Universities under Neoliberalism Ideologies, Discourses and Management Practices

The COVID-19 pandemic, the surge of populism, the climate crisis and many other destabilizing factors in our time, all point at the expectation of trustworthy knowledge and reliable organization devoted to knowledge production and dissemination. However, universities remain enmeshed in economic liberalization and ensuing cultural struggles where their funding, governance and practices reflect market imprints – even academic ideals such as originality, or social ideals such as relevance have been transformed into measurable units and thereby risk losing their historical sway. This predicament is the focus of this book. The book explores the rise of neo-liberalization in academic system in a highly unlikely place: Sweden, a country with a strong social democratic tradition and a long history of state regulation of higher education. As an advanced welfare state with a powerful labour movement and a large public sector, market ideals and practices have been carefully curtailed historically. This notwithstanding, a neoliberal university model has evolved there, reshaping notions of academic identities, institutional directions and notions of quality. This edited collection will be of value to researchers, academics and students with an interest in organizational studies, governance, management, higher education, sociology and politics.

Chapter 1. IntroductionMats Benner and Mikael HolmqvistChapter 2. Beyond Neoliberalized Research: From Auditing to Reflexive GovernanceMats BennerChapter 3. Publication Strategy as Ideology at Swedish UniversitiesYlva HasselbergChapter 4. Corporations’ Invisible Hand in Higher Education: Teaching at Business Schools and the Making of Employable StudentsMikael HolmqvistChapter 5. Social Media and Higher Education. On the Influx of Facebook in Swedish AcademiaAlexandra Söderman & Johan SödermanChapter 6. The Market Liberal University and Its Effects on Academic Researchers – Survey Evidence from SwedenHans Englund and Jonas GerdinChapter 7. Making Ends Meet: Limiting Factors for Managerial Bureaucratization at the University of Helsinki and Stockholm School of Economics in the 2010sJanne Holmén

Mats Benner is a Professor in Science Policy Studies and the Dean of the School of Economics and Management at Lund University, Sweden. Mikael Holmqvist is a Professor in Business Administration at Stockholm University, Sweden.