Since the late eighties, the Higher Education Systems (HES) in Latin America have experienced a deep reform process, whose orientation corresponds to the guidelines of the Washington Consensus. This reform has been characterized by a profound redefinition of the role of the state with respect to HES, and by a main change in the functions and objectives of Higher Education Institutions (HEI), in a context increasingly influenced by market demands. The policy change on HE has been mainly inspired in the continental Europe reform process (as well as those from Australia, the United States and England). After thirty years, Latin American HES present two main trends: a) the growth and development of HE markets, and b) the emergence of new modes of governance of HES. One of the main discrepancies among scholars has to do with
the role of government in HE. As has been note by Huiman (2009), Capano (2011) and Rebora (2009), some believe that government (as a hierarchical framework of governance) has
been surpassed, while other argue that its role has experienced a qualitative change. Empirical evidence from the Latin American case shows that, indeed, the government not only still there, but also remains in charge. After the Washington Consensus, it has become clear that markets are not naturally occurring phenomena or spontaneously actualizing systems. By contrast it has been necessary the deployment of state power and public authority to create, develop, reproduce and order markets (Tickell and Kell, 2006). In order to explain the new governance features of HE in our three cases we will use the typology developed by Capano (2011) for the European case, as a starting point. This typology consider four main modes of governance: hierarchical; steering at the distance; self-governance, and procedural.
