Ανομία και πελατειακά δίκτυα στα ελληνικά πανεπιστήμια: η άλωση του δημόσιου χώρου και η αξιολόγηση της Ανώτατης Εκπαίδευσης

Abstract

Greek universities are public institutions with a considerable degree of self- governance and self-regulation. Although the state exercises central control over the universities, mainly through the administering of a regulatory framework defining the positions and the roles of the academic actors in their institutional behavior and through funding, this control can under circumstances be transformed into a substitute power operating through a network of distributional coalitions in order to defend semi-institutional vested interests. During the last twenty years the state itself has played a central role in facilitating this transformation through the legitimization of politically motivated regulations for the election of the university administration. The high percentage of student participation in the election of the administration has led to elaborate strategies of control and political manipulation of student representation and participation. Powerful networks of interest promoting persons have emerged as a result, coinciding in some cases with the university administration apparatus. EU-resources in connection with a shift of value codes within the academic community have given these networks more leverage to exercise power, mainly through the regulation of the flow of various forms of capital within the university. The substitution of the will of the state by the will of networked groups has led to the emergence of anomy in contemporary Greek universities. The question whether an introduction of a culture of organizational evaluation could reverse this course remains an issue for further debate.