Market-based i.e., neoliberal reforms refer to the changes in higher education and research that understand the field in terms of markets, competition, economic efficiency, and performance. Such changes in higher education have received worldwide criticism by professional communities also in Finland.
“Because neoliberal reforms are the current global trend, such reforms are not exclusive to any specific national context. However, as my research on Russian universities exemplifies, such reforms can also be used to reinforce authoritarian governance,” says Iuliia Gataulina.
Gataulina’s research showed a few affinities between neoliberal reforms and authoritarian governance in the context of Russian universities.
According to Gautalina's study, the Russian state has utilised the ideas of global competition prompted by neoliberalism in nationalistic and neo-imperialist terms. Some universities have been selected to compete internationally and, thus, to increase the status not only of the university itself but that of ‘Russia’. Such objectives to compete in the global higher education market can be understood in terms of the neo-imperialist aspirations of the Russian state to uphold the status of ‘a superpower’ through science and research .
Second, to control academic performance with the logic of global competition, the Russian state has further strengthened its authoritarian grip on universities. Universities in Russia have been losing increasingly more academic freedom. Academic staff and university teachers have been growingly subjected to the drastic measures of performance and efficiency through performance-based pay and reporting. Such mechanisms have often been initiated by the state.
“These mechanisms of academic performance and efficiency put scholars into a precarious position with insufficient pay, unpaid labour, and little control over the content of their work. Simultaneously, the control of universities’ administration has grown," Gataulina says.
Authoritarian governance is on the rise
The dissertation also analysed alternative academic projects in Russia which attempt to produce critical and collegial knowledge.
"Interestingly, such projects simultaneously resist both the authoritarian governance of the Russian state and the neoliberal understandings of higher education in terms of ‘markets’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘performance."
Previous research has reported similar research results of authoritarian-neoliberal governance in other contexts.
"Unfortunately, authoritarian governance is on the rise in different parts of the world. Neoliberal tendencies, including in the field of higher education and research, are a global issue," Gataulina emphasises.
By analysing how neoliberal reforms have the capacity to reinforce authoritarian governance, the dissertation sheds light on the workings of repressive political systems, which has global relevance and leaves openings for more just political, societal, and economic systems of governance.
Public defence on Friday 12 January
The doctoral dissertation of M.Sc. Iuliia Gataulina in the field of international relations titled De/re/composing authoritarian/neoliberal assemblages. Ethnography of Russian universities and beyond will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Management and Business of Tampere University at 12.00 on Friday 12 January 2024 in auditorium K 103, Linna building, city centre campus (address: Kalevantie 5, Tampere). The Opponent will be Senior Lecturer Katarzyna Kaczmarska from the University of Edinburgh. The Custos will be University Lecturer Anni Kangas from the Faculty of Management and Business.
The dissertation is self-published. Read the abstract.
The public defence can be followed via a remote connection.
Photograph: Jonne Renvall/ Tampere University