Higher Education Research and Policy- Higher Education Privatization in Kuwait

Privatization has become a common policy choice in higher education reforms globally mainly due to financial pressures. The author investigates the policy processes of its implementation to Kuwaiti higher education system, concluding that its introduction resulted from an interplay of both global and local pressures. Over the past four decades, higher education privatization became a common policy choice for higher education reforms in most emerging systems due to lack in public resources. In Kuwait however, similar financial pressures did not exist. Influenced by the "glonacal agency heuristic," the author investigates the processes of its policy production. Following a comparative qualitative approach, the book concludes that privatization is not a necessary outcome of globalization, but that the production of higher education privatization policies in Kuwait has involved a complex interplay of both local and global factors, with contextual realities playing a crucial role not only in the introduction of these policies but also in defining the form of privatization that is currently being implemented.