Drawing on case studies from across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, the contributors offer diverse perspectives explaining the impact of transnational politics on higher education--and higher education on transitional politics--across time and locality. This book is among the first multi-disciplinary effort to wrestle with the question of how we can understand the political role of higher education, and the political force universities exert in the realm of international relations. While this may sound like an abstract collection of chapters, it is in fact highly relevant to Canadian public policy discussions of skills, relevance, internationalization, competition and financing of higher education. The trade agreements being signed today all contain commitments to learner mobility and to the faster and easier recognition of foreign credentials. This is a relevant book for these developments.