Culture, Power, and the University in the Twenty-First Century

ABSTRACT Powerful nations have influential systems of higher education. The article explores the possible pattern of geopolitics in the twenty-first century, and the competing prospects of America and its rivals in higher education and research. Pressures on both the American and non-American worlds are evaluated, along with relative economic strengths, and how factors such as these translate into intellectual prowess. The article suggests that peak intellectual and research achievement is dependent on cultural factors, and that America remains well positioned as an intellectual nation despite fierce competition from rivals because of unique cultural characteristics. Knowledge and Power For those who remember it, the Cold War was a time of analytic certainty. Geopolitically, the world was divided into two blocs, Communist and anti-Communist, one identified with the East, the other with the West. A third, somewhat more vague, ‘non-aligned ’ bloc also existed but in practice, when it counted, non-aligned countries were generally sympathetic to the Communist bloc. Wildly different assessments were made at that time of the relative power of these competing blocs, but history settled the matter. Communism collapsed amidst its own dysfunction, and the West, especially the United States, emerged ascendant from the Cold War. Since 1989, and th