Forum Shifting and Shape Making: New Spaces for Trade in Service Negotiations and the Changing Shape of Higher Education in Europe

After the difficult negotiations at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong, the stalling of the General Agreement in Trade and Services (GATS) was viewed as a victory for organized resistance and protestors who had mobilized popular support for the view that public services sectors, like education, should not be included in formal global trade negotiations and agreements. Our argument is that this was also the case for education, and that new strategies and tendencies have emerged which would give form and shape to the new round of (mostly secret) trade negotiations now underway which involves higher education as a sector in Europe (Davies, 2014). In this paper we explore the political, economic and regulatory pressures, and ask about their relationship to the TTIP and the TiSA where higher education again seems to be on the agenda.