Page 53 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 53
m. olssen ■ neoliberalism and laissez-faire: the retreat from naturalism
roles in the NHS, in order to replace the traditional management func-
tions in health as carried out by professional medical staff. This emergence
of a stratum of dedicated professional managers quickly became embed-
ded in legislation and transferred laterally from health to higher educa-
tion and then across the entire public sector. Ideas of ‘internal markets’
were also current in relation to health in the 1980s, and received expres-
sion in health the 1989 White Paper, ‘Working for Patients’. New models
of ‘student-led’ funding and new corporate managerial models of govern-
ance and line-management were also implemented at this time, feeding
off theoretical ideas developed in supply-side economics, public choice
theory, agency theory, and transaction-cost economics. Ideas of line-man-
agement, based upon ‘principal-agent’ hierarchies of command and com-
pliance replaced ‘collegial-democratic’ patterns of governance based upon
classical liberal models of professionalism premised upon autonomy and
self-governance, exercised through Senates. Suggestions that universities
should increase the appointments of lay and business personnel on coun-
cils and boards of governors, as advocated in America by McCormick and
Meiners (1988), was intended to reduce academic internal influence and
increase the responsiveness of universities to the outside business commu-
nity. Further governance ideas and techniques saw the downgrading of
the influence of Senates, the rise of closed ‘executive boards,’ to augment
the implementation of line-management systems. In Britain, the major
responsibility for all of these developments emanates directly from the
state through the funding councils. The major levers are all imposed by
the state, which itself responds to global interests. The revolution in the
way universities were run was world-wide. Collegial models of self-gov-
ernance premised upon autonomous institutional spheres are replaced by
‘top-down’ managerial models, directed from the center – the state and
global capital.
This also undermines universities semi-autonomous power within
civil society, which is itself historically important in terms of understand-
ing liberalism as a natural autonomous system of the different spheres of
society and of the free expression of rational individuals. Universities, as
once-upon-a-time, a fifth estate, a critical bulwark for the safeguarding of
democracy, are now in this new age of neoliberalism, compromised in re-
lation to the powers of business, superbly administered by the state. The
neoliberals’ analysis seems particularly apt as a form of market rationality.
The abolition of tenure and the enforcement of new norms with regards
to research, research funding, and teaching, means that most academics
are too intent on watching their backs to speak of opposition or serious
critique. The assessment of ‘impact’ in Britain escalates this process, and
51
roles in the NHS, in order to replace the traditional management func-
tions in health as carried out by professional medical staff. This emergence
of a stratum of dedicated professional managers quickly became embed-
ded in legislation and transferred laterally from health to higher educa-
tion and then across the entire public sector. Ideas of ‘internal markets’
were also current in relation to health in the 1980s, and received expres-
sion in health the 1989 White Paper, ‘Working for Patients’. New models
of ‘student-led’ funding and new corporate managerial models of govern-
ance and line-management were also implemented at this time, feeding
off theoretical ideas developed in supply-side economics, public choice
theory, agency theory, and transaction-cost economics. Ideas of line-man-
agement, based upon ‘principal-agent’ hierarchies of command and com-
pliance replaced ‘collegial-democratic’ patterns of governance based upon
classical liberal models of professionalism premised upon autonomy and
self-governance, exercised through Senates. Suggestions that universities
should increase the appointments of lay and business personnel on coun-
cils and boards of governors, as advocated in America by McCormick and
Meiners (1988), was intended to reduce academic internal influence and
increase the responsiveness of universities to the outside business commu-
nity. Further governance ideas and techniques saw the downgrading of
the influence of Senates, the rise of closed ‘executive boards,’ to augment
the implementation of line-management systems. In Britain, the major
responsibility for all of these developments emanates directly from the
state through the funding councils. The major levers are all imposed by
the state, which itself responds to global interests. The revolution in the
way universities were run was world-wide. Collegial models of self-gov-
ernance premised upon autonomous institutional spheres are replaced by
‘top-down’ managerial models, directed from the center – the state and
global capital.
This also undermines universities semi-autonomous power within
civil society, which is itself historically important in terms of understand-
ing liberalism as a natural autonomous system of the different spheres of
society and of the free expression of rational individuals. Universities, as
once-upon-a-time, a fifth estate, a critical bulwark for the safeguarding of
democracy, are now in this new age of neoliberalism, compromised in re-
lation to the powers of business, superbly administered by the state. The
neoliberals’ analysis seems particularly apt as a form of market rationality.
The abolition of tenure and the enforcement of new norms with regards
to research, research funding, and teaching, means that most academics
are too intent on watching their backs to speak of opposition or serious
critique. The assessment of ‘impact’ in Britain escalates this process, and
51
