Neoliberal governance towards the non-German-speaking world in Austria’s internationalization of higher education

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2025

As in many parts of Europe, Austria has seen increasing internationalization of its public universities since modernization reforms towards autonomy and accompanying steering-at-a-distance practices of state ministries. Here, we explore the sociolinguistic relevance of such neoliberal governance on this trend. In a novel turn, we invert the common lens on English as an incoming language to examine instead the monitoring of internationalization data from the pluricentric context of the German-speaking DACH region, comprising Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We expound on this as an imagined speech community, vis-à-vis which Austria can be seen through steering at multiscalar level to rearticulate its very identity as a nation state. As part of an innovative use of process tracing methodology, we consulted policy documentation and monitoring data on DACH internationalization in order to probe key stakeholders at a public case study university and at ministerial level on its relevance. An analysis of stance revealed that steering conversations mutually reinforced a move away from the inbound mobility of students and staff from DACH – a dynamic that was disfavoured as inhibitory of progress, a less real form of internationalization, and unambitious, thereby at odds with neoliberal governance towards performance and competitiveness.