Both historical analysis and data on university formation in Europe for the period 1200–1800 are used to introduce a perspective which links the organizational pattern of university foundings with the structure of political authority. Most theories of higher education cannot account for the pattern of university foundings. My political-institutional perspective interprets this pattern in the context of the relationship between knowledge and authority in Western history and connects the founding and control of a university to claims to political authority. Quantitative data suggest that universities are founded least where there is a central authority with relatively low levels of competing authority claims (e.g., England). They are founded most in highly decentralized regions characterized by many claims to sovereignty (e.g., Germany, Italy). Intermediate to high rates of foundings occur where a multiplicity of local and provincial claims to authority exist within a bureaucratic state (e.g., France, Spain).
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