analyzing their titles and abstracts. To generate comparable data for both types of studies (type 1 and type 2), on the one hand, all articles were retrieved that refer to two or more countries and that appear as keywords in the title or abstract. These articles were coded as belonging to the category international comparative studies (see for this approach: Kosmützky and Krücken 2014). On the other hand, all articles that refer to one of the keywords ‘transnational or global’ and ‘cross-border’ in their titles or abstracts were retrieved and coded as belonging to the category transnational and global studies (see for this approach: Kuzhabekova, Hendel and Chapman 2012).

Figure 1: Number of Articles International Comparative Studies, Global and Transnational Studies and all Articles (1992-2012)


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Figure 2: Number of Articles International Comparative Studies, Global and Transnational Studies and their Intersection (1992-2012)

The results (figure 1) of the analysis reveal a relatively steady state of international comparative higher education studies (type 1) over the years with a slight increase from 2009 onwards: a share of 11% of articles presenting results from international comparative studies (type 1) – from 2009 onwards, the mean percentage is 15 %. Global and transnational studies (type 2) have already increased from 2000 onwards and to a much larger extent. The share of global and transnational studies (type 2) of all articles in the data set starts with 10% in the 1990s, but grew over 20% after 2000, and even to 30% from 2009 onwards. Additionally, figure 2 shows the intersection between both types of studies. It varies over the years from a 10% share to 50% share of type 1 research, but with a growth tendency from 2007 onwards.

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Intersection between both Types of Studies


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Results from bibliometric analyses always have to be interpreted with caution, and they definitely do not tell the whole story about international higher education research, but provide interesting first insights. Even if these results are only a rough approximation to international comparative studies (type 1) and higher education research that focusses on global and transnational topics (type 2), they indicate that international comparative research has been overshadowed in recent years by higher education studies on global and transnational developments. Similarly, Kehm and Teichler (2007) have pointed to the growing importance of perspectives on globalization in a qualitative review of the literature on internationalization in higher education. This also illuminates different attention and reception cycles of those two paradigms in higher education. Higher education research is to a large extent an applied field and mode-2 field of research (Teichler 1996; Altbach et al. 2007; Krücken 2012), and the topics studied follow the needs of higher education systems and politics to large extent. Consequently, the trend illustrated by the bibliometric data analysis reflects a trend in higher education itself as well as higher education policies and politics at the same time. International comparative studies and global and transnational studies (as world system analysis (WSA) or world culture theory) were both established and systematically developed during the 1960s and 1970s (see for overviews: Teichler 1996, 2014; Arnove 2001, 2009). Whereas the theoretical and empirical development of WSA and world culture theory and its adaption in comparative education was mainly a US-endeavour (Arnove 2001, 2009), the scientific community in Europe reinforced their interest in international comparative higher education research and aimed at understanding similarities and differences between European countries (Teichler 1996, 2014).3 It seems that global developments in higher education that have taken place in recent years did not further benefit international comparative studies to the same extent as they did global and transnational studies. Additionally, it seems – but cannot fully be proven with this data, a qualitative study would be necessary here – that the growth in transnational studies has also benefited the growth in international comparative studies.

Methodological Nationalism: Does an Approach that Tries to Avoid it Erode International Comparative Higher Education Research?

Beyond their recent quantitative influence, these global and transnational studies implicitly as well as sometimes explicitly articulate a methodological critique on the basic analytical category – the nation-state – and the bias of methodological nationalism in international comparative higher education studies. In this section, I will elaborate on this critique and draw two implications for comparative studies in higher education research from it.

The cause of the debates on methodological nationalism is usually the historical argument of the rise of globalization and the retreat of the nation-state as stated e.g. by Albrow (1996), Castels (1996), Strange (1996), Beck (1999) or Evans (1997). In light of this development, Beck and Sznaider (2006, 5) diagnose much of the social sciences as “a prisoner of the nation-state” as they are still building on the nation-state as an analytical category, even though it has lost its importance and the distinctions between national/international and global/local have become blurry. In their opinion, the nation-state “can no longer serve as the orienting reference point for the social scientific observer”, and they particularly accuse comparative studies: “comparative analyses [...] all essentially function on the basis of methodological nationalism” (5). Methodological nationalism is used to label the taken-for-granted belief that nation-states are the natural containers of societies and therefore suitable units of analysis for comparative analyses in social sciences (Dale 2007). Chernilo, who also strongly advocates to reject and transcend methodological nationalism (MN), describes the


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core of the problem as follows: “Methodological nationalism presupposes that the nation-state is the natural and necessary form of society in modernity and that the nation-state becomes the organizing principle around which the whole project of modernity coheres” (Chernilo 2006, 129).4

This critique has recently been introduced to and argued within higher education research pointedly by Shahjahan and Kezar (2013). Building on Chernilo and Beck, and also drawing from recent literature on higher education globalization (Altbach 2004; King 2009; Marginson and Rhoades 2002), Shahjahan and Kezar argue that social processes involving higher education can no longer be reduced to social forces exclusively within the nation-state, but increasingly derive from forces outside the “national container” (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013, 21). They precisely criticize that higher education systems are studied as social processes that occur within the boundaries of the nation-state and are based on internalist developments within the nation-state. From their point of view, methodological nationalism naturalizes in theories (e.g. when U.S., U.K. or Australia-based theories are used to designate and compare higher education systems around the world) and methodologies (e.g. when national categories pre-empt data collection, because empirical information is basically collected on a national level) in higher education research. Moreover, they argue that although researchers may be aware that the nation-state is a porous entity, their research questions continue to assume and suggest that it is self-contained and, thus, they continue to overlook the impact of the cross-national influences or transnational processes on their objects of study. National containers historically and currently reinforce unequal power relationships, and they strongly advocate to overcome methodological nationalism and to “think outside the national box” (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013, 23).

Shahjahan and Kezar’s critique is strong but itself somewhat blinded by MN, because it is itself also U.S. centric. In Europe, higher education researchers are much more used to thinking outside the national box, because their studies often encompass research on developments at the European level.5 Nevertheless, Shahjahan and Kezar have strong arguments. By highlighting the erosion of borders, the importance of global forces and imperatives and the porosity of nation-states, type 1 research not only overshadows comparative research (type 2) quantitatively, but also rather seems to hollow out its analytical units.

In response to their critique, I might object that there are still good reasons to use the nation-state as a unit of analysis. There are – at least – the following three arguments for its use as methodological category (see also Kaelble 2003):

1) The first argument is related to research practice: most of the material for empirical research (statistics, discourses, etc.) can be found at the level of nation-states.

2) Nation or country is a unit with clearly defined boundaries and a clear self-definition. Nation is therefore a comparative unit that is relatively easy to handle.

3) The nation-state is still one of the most important actors in the fullest sense (of governance, legislation and administration), and the reality of higher education is still shaped to a large extent by the configuration of national higher education systems.

The last argument seems to be the strongest and decisive one for the nation-state as a unit of analysis and comparative dimension. It also finds support in sociological theory. In contrast to the body of literature that asserts a retreat of the nation-state, which loses its sovereignty, John Meyer and colleagues have argued that there is an enormous expansion of nation-state structures, bureaucracies, regulations. “The modern state may have less autonomy than earlier


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but it clearly has more to do than earlier as well, and most states are capable of doing more now than they ever have been before” (Meyer et al. 1997: 157). And even Shahjahan and Kezar note that they “are not arguing against using the nation-state as a unit of analysis”, but for unravelling the assumptions underlying the nation-state informed by methodological nationalism (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013). I agree, and appreciate their critique, because it facilitates the methodological discussion of comparative research. In my opinion, the critique has two important implications for international comparative higher education research:

Firstly, national higher education systems can and should neither be completely replaced as a unit of data collection nor as a unit of analysis, but international comparative higher education research should differentiate between observational units and explanatory units. Additionally, it should reflect more precisely on the conceptualization of data units and units of analysis (as object, context or part of a larger system) and on the approach to comparison to avoid a naturalization of MN in comparative methodologies.

Secondly, we should not see higher education systems as closed or homogenous, but rather as systems with multiple interdependencies between the global, the national and the local level. Depending on the extent to which global and transnational studies not only emphasize the cross-border flow and diffusion of global trends but also focus on their reception and adaptation, a perspective moves to the centre, which is in turn dependent on the comparison and helps us move towards a methodological glocalism (GM).

Taking up these implications for international comparative higher education research, I will make suggestions for methodological clarifications in the next section.

Implications for International Comparative Research

I propose two sorts of methodological clarifications. First, a differentiation between observational units and explanatory units, and a clarification of the roles that nation can play in international comparative research. Second, a combination of the international comparative approach on similarities and differences and the axiomatic approach on the simultaneity of global trends, national traditions and local cultures.

1) I suggest to utilize a differentiation introduced by Ragin (1987/2014) to distinguish between observational units and explanatory units in comparative analysis. This distinction follows his discussion concerning the two meanings of units of analysis – as data category and as a theoretical or analytical category. Observational unit refers to the units used in the data collection and data analysis; explanatory units refer to the unit that is used to account for the pattern of results obtained. Based on this we can distinguish between the data we collect within the framework of specific national higher education systems, which we utilize for the empirical analysis (observational units = unit of data analysis), and the macro-social unit, which we refer to in our analysis (explanatory unit = unit of analysis). This would not satisfy scholars who advocate for overcoming methodological nationalism yet, but it would be a first step towards clarity of comparative research designs.

Building on this differentiation between observational units and explanatory units, as a second step to defend national higher education systems as an analytical category, I suggest to adopt and adapt a typology introduced by Kohn (1989).6 Kohn distinguishes between nation as object of study, nation as context of study, nation as unit of analysis and nation as part of a larger transnational system or process. These types differ regarding their primary approach to nation, and allow us to more precisely define the macro-social unit that we use as explanatory


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unit. Thereby, we distinguish studies with a primary focus on nation as object and nation as context; both types are interested in comparing similarities and differences, and a third type with a primary focus on nation as part of a larger system is basically interested in interrelations between national higher education systems.

Nation as object: In this type, research interest lies primarily in the particular countries studied and in specific topics within these countries, e.g. how university governance in Germany compares to university governance in the United States, or France etc. The approach is either idiographic and tries to understand each country in its own terms or seeks to understand relationships among characteristics of nations. “In this research, one wants to know about Finland and Poland for their own sakes” (21).7

Nation as context: In this type, the primary purpose is to use countries as vehicles for investigating the context in which higher education institutions operate. Usually, this type of research tries to test abstract hypotheses or studies specific dimensions across countries, and the countries are selected “just because they happen to be useful settings for pursuing some general hypothesis” (21).

Nation as part of a larger system: This type treats nations explicitly as components of larger international systems. This type of research, Kohn calls it transnational, is specifically interested in studying how nations are systematically interrelated instead of treating them as isolated units. It does not “treat each nation as a homogenous entity” nor implies that “each nation exists in an international vacuum” (22).

These three types illuminate the different roles that nation can play as an explanatory unit in international comparative studies. They open up the field for studies that focus on interrelations as global and transnational ones do.

2) The second argument I am trying to make is that differentiating between nation as object, as context, and as part of a larger unit as on the explanatory level allows us to focus on interrelations between macro-social units on the explanatory level while we at the same time analyze similarities and differences on the observational level, respectively, within the same comparative research design. As e.g. Ragin (1987/2014) and Smelser (1976/2013) – both books have recently been reprinted – point out, international comparative research of large macro-social units is basically concerned with and good at the analysis of similarities and differences, whereas global and transnational studies have long taken account of how national states are situated in a larger global structure (see e.g. Meyer et al. 1997 and Arnove 2009 for overviews). But studies which conceptualize nation as part of a larger system are often based on the idea of the world-wide diffusion of certain trends. In such a perspective, global models diffuse across adopters, who adopt and occasionally reject them. The receivers of global trends are often seen as passive and merely receptive and, thus, the diffusion appears as a ‘copy and paste’ exercise from one country into another (Schwinn 2012, Schriewer 2012, But comparative studies on higher education phenomena, building on institutionalist approaches and focussing on convergences and divergences while conceptualizing national higher education systems as part of a larger system, have demonstrated that higher education systems are far from being passive receivers. They rather translate and adapt global trends according to the national traditions and local cultures (e.g. Krücken 2003; Hedmo, Sahlin-Andersson and Wedlin 2007, Taylor and Cantwell 2014).8 Global trends and world models influence national and local policies (Meyer 2007), but do not diffuse in a vacuum. Furthermore, globalisation is also not a uni-directional and one-dimensional development that absorbs developments with different spatial dynamics, as localisation (or regionalisation). In fact, globalisation is not coercively contradictory to spatially more restricted processes, but is


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rather a complex set of such processes, which are highly fluid and relate to each other in a dynamic way. And partially, they are even operating in a contradictory or oppositional fashion and thus show backlashes and antagonistic tendencies at different levels (Robertson 1992; Held 1999; Välimaa 2004). The process of locally adapting transnational trends, which has been termed as glocalization by Robertson (1992), leads to creative deviations and incomplete adaptations. And rather than being globally diffused, such trends and models are adapted, incorporated or resisted by national higher education systems (at the macro-level), universities (at the meso-level) and academics (at the micro-level) that are rooted in particular times and places (Krücken, Kosmützky and Torka 2007, Kosmützky and Ewen 2015).

Kohn’s typology opens up and links ‘traditional’ comparative approaches and the global and transnational approach. It allows us to point out similarities and differences or convergences and divergences within different national higher education systems, while at the same time referring to a larger “explanatory system that will give sense to the latter” (Musselin 2000, 304). Musselin (2000) argues that comparative studies are especially good at reconstructing national models, but that the “identification of national models should not be assimilated to the reconstruction of a societal order or the unfolding of a meta-structure” (296). The lesson for comparative studies here is clearly not to see system developments and effects in higher education as subordinated to national modes. Consequently, the transnational level should also not been seen as superordinate. National higher education systems are far from being self-contained, closed or homogenous, but rather comprise multiple interdependencies – in both the global and the local direction. And as an explanatory unit, national higher education systems do not need to be seen as closed systems. When we compare academics or universities, we know that these units interact with one another and are part of a larger social context. Similarly, national higher education systems can be conceptualized as part of a larger system as an explanatory unit, although the data collection takes place at the national level in order to pursue an international comparison.

Figure 3: Approaches to Nation and to Comparison

Kohn’s typology can help researchers to make informed and explicit choices regarding the approach to comparison (Livingston 2003), and it is particularly useful in complementing a typology on approaches to comparison (figure 3) introduced by Bleiklie (2014). The latter is very useful to delineate different approaches to comparison on the basis of the purpose of data collection. It differentiates between single country studies, juxtapositions, thematic comparison, identifying causal regularities and grand theories, but Bleiklie’s typology lacks studies with a focus on interrelations.9 Utilizing both typologies to describe the research design of a study shows that, in actual studies, the observational units can be designed as juxtaposition (e.g. comparing two or three different countries within Europe and two or three states within the U.S.), while at the explanatory level nation is seen as part of a larger system (e.g. the explanatory level is Europe and the U.S.). Or a study combines two comparative approaches, e.g. juxtaposition and thematic comparisons or thematic comparison and interrelation at the observational level, while the explanatory unit is a larger region or system.


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However, we have to be aware of the fact that we are “dealing with gradation, not sharp differences” (Kohn 1989, 23). Nevertheless, this typology helps us to clarify the role of the nation and therefore to reject a methodological nationalism and move towards a methodological glocalism (Holton 2008, 2009) when designing international comparative studies.

Conclusion: Towards a Methodological Glocalism in International Comparative Studies

As Beck and Sznaider (2006, 6), who promote a cosmopolitan social science outlook and a methodological cosmopolitanism, see it, in a globalized world where the local also becomes global, comparative research loses its ground because it is not possible “to make a convincing contrast between homogeneous units”. Ironically, international data collection and comparison have been essential prerequisites of the proliferation of global standards and a world culture (Meyer et al. 1997). Global and transnational studies as well as international comparative studies in higher education were both systematically established during the 1960s and 1970s, but the emerging global higher education world seems to unilaterally benefit global and transnational studies. In fact, the results of my bibliometric analysis on the quantitative state and developments of both global and transnational studies and international comparative studies in higher education support such a perspective. They show that global and transnational studies have been prospering, particularly in the past 10 years. Global and transnational research sees itself often explicitly as a conceptual alternative to the traditional cross-national, cross-cultural or cross-societal enquiry of international comparative studies (Dale 2007; Arnove 2009; Schwiewer 2014).

However, a globalized world rather makes a comparative perspective inevitable – if the “multidimensionality of that phenomenon” (Robertson 2014, 26) and “pluri-scalar nature” of developments (Dale 2007, 132) is taken into account appropriately. In a more globalized world each individual as well as organization is potentially at home in and connected to many more worlds. Moreover, the fact that we are ‘traveling’ in more parallel worlds and are connected to more worlds (either virtually or in reality) makes comparative benchmarks much more pressing, because the other worlds, irrespective of whether they are virtual or real, suggest comparative perspectives and bring the global and the local into closer relation. But whereas in many globalization theories local and regional variations are underexposed in conceptual terms and empirical examinations predominantly follow diffusionist assumptions (Schwinn 2012; Schriewer 2012), international comparative studies have “displayed a wide array of national, regional or context-specific – in other words ‘local’ – interpretations, appropriations and implementations that are at variance with purportedly global development trends, policies and models” (Schriewer 2012, 414). But if global and transnational studies, which are interested in the interrelation between national higher education systems, not only emphasize the diffusion of global trends but also focus on the reception and adaptation side, as it is the “pivotal motif of the very idea of glocalization” (Robertson 2014, 28), again similarities and differences and convergences and divergences naturally reappear in the picture. Then, comparative research designs provide the obvious point of departure.

Therefore, I have tried to defend the analytical and explanatory power of international comparative studies in this article – in line with Beck and Sznaider (2006), Chernilo (2006), and particularly Shahjahan and Kezar (2013), who advocate rejecting a methodological nationalism in higher education research. I have proposed two sorts of methodological clarifications that could help unravel the underlying assumption of a methodological nationalism in comparative studies and also improve the impact of comparative research


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designs in globalized times instead of them dying out like dinosaurs. Firstly, I have argued that international comparative higher education research should differentiate between observational units and explanatory units, and reflect more precisely on the conceptualization of nation as explanatory units (as object, context or part of a larger system) to avoid a methodological nationalism. Secondly, I tried to make the point that we should view higher education systems as open and coupled systems with multiple interdependencies between the global, the national and the local level. Moreover, we should systematically integrate a perspective on interrelations, as one typically finds in global and transnational studies, into the realm of international comparative studies to illuminate effects of globalization on higher education’s core objects of study and the change of the functions, the erosion of borders, and the transformation of the landscape of higher education institutions. On the basis of these suggestions, international comparative studies in higher education could evolve towards adopting a methodological glocalism. The growing amount of articles with an intersection between a global and transnational perspective and an international comparative approach (as illuminated by my bibliometric analysis) testifies that the fusion of both has become a more popular point of departure for empirical analyses, although there might not be much explicit methodological discussion about this intersection itself in higher education research yet.

Defending the analytical and explanatory power of the nation-state methodologically by reorienting the focus of international comparative higher education research to the interplay between the global and the local, as neighbouring comparative research areas and fields have done much earlier – e.g. Arnove and Torres (2003) for comparative education, Mahoney and Ruschemeyer (2003) for comparative politics, and Esser and Pfetsch (2004) comparative communication studies – has been the aim of this article. In combining the approach focussing on similarities and differences and the axiomatic approach on global and transnational interrelations, comparative studies can contribute to making gray areas, multiple overlays, refractive conditions and hybrid formations visible. If international comparative higher education research becomes methodologically more reflective and explicit, and expands its analytical scope towards a multiperspectival identification of new or emergent realities in higher education (by analyzing them locally and nationally and transnationally or globally), it can avoid methodological nationalism and develop a methodological glocalism. A methodological glocalism, or a methodological glonacalism, as Marginson and Rhoades (2002) labelled the triad of the traditional spatial dimensions global, national, and local of higher education institutions, would take theoretical innovations of global and transnational studies within and beyond higher education into account and pragmatically test different conceptualizations in empirical international comparative studies. As a result, international comparative higher education research would underpin its own capability to be innovative instead of becoming an endangered species.

Acknowledgements

I am especially grateful to Tatiana Fumasoli and Georg Krücken for comments on a conference paper version of the article presented at the 27th Annual CHER Conference in Rome in September 2014. I also thank Romy Wöhlert and Richard Hardack for their comments on an earlier version of this article as well as two anonymous reviewers for their encouraging appraisal.

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1 Beyond global and transnational studies, single country studies also belong to the family of international higher education. These studies provide detailed analyses and thick descriptions of single countries as well as deep insights into the uniqueness of the respective case. Such studies are implicitly internationally comparative in that the investigators interpret their findings by contrasting what they learn about the country they actually studied with what is known or is believed to be true about some other country or countries (see Bleiklie 2014, who includes this type of research into the realm of comparative research, and Ragin 1987/2014 and Carnoy 2006, who label this type implicitly comparative research). Such studies usually do not have a global or transnational approach. Even if phenomena are investigated that appear to occur globally or have a transnational dimension, they are first and foremost examined within the framework of the nation-state and national higher education system. 2 Journal of Higher Education, Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, European Journal of Higher Education, Journal of Studies in Higher Education, Higher Education Quarterly, Review of Higher Education. Comparative Education as well as Comparative Education Review were excluded because their focus is not primarily comparative higher education, but rather comparative education in general. 3 It is also important to note that scholars who studied higher education institutions were, of course, already interested in international comparison before the 1960s. 4 There has also been critique of the dominance of the nation-state as exploratory framework in comparative higher education studies (e.g. Marginson and Rhoades 2002) earlier, as in comparative studies in other fields and disciplines (see e.g. Esser and Hanitzsch 2012, Esser and Pfetsch 2004, Bray et al. 2007, Cohen and Kazamias 2009). Part of the critique advocates for the inclusion of other macro-level units like world regions, countries,


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subnational regions, social milieus, language areas, cultural thickenings, and particularly for contrasting different spatial macro-level units. Some of the authors who criticize the nation as unit of analysis do not criticize it because they are using other – larger or smaller – analytical units, but because nations have lost part of their specificities, due to transfers and mutual dependencies between nation-states and regions. But the explicit critique of a methodological nationalism has originated in sociological debates and global and transnational sociological studies. Also imminent methodological nationalism of international comparative analyses has already been discussed earlier in the neighbouring field of comparative education, and several authors have advocated reframing comparative education (e.g. Arnove 2003, Schriewer 2003, Dale 2007). 5 There is empirical evidence to suggest that higher education research, particularly in the US, has a national bias. As Tight (2014, 1) recently put it, higher education researchers in Europe and in the US are “working in two separate silos”. He studied citation patterns of US-journals and non-US journals, and found that US-based authors dominate the former and also basically cite literature published in the US, whereas European authors are more likely to refer to research published in US-journals. 6 Tilly (1984) has developed a similar typology earlier (see Kohn 1989, 21, for a discussion of similarities and differences of both typologies, where he also refers to even earlier similar classifications). Livingston (2003) has already utilized Kohn’s typology for approaches in comparative media- and communication studies, but without adaptions. 7 Admittedly, it is difficult to differentiate particularly the types in which nation is the/a object of analysis and the type in which nation is the unit of analysis (Kohn himself mentions this). The difference between both seems to play out basically alongside with the distinction between qualitative and quantitative empirical studies in higher education systems. Whereas the former tend to study national higher education systems as objects of analysis, the latter have a tendency towards conceptualizing national higher education systems as units of analysis. Therefore, I suggest merging these two categories into one at this observational/methodological level. 8 Beyond higher education research the processes of traveling and translating of ideas have been developed as conceptualizations of adaptation processes of global trends (e.g. Cziarniawska and Sévon 2005, Sahlin and Wedlin 2008). Others have engaged in the analysis of borrowing and lending processes between nations (e.g. Phillips and Ochs 2003, Steiner-Khamsi 2004). 9 Bleiklie (2014) subsumes such studies under the type of grand theories, in which they definitely fit. But comparative studies aimed at grand theories can – as they did traditionally – focus on similarities and differences or – as they do more recently – on interrelations. And as pointed out in this article, studies with a global or transnational focus do not necessarily aim at grand theories, but rather can be engaged in identifying causal regularities, thematic comparison etc.

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