Representative offices of universities abroad - the case of U.S. universities in Brazil

• Ano de defesa: 2022
• Autor(a) principal: Aparecido, Jane K.
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Diplomacia pública; Educação superior; Escritórios representantes; Higher education; Internacionalização; Internationalization; Poder brando; Public diplomacy; Representative offices; Soft power
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/101/101131/tde-26012023-190159/

The internationalization of higher education is a growing phenomenon and it may relate to the exercise of soft power and public diplomacy initiatives. Through activities such as academic and industry partnerships, scholarships, students and faculty mobility, alumni relations, and, most recently, off-shore campuses and representative offices, universities and their nations of origin have furthered relationships with key-countries. This study focuses on the internationalization strategy of universities establishing representative offices abroad. The goals are to: (i) describe and understand the types of public diplomacy efforts related to the internationalization of higher education, (ii) describe, understand, and propose new categories of rationales for the internationalization of higher education, (iii) determine the most robust internationalization rationales/theories (considering academic relevance, economic interest, or public diplomacy) behind U.S. universities\' decision to establish physical presences in Brazil through the analysis of congruence found in strategy documents of these universities and interviews with universities leadership and U.S. government officials; and (iv) test through quantitative and qualitative analysis what elements related to Brazil might have been more determinant in the U.S. universities decision to choose Brazil as a host country (if academic, administrative elements, or external non-academic soft power elements). The study found that universities and their internationalization efforts are soft power resources used in public diplomacy initiatives, that U.S. universities main rationale behind establishing a representative office in Brazil is academic, followed by the political and economic rationales. The strength of the political rationale hints to U.S. universities acting as non-state practitioners of public diplomacy, but with no direct involvement of the U.S. government. The study also shows that U.S. universities are consumers of public diplomacy information when choosing Brazil as a host country by considering non-academic elements of Brazils soft power, such as participation in the BRICS group.