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This paper focuses on the tension between two political rationalities coordinating Danish higher education (HE) -- a nativist politics of belonging and that of status competition and its technologies of university rankings, citation indexes, and performance management, explored historically drawing on Gramscian conjunctural analysis. The paper argues that Danish academics were invited into a performative culture of world-class research, university rankings and citation indexes, and the dominance of English as the valued scientific language. Simultaneously a political consensus has developed around restricting international student access to Danish HE and reducing English-medium education in a context of hostility towards migrants generally. Consequently, Danish HE has been constituted as a nationalist public good with neoliberal characteristics.