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Policing Academics: The Arkhè of Transformation in Academic Ranking
- Author(s):
- John Welsh (see profile)
- Date:
- 2018
- Group(s):
- Political Philosophy & Theory, World-Ecology Research Network
- Subject(s):
- Political science, Education--Sociological aspects, Democracy--Philosophy, Methodology, Social sciences--Philosophy
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- University Rankings, Foucault power/knowledge - discourse, Ranciere, Political Aesthtics, Political theory, Sociology of education, Democratic theory, Philosophy of social science
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/4rm5-md38
- Abstract:
- This article attempts a properly critical and political analysis of the “police power” immanent to the form and logic of academic rankings, and which is reproduced in the extant academic literature generated around them. In contrast to the democratising claims made of rankings, this police power short-circuits the moment of democratic politics and establishes the basis for the oligarchic power of the State and its status quo. Central in this founding political moment is the notion of the Arkhè, a necessarily asymmetric “distribution of the sensible” that establishes the basis of the political order, in this case an oligarchic political order. Drawing on Foucault and Rancière, the article argues for a necessary “dissensus” with both the ranking practice and its attendant academic literature, as the first step towards a politics of ranking that is properly critical, and therefore genuinely political.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 4 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
policing-academics-welsh.pdf