Capitalism in Academia and the Theory of Academic Capitalism: Political Economy of Higher Education in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

The theory of academic capitalism (ac) is a prominent attempt to grasp the multifaceted organizational and functional transformations of universities and higher education (he) in contemporary times. However, this has rarely provided an in-depth examination of the meaning of capitalism in the context of he and has largely ignored the Global South. Focusing on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, this paper begins by examining the political economy of this country’s little-studied he system. It explores its entanglements with the broader Jordanian political economy by focusing on for-profit private universities and the implications of capitalist (foreign) ownership for their functioning and governance. The article draws, in part, on novel interview data gathered by the author in Jordan from 2015–17 to elaborate Jordanian he elite’s understanding of this system. The Jordanian case is juxtaposed with ac to appraise the applicability of the theory to contexts distinct from advanced capitalist economies.