This thesis takes the critical incident of the suicide of a part-time lecturer in South Korea in 2010 and the subsequent policy response as paradigmatic of the problems of governing higher education. In terms of theoretical resources, it draws on state theories, especially a cultural approach to the state, in order to understand the multiple relations and the interplay of different layers of governing practices in the governing of higher education in South Korea. This thesis argues that mainstream theories of the state are often culturally 'blind' and that the specificities of the Korean state need to be understood with reference to its particular culture, history and context. The thesis also draws on literature on higher education governance, from which three governing principles are identified as topics for investigation, along with a process-oriented approach to professionalism. The research question emerging from this is 'how does the centrality of the Korean state play out in the governing of higher education in South Korea?' Methodologically, the enquiry is shaped by critical discourse analysis (CDA). This approach explores the ways in which higher education governing discourses are related to other social elements. By analysing policy texts and institutional characteristics, the first phase of the enquiry explores how the governing discourses have been indigenised, constructing particular state-academy relations in South Korea. The second phase scrutinises the case of part-time lecturer policy in order to illuminate the distinctive governing dynamics, by which the centrality of the Korean state is assumed to be practised.