Universities in a Neoliberal World

Critical Historical Studies, 2018

The making of the neoliberal university in Britain did not inevitably follow the apparent crisis of welfare capitalism that accelerated from the late 1960s, or the structural adjustment program instituted by the International Monetary Fund in 1976, or the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. It was not until the 1990s that a variety of discourses and practices-that were not reducible to a set of class interests, ideologies, or political formations-gradually marketized, privatized, and financialized higher education in Britain. In doing so they sought to establish a new type of academic subject and an economized common sense about the purpose, management, and experience of higher education. That common sense has been challenged by

This paper attempts to analyze some mechanisms of neoliberal ideology in the public university system. Drawing upon political economy of communication resources we propose that one can assess the aforementioned mechanisms as a type of audience commodity work by which neoliberal ideology incorporates students into the process of ideological production, the goal of which is to shape student’s understanding of education and self as a marketable commodity. In making this argument, the paper modifies Dallas Smythe’s conception of the audience commodity and introduces the notion of the student-commodity. We argue that, ultimately, the role of the public university in a neoliberal regime is to produce the student-commodity and sell it to the corporate sector. These are examples of what Smythe calls the “consciousness industry,” and we argue is the core productive activity of the public university system.

The Marketisation of Higher Education (Palgrave), 2021

This paper looks at how higher education (HE) in the UK has been transformed since the advent of neo-liberalism in the 1970s. It is based on my personal experiences over four decades, as well as the research literature, and argues that the changes in HE have been the direct result of policy changes shaped by neo-liberal thinking. After a brief outline of the recent history of HE, I look in detail at how the management systems have changed, both in individual institutions, and in the management of the HE system as a whole, through the application of the 'new public management' approach. Resistance to these changes has been problematic, given a wider economic culture increasingly centred on individual performance, not collective purposes. Although it might be possible to recreate an imagined ideal of collegiality and critical engagement, a truly alternative future for HE needs to begin from rethinking the education system as a whole, basing it around the promotion of substantive equality of wealth and power throughout society.

Mail&Guardian

Many of the students I taught in the past both in the UK and South Africa see higher education as a place where they 'invest' in themselves in the financial sense of the word. 'Going to university,' one student told me, is a way of 'increasing my value' or employability on the labor market. This perception of the university has not arisen by chance. Capitalism entered a new phase with the Thatcher and Reagan governments in the UK and US during the 1980s. The managerial practices used to run businesses were being applied to the public sector, in particular, to education and health care. This reform of the public sector (called 'new public management') introduced a new way of thinking about the university. Higher education was being made to conform to the norms of efficiency, value for money, customer service, audit, and performance targets. One of the consequences of this was the substitution of the authority of the academic, which is based on his or her professional knowledge of the discipline, for the authority of the line manager. Since then, everything has come to depend on audits and metric standards of so-called quality assessment (student satisfaction, pass rates, league tables, etc.). Academics have little if any say anymore on whether departments should continue to exist, what degrees and courses should be on offer, and even what kind of assessment methods should be used.

Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 2017

This paper compares the changing function and organisation of higher education (HE) under neoliberal reforms, with particular focus on the UK, with those introduced by the Stalin regime in the 1930s and developed in the decades that followed. Although ideologically contrasting, many policies developed to subordinate HE and other state enterprises more directly to the accumulation of capital driven by competition are in many respects strikingly similar in each case. The historical development of each is examined, along with the political economy underlying them, highlighting the most important common features and differences. The proletarianisation of HE in the UK is shown to have encouraged the adoption of ‘spontaneous’ forms of resistance reminiscent of those workers adopted in the USSR to protect themselves from bureaucratic pressure. The paper suggests ways in which these forms of resistance might be incorporated into a more general struggle against the encroachment of neoliberalism. Keywords Stalinism neoliberalism higher education new public management capital accumulation

Oxford Research Encyclopedia on Education, 2019

Neoliberalism-the prevailing model of capitalist thinking based on the Washington Con sensus-has conveyed the idea that a new educational and university model must emerge in order to meet the demands of a global productive system that is radically different from that of just a few decades ago. The overall argument put forward is that the require ments, particularly the managerial and labor force needs of a new economy-already de veloping within the parameters of globalization and the impact of information and com munication technologies (ICTs)-cannot be adequately satisfied under the approaches and methods used by a traditional university. Neoliberalism affects the telos of higher ed ucation by redefining the very meaning of higher education. It dislocates education by commodifying its intrinsic value and emphasizing directly transferable skills and compe tencies. Nonmonetary values are marginalized and, with them, the nonmonetary ethos that is essential in sustaining a healthy democratic society.

2019

Aims of the Palgrave Critical University Studies Series Universities everywhere are experiencing unprecedented changes and most of the changes being inflicted upon universities are being imposed by political and policy elites without any debate or discussion, and with little understanding of what is being lost, jettisoned, damaged or destroyed. The over-arching intent of this series is to foster, encourage, and publish scholarship relating to academia that is troubled by the direction of these reforms occurring around the world. The series provides a much-needed forum for the intensive and extensive discussion of the consequences of ill-conceived and inappropriate university reforms and will do this with particular emphasis on those perspectives and groups whose views have hitherto been ignored, disparaged or silenced. The series explores these changes across a number of domains including: the deleterious effects on academic work, the impact on student learning, the distortion of academic leadership, and the perversion of institutional politics. Above all, the series encourages critically informed debate, where this is being expunged or closed down in universities.

Resisting neoliberalism in higher education: prising open the cracks, 2019

Aims of the Palgrave Critical University Studies Series Universities everywhere are experiencing unprecedented changes and most of the changes being inflicted upon universities are being imposed by political and policy elites without any debate or discussion, and with little understanding of what is being lost, jettisoned, damaged or destroyed. The over-arching intent of this series is to foster, encourage, and publish scholarship relating to academia that is troubled by the direction of these reforms occurring around the world. The series provides a much-needed forum for the intensive and extensive discussion of the consequences of ill-conceived and inappropriate university reforms and will do this with particular emphasis on those perspectives and groups whose views have hitherto been ignored, disparaged or silenced. The series explores these changes across a number of domains including: the deleterious effects on academic work, the impact on student learning, the distortion of academic leadership, and the perversion of institutional politics. Above all, the series encourages critically informed debate, where this is being expunged or closed down in universities.

Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 2020