Debates on models of academic freedom. Part 2
Dmitry Dubrovsky
In Part 1 of this article, we opened a conversation about competing models of academic freedom. In Part 2, we will discuss how Eurocentric the concept is and in what sense it may be considered universal.
Photo: “Common good” can be understood in different ways, depending on the specific interests of a given society. Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash
Universalism versus Particularism
A discussion of the principles of academic freedom presupposes a set of boundaries being drawn to define this freedom.
What goals does it aim to achieve? To protect academic autonomy, so that nothing from the outside world interferes with attaining the truth? Or, on the contrary, to protect scientists and teachers who critically evaluate what is happening in society, the state, and the surrounding world?
The permeability of the boundaries of academic autonomy seems to come at a price. It allows not only public interests, but also the pragmatic principles of managerialism and neoliberalism to actively permeate the academic environment.
“Public interests” themselves, the concept of “common good”—as applied to higher education and science—can be understood in different ways, many authors believe today, depending on the specific interests of a given society.
Some scholars argue that since there is no universal and abstract understanding of the common good, in what sense can academic freedom aimed at realizing this common good be universal?
Thus, the logic of protecting community interests actualizes the debate about the extent to which academic freedom is a universal concept versus the extent to which it depends on specific socio-political and cultural conditions.
The Chinese Cultural Context
Criticism is often based on the fact that academic freedom depends both on cultural context and on the specifics of the relationship between the state and the university associated with this context.
The reasoning behind this approach is that it is impossible to transfer the logic and practices of European and American universities to, say, China. In fact, Chinese scholars have recently been very active in promoting the argument that the universal principles of academic freedom cannot be applied to China due to the different cultural tradition behind Chinese universities and the different balance between personal freedom and social responsibility that is characteristic of the country.
At the same time, “principles of socialist values” and academic freedom coexist perfectly happily within the papers and articles they write. According to these authors, this freedom is “not passive” (freedom from interference in the affairs of the university) but “active,” “practical freedom,” which the authors see in the implementation of the social responsibility of scientists.
This kind of “practical freedom” supposedly creates a power structure within which “universities, governments, and markets participate in governance and jointly improve the quality of university governance.”
In this formulation, it is difficult not to see a surprising (but not unintentional on China’s part) combination of socialist ideology and neo-managerialism within a very specific understanding of academic freedom and academic autonomy.
Following this concept, we are able to refute the universality of academic freedom by combining the personal freedom of the researcher with socialist values. Following Karl Marx, the authors associate this with the social responsibility of the scientist to society.
Views of China from Europe
A similar approach has been taken by European scientists, who believe that academic freedom should be considered in the context of the specific socio-political and cultural situation in each country. Although the authors do not link academic freedom with socialism, their approach also examines the relationship between the local idea of the common good and the problems of academic freedom.
In examining higher education in China, the authors proceed from an understanding of academic freedom not as an “abstract standard,” but as “a set of practices that are always embedded in specific social relations and specific frameworks of political economy.”
The authors argue that considering these relationships in the context of a given country helps one understand the specifics of how academic freedom functions under specific conditions. Specifically, in analyzing the situation of academic freedom in higher education in China, the authors conclude that there is considerable tension between the globalization of Chinese science and higher education, on the one hand, and strict state control, on the other hand. This is what the authors call “social responsibility,” an obvious amalgam of external ideological control and “collective social responsibility.”
The result of external ideological pressure will always be a violation of academic rights and freedoms. Is this approach an attempt to escape the universality of academic freedom? Or is it still a study of the way it functions and adapts to real-life socio-political conditions?
“De-Universalization” of Freedom
Similar work has been done by scientists in Poland, who have proposed “a de-universalization of academic freedom, rather than trying to embrace its elusive nature.”
The authors analyze how academic freedom was understood in Poland during different historical periods. They propose looking at how changes in the idea of the “common good” transformed higher education, and especially the role of the state therein.
The authors conclude that the political intervention of the Polish state in the life of universities—on the pretext of the “common good”—undermined academic freedom. In this sense, it is not entirely clear what constitutes the “de-universalization” of the principle of academic freedom. Rather, such an analysis shows the importance of political democracy and the danger to academic freedom of ideological and political control by an undemocratic state.
Freedom in France
Other researchers have proposed applying the logic of “common good” to analysis of the implementation of academic freedom—this time in France.
Based on a survey of teachers, the researchers came to the conclusion that in France, the main mission of instructors is understood to be working for the common good. The common good is seen here through the prism of the main values of the Republic: freedom, equality, and brotherhood. The main problems, according to the teachers surveyed, were the marketization of higher education and economic inequality, which undermined these basic values.
Freedom in Context
It is worth distinguishing between the contextualization of academic freedom—that is, its functioning in various socio-cultural and political contexts—and its universalism, which is of an ideal, normative nature and therefore cannot be observed in the actual practices of academia, no matter what the context. This is precisely what Simon Marginson proposes.
When discussing the differences in universities across cultures, there are typically three different areas of discussion:
- differences in traditions and political cultures (primarily differences from the familiar European world)
- differences in the traditions of higher education
- differences in the relationship between the university, the state, and society
Marginson notes that when academic freedom is discussed, these differences are ignored, as if the conditions under which academic freedom exists and its specific practices are the same everywhere. Yet it is quite possible to reconcile a universal notion of academic freedom with variations in its manifestations in real-world contexts.
* * *
The idea of separating the normative and the contextual in our understanding of academic freedom seems quite productive. It partly solves the problems of the real diversity of educational systems and the obvious discrepancy between their practices and normative ones—often understood as European.
However, this also raises new questions:
- To what extent do variations correspond to the normative framework of academic freedom?
- What are the “permissible errors” and tolerances?
- How will certain practices be gauged—in universal categories or as “local practices”?
- Finally, how can we protect ourselves from abuse and attempts to pass off a violation of academic rights and freedoms as the implementation of a “local understanding” of the concept?
These questions are remarkably similar to debates about the diversity of human rights.
Simply compare Jack Donnelly’s proposal to include different types of human rights in the concept of universality of human rights and Marginson’s logic, which proposes separating the normative and descriptive when attempting to understandthe universality of academic freedom.
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