Shifting Discourses, Shaping Futures: Analyzing the Discourses surrounding Internationalisation in Balance Bill (WIB) in the Netherlands

Abstract

This thesis investigates how the discourses surrounding the Internationalization in Balance Bill (WIB) shape the framing, strategies, and future positioning of Dutch higher education in the context of internationalization. Using a qualitative design, the study draws on interviews with policy analysts, institutional leaders, and student representatives, as well as the official university responses to the bill. Data were analyzed through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), guided by Fairclough’s three-dimensional model at the micro, meso, and macro levels. This framework allowed for examining the linguistic patterns, institutional discursive practices, and broader socio-political contexts of the bill.

Findings reveal contradictory framings of internationalization as both a problem and an opportunity, contested narratives around the Dutch language and identity, and recurring tensions between institutional autonomy and state control. Dutch universities discursively construct strategies of resistance, negotiation, and compliance. The discussion highlights how the discourses reflect broader ideological struggles between nationalism and globalism, economic rationalities and societal values, and autonomy and state steering. The study concludes that the WIB only influences immediate policy practices but also redefines the Netherlands' global role in higher education, with potential risks of reputational decline, erosion of autonomy, and narrowing of higher education’s broader societal mission.