The Public Dimension of Universities

There is no clarity about the meaning of the ‘public’ role of universities in social science or policy discourse, though the public/private division is central to policy discussion of higher education. Notions of the ‘public’ dimension vary by discipline and also vary between political cultures in different countries. In economic theory Samuelson’s ‘public goods’ are non-rivalrous and non-excludable, and subject to market failure, requiring government or philanthropic funding. In political theory, Dewey defines social transactions as ‘public’ when they have relational consequences for persons other than those directly engaged, and become matters of common concern. Each notion can be used to interrogate the other. The chapter argues that the way forward is to combine the economic and political notions of ‘public/private’, and analyses systems and practices of university education and research using a grid representing four different political economies of higher education: civil society, social democracy, state quasi-market, commercial market.