Table Of Content“The brilliance of Filippakou’s book not only on the unmatched critical
analyses of the interplay of neoliberal austerity measures and the steady
shrinkage of spheres for intellectual pursuits and critical thinking, but also
her courage to dare to razor focus on the elephant in the room in higher
education reforms that deform: market ideology.
By framing her analyses away from the usual euphemisms that hide ideolo-
gies that generate, shape, and maintain the ever- increasing bureaucratization
of institutions of higher education through market cost analyses, Filippakou
empirically demonstrates how the neoliberal ideology imposes power asym-
metries, massive inequalities, and stunts democracy. This book is a clarion
alert that we cannot have liberation without autonomy, democracy without
education, and freedom without radical imagination.”
Donaldo Macedo, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Liberal Arts
and Education, University of Massachusetts Boston
“Rethinking Higher Education and the Crisis of Legitimation in Europe offers
not only a scorching criticism of the neoliberalization of the university
and a spirited call for the overtly political, public, and democratic purposes
of higher education. It also deftly illustrates the present dangers of rising
fascism, cynicism, and apolitical complicity shot through higher education.
Filippakou compellingly details the imperative for critical pedagogy as edu-
cational and social movement as part of a broader effort for resistance and
democratic renewal. This is a book that breaks new ground in bringing the
aspirations of critical pedagogy to educational policy. Though centered on
the European context it is global in scope and must be read by educators,
administrators, policy makers, and anyone who is willing to fight to bring us
back from the precipice.”
Kenneth J. Saltman, University of Illinois Chicago, author of
Scripted Bodies: Corporate Power, Smart Technologies,
and the Undoing of Public Education
RETHINKING HIGHER EDUCATION
AND THE CRISIS OF LEGITIMATION
IN EUROPE
Building on Ourania Filippakou’s previous work on higher education in
the fields of governance, neoliberalism, university entrepreneurialism and
marketization, institutional and social stratification, Rethinking Higher Education
and the Crisis of Legitimation in Europe contributes to the debate on higher
education from a critical policy perspective. Introducing new ideas on the
relationships between the alleged pursuit of excellence in higher education
and the ways in which both deploys and reflects how power is wielded in
Europe and other neoliberal capitalist societies. The term “legitimation” is
here coined to emphasize how new coercive strategies, political decisions,
and management styles have emerged in the age of excellence in higher
education. The book concludes with a more personal reflection on the
neutrality of higher education and its illusory promises.
Ourania Filippakou is Reader in Education and Director of Teaching and
Learning at Brunel University London. Her research focuses on the politics
of higher education, critical pedagogy, and cultural politics with particular
reference to comparative historical analysis, university entrepreneurialism, and
marketization. She has published widely in a number of scholarly journals. In
2007 she was elected as a council member of the Society for Research into
Higher Education and served as co-editor for the British Educational Research
Journal from 2018–2021. Currently she is a co-e ditor for the Routledge book
series Critical Interventions: Politics, Culture and the Promise of Democracy.
CRITICAL INTERVENTIONS
Disposable Americans: Extreme Capitalism and the Case for a
Guaranteed Income
Paul Buchheit
The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American
Authoritarianism
Henry A. Giroux
Learning to Save the Future: Education After Economism and
Digital Determinism
Alexander J. Means
Ecology and Revolution: Herbert Marcuse and the Challenge of a
New World System Today
Charles Reitz
Anxious Creativity: When Imagination Fails
David Trend
Rising Fascism in America: It Can Happen Here
Anthony R. DiMaggio
Rethinking Higher Education and the Crisis of Legitimation
in Europe
Ourania Filippakou
RETHINKING HIGHER
EDUCATION AND
THE CRISIS OF
LEGITIMATION
IN EUROPE
Ourania Filippakou
Cover image: © Shutterstock
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Taylor & Francis
The right of Ourania Filippakou to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Filippakou, Ourania, author.
Title: Rethinking higher education and the crisis of
legitimation in Europe / Ourania Filippakou.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Critical interventions | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021061282 | ISBN 9781032281346 (Paperback) |
ISBN 9781032281353 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781003295457 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Education, Higher–Research–Europe. |
Higher education and state–Europe. | Legitimacy of governments–Europe.
Classification: LCC LA628 .F55 2022 | DDC 379.4–dc23/eng/20220404
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061282
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 28135- 3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 28134- 6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 29545- 7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003295457
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
For Henry and my mother
CONTENTS
Contributor biography xi
Acknowledgements xii
PART I
Higher education and the crisis of politics
in Europe 1
1 Rethinking the changing landscape of higher education 3
2 Higher education and critical pedagogy: A path forward 14
PART II
Neoliberal ideology and the politics of the
quality agenda in the UK and Europe 27
3 Confronting the quality agenda: A case study 29
4 Legitimizing the quality agenda: Evolution and the
politics of normalization 46
