Neoliberal governance reshapes scholarship to serve economic usefulness

Evidence

The erasure of the distinction between the form and the content of government and business by neoliberal governance is important. However, so are its effects in conjoining business and research. Since neoliberal governance is legitimated by its effectiveness in promulgating efficient means to ends, rather than, say, by its upholding of the principles of justice or of provisioning for its members, it has a distinctive relationship to knowledge. Good governance promotes economic growth, a good investment climate, and a high credit rating and requires the knowledge necessary to do this. Bad governance does not. Thus, the contouring of all knowledge to economic usefulness (evident in steadily accelerating moves to support academic research with high “impact factors” and to starve or eliminate research that does not have commercial impact) and of all government to economic health are two faces of the same phenomenon. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 626

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing interest in how external forces (like noise/commercial imperatives) quietly erode institutional integrity — parallels the ‘quiet places disappearing’ theme of One Square Inch of Silence. — connects to: Economic ideas can blind policymakers to the flaws of their institutional designs — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 252; Even anti-neoliberal orthodox economists now operate inside the profession’s neoliberal frame — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2011; Neoliberalism wants science dissolved into market activity — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 231 (+11 more)
• SEED: A good essay angle: the ‘impact factor’ as the academic equivalent of neoliberalism turning knowledge into a commodity — how metric-driven evaluation reconfigures scholarship.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism economizes justice, sovereignty, and the rule of law #expands (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 32