UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE AND INSTITUTIONAL BEHAVIOUR: NOTES FROM THE MEXICAN EXPERIENCE, 1990-2012

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between government and the institutional behavior of public universities. METHOD. Starting from a conceptualization of these relationships, we discusses the most prominent changes and reforms in government, governability and institutional governance of higher education in Latin America, focusing on the experience of Mexican public universities. To this end we take into account the cases reported in the relevant literature on the subject, both the literature on the Latin America experience as well as the one focusing on the Mexican case in particular. RESULTS. The central argument is that changes in management practices and government of public universities were markedly modified by the influence of changes in belief systems, contextual transformations and the profile of public policies. From the analytic perspective of “methodological institutionalism” we discuss the argument in the light of the last two decades of the Mexican experience. DISCUSSION. The general conclusion is that, under the influence of the three abovementioned forces, tensions between governability and governance at the level of institutional management of universities have significantly increased, which in turn has significantly modified the core conception of university autonomy, and the re-localization of the spaces where power and institutional authority are distributed and exercised.