Presence under constraint: internationally educated returnees and the governance of higher education

Journal article

In an era where crisis is continuous, the governance of higher education depends increasingly on those who work within its constraints. This article examines internationally educated returnees who engage in higher education governance in their home countries. Drawing on 101 interviews in 48 countries, it asks how international study shapes the ways returnees engage in governance. Five mechanisms - reflexive agency, knowledge translation, civic understanding, transnational social relations, and intercultural understanding - explain how international experience becomes consequential for governance across three pathways: institutional transformation, civic infrastructure building, and policy innovation. The paper develops the concept of presence as an analytical lens for understanding the sustained relational stance through which individuals remain oriented to others, institutions, and public life in governance practice. Not all systems admit change. Some exhibit morphostasis, a structural logic that absorbs or deflects initiative. In such contexts, presence becomes analytically visible. The findings reframe governance not as diffusion or design, but as a relational practice through which actors interpret institutional purposes, negotiate authority, and coordinate action. Governance, the article argues, is sustained not only by institutions but also by those who continue to work within them when opportunities for institutional change are constrained.

Authors: Chankseliani, M

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Journal: Comparative Education Review
• Acceptance date: 2026-06-26
• EISSN: 1545-701X
• ISSN: 0010-4086
• Language: English
• Keywords: agency; higher education governance; international student mobility; critical realism; presence; reflexivity; transnationalism