Britain now has the most heavily regulated higher education system in the world and institutions must deliver best educational value. This book explores the political and psychic economy of quality assurance in higher education and interrogates the discourse and practices associated with the audit culture in Britain. Following Acknowledgements and List of Abbreviations, this book contains: (1) The Political Economy of Higher Education: Quality and Policy Technology; The Global Market; (2) How Did This Happen? Managing Risk and Manufacturing Panic; Continuous Improvement: Adding Value or Self-Beratement; Consuming by Numbers; (3) Getting it Right: The Genesis of the Quality Assurance Movement; Thoroughly Modern Methods?; (4) Reining In: Accountability, Autonomy and the Audit Culture; Regulating Research; Performance Indicators: The Myth of Measurement; (5) The Political is Personal: The Psychic Economy of Quality; Performativity and the Power of Discourse; The Stress of Split Focusing; and (6) In the Long Term. A list of references is also included.