Abstract

Over the past two decades, global forces have had significant impact on the university systems of the developing world with regard to (1) the university regulatory environment, through multilateral and bilateral conventions and interventions, and (2) the program offer, through the increasing presence of transnational higher education corporations and a variety of individual foreign university programs. At international and national levels, there are the simultaneous influences of political, regulation oriented forces and economic, market driven forces affecting the evolution of university systems. These influence both the national vision being created for university education and the business opportunity associated with it. The framework presented in this paper helps organize and examine the different components of these economic and political forces and facilitates the analysis of these forces on a specific university system in a given country. The Republic of Panama is used as an example for the application of the model to a developing country case study.