Globalization, Governance, and the Diffusion of the American Model of Education: Accreditation Agencies and American-Style Universities in the Middle East Neema Noori & Pia-Kristina Anderson Published online: 10 February 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract This article is principally concerned with the transnational and domestic governance regimes that oversee American-style universities in the Persian Gulf region. In the current context of globalization, social scientists have examined the mechanisms by which organizational practices are transferred when transnational corporations establish subsidiaries in other countries or when international nongovernmental organizations collaborate with partners in the developing world to create externally developed prescriptions translated into locally viable action. Compar- atively little work, however, has been done on the challenges of exporting, from one cultural and political context to another, an institution of higher education or a particular model for how higher education should be practiced. Although a variety of actors feature in the process of conveying organizational practices and cultural scripts, this article focuses primarily on the role of accred- itation agencies and the practice of accreditation. In theorizing the relationship between the following four actors, i.e., external accrediting agencies, locally based quality assurance organ- izations, ministries of higher education, and Western universities located in the Gulf, Noori argues that the New Medievalism provides an analytically useful explanatory framework for under- standing issues of governance with respect to American-style universities in the Gulf region. Keywords Globalization . Higher education . International governance Sheikh Sultan opened the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in 1997. With a population of 800,000, Sharjah is the third largest city-state in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a reputation for being the most religiously conservative of the seven city-states that constitute the United Arab Emirates. Sheikh Sultan, a graduate of the American University of Beirut, is the political leader of Sharjah and continues to serve as the institution’ s principle benefactor. Notwithstanding Sheikh Sultan’ s reputation as a patron of the arts and of education, Shrarjah was an unlikely site for the Gulf ’ s first American-style university. Although still a work in Int J Polit Cult Soc (2013) 26:159–172 DOI 10.1007/s10767-013-9131-1 N. Noori (*) Department of Sociology, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA e-mail: nnoori@westga.edu P.-K. Anderson Department of International Studies, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE e-mail: panderson@aus.edu