National Answers to Global Challenges: An Example of Faculty Employment Regulation at Public Universities in Brazil and Germany

All advanced national higher education systems around the world are challenged by the increasing and strengthened global norm of efficiency, above all, in the management of universities, in teaching, and in research. Through the argument of global competitiveness this leads in many countries to a greater flexibilization of working contracts and insecure career opportunities and paths for the academic faculty. Although this is a global trend, there are significant differences between distinct national states. While some national higher education policies internalize the “new trends” in flexible management of their universities and the ideology of the market, others stick more to their own traditions and open up little to these new trends. One outstanding example of the first group is Germany, an example for the latter group is Brazil. Even though both countries are closely intertwined in the global market and challenged by global competitiveness in formation and knowledge production they follow distinct ways to meet those tasks. Through the example of employment regulation of faculty in public universities in Brazil and Germany, this paper seeks to analyze the influence of national traditions and state politics in dealing with the global challenges for the national higher education systems.