This article discusses how the critique of the monopoly of Western liberal thought through the decolonisation movement that was intended to increase the number of voices heard has been co-opted by nationalist politics in India and Russia. The debates in higher education in these countries reflect current key questions on the nature of the Indian…

This paper examines the ways in which administrators, academics and students living under conditions of authoritarianism come to imagine the university's political possibilities and horizons. To this aim, we first consider how alternative imaginaries are constructed and contained at Bogaziçi University, where the parameters of political…

Besides Foucault's own focus on liberal contexts, the relatively limited application of his thoughts in illiberal countries may also result from the misunderstanding of power. The traditional juridico-discursive model interprets power as a possession wielded by one group over others, merely functioning as something forbidden. Thus, policy analysts…

Scholars have documented a tendency of (semi-)authoritarian regimes to undermine university autonomy, mainly through organizational (de jure) changes. This paper presents a case study of a publicly triggered plagiarism investigation by the University of Belgrade into the doctoral thesis of the Serbian Minister of Finance, one of the key members of…

Existing academic literature on higher education in China tends to promote an argument that current norms of academic freedom and the broader intellectual-state relationship can be attributed primarily to Chinese political and cultural traditions, particularly Confucian political thought, creating a false dichotomy between 'Western' liberal…

In this paper, the role of higher education in post-uprising Libya is analysed in terms of its relationship with transitional processes of democratization and civic development. It begins by contextualising the Libyan uprising within the optimism of the 'Arab Spring' transitions in the Middle East. Following this, the relationship between higher…

Purpose. The purpose of this adaptation sequential explanatory mixed methods study was to determine the degree of importance that higher education department chairs ascribe to DeVore's (1994) five stress-inducing behaviors of authoritative command, evaluation, norm discrepancy, sanction, and targeting when initiating change in the behaviors of…

Administrative language surrounding racist hate speech on campus is rooted in abstract interpretations of the liberal values of freedom and equality. Consequently, these color-blind discourses remove racist hate speech from its historical context of racial violence and discrimination and view it as merely another point of view that is deserving of…

This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This…

The article analyses the strategies of Hungarian higher education interest organisations against the encroachments on academic freedom by Viktor Orbán's governments. We contrast the 2012-2013 and 2017-2019 protest waves and find that innovations in strategy came from new organisations in both periods, whereas established ones were rather passive…

Despite their common historical roots, two higher education systems in Latin America differ dramatically in their financing mechanisms. In Argentina, the national government completely subsidizes undergraduate programs in public institutions, while Chile relies mostly on tuition fees charged to individuals attending public institutions. Through…

This article examines how the concept of freedom has been appropriated by the far right to impose a number of authoritarian policies designed to dismantle the critical functions of public and higher education. It explores, in particular, the ways in which Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has used an appeal to freedom to punish critics,…

Foucauldian critical studies are cornucopian in illustrating how policy as discourse normalizes and yields human beings into made subjects in modern societies. However, Foucault's own slide from the 'terminal stage of discourse' pays little attention to the linguistic elements, and thus weakens the theory's potency in explaining the reality.…

Democracy is in trouble. For the last 10 years, the number of democratizing countries dropped by almost half to 16, hosting a mere 4% of the global population. Faced with these global trends, as well as democracy's challenges during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, how can communication studies contribute to the study of civic…

This dissertation examines the expansion of refugee student services in postwar France during three subsequent refugee crises involving students from Eastern Europe. More than just a product of Franco-Soviet Cold War relations, I show how French support for the students developed in the context of decolonization and contemporary migration politics…