Knowledge and Power
The New Politics of Higher
Education
Hans N. Weiler
Stanford University
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THESIS: The contemporary
discourse on knowledge suffers
from a triple deficit
• It lacks critical reflection on the
fundamental changes in the notion of
“knowledge” in the 20th century.
• It does not recognize the intensely political
nature of the production of knowledge.
• It does not deal with the necessary changes
in higher education.
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Towards a new concept of
knowledge and higher education
• Recognizing the profound changes in the
conception of knowledge (Part 1)
• Understanding the significance of the politics of
knowledge through the discourses of
development, gender, and democracy (Part 2)
• Pointing out the implications for the future of
higher education (Part 3)
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Ashis Nandy and the politics of
knowledge
“The old, clichéd saying, ‚knowledge is
power,’ has acquired a new potency in recent
years. For nearly a century it was fashionable
to study how interests and material forces of
history shaped knowledge. The world that has
come into being in the aftermath of World War
II seems to have reversed the relationship…
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…It has forced us to recognize that dominance is
now exercised less and less through familiar
organized interests, such as class relations,
colonialism, military-industrial complexes,
multinational corporations, and the nation-states.
Dominance is now exercised mainly through
categories, embedded in systems of knowledge.
… Universities have come to share this new
power, for they specialize in handling
categories.” (Ashis Nandy 2000, 115-116)
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Part 1 – The changing concept of
knowledge
1.1 Challenging the tradition of a “unified
science”
1.2 New ways of knowing
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1.1 The “unity of science” and its
erosion (1)
• Questioning the notion of a homogeneous
and uniform concept of knowledge
• Sources and manifestations of change
• Towards a more differentiated and
contingent conception of knowledge
• The casualties of change: Objectivity,
certainty, prediction, quantification
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1.1 The “unity of science” and its
erosion (2)
• General vs. specific and nomothetic vs.
ideographic statements
• Explanation vs. understanding
• Cognitive, normative, and aesthetic
knowledge
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1.2 New ways of knowing
• Epistemology and the opening of the institutional
structures of knowledge production
• The rehabilitation of “suppressed forms of
knowledge”
• A “third culture” between scientific and literary
analysis of social reality
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Part 2 – The politics of knowledge
2.1 Hierarchies in the production and
dissemination of knowledge
2.2 Knowledge and power: A relationship of
reciprocal legitimation
2.3 The transnational knowledge system and
the international division of labor
2.4 The political economy of the
commercialization of knowledge
2.5 The politics of knowledge: 3 discourses
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2.1 Hierarchies in the world of
knowledge
• Hierarchies of knowledge: “Higher” and “lesser”
forms of knowledge
• Hierarchies of knowledge institutions: national
and international
• Hierarchies within institutions: Knowledge and
status
• Challenges to established knowledge hierarchies
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2.2 Knowledge and power
• Knowledge is in need of legitimation, too
• Knowledge and power: A relationship of
reciprocal legitimation
• Literary images of expertise: Ethan the
historian (Stefan Heym)
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The ‘expertization’ of public affairs
“As more and more areas of life are ‘scientized’
and taken out of the reach of participatory
politics to be handed over to experts, the
universities as the final depository of expertise
have become a major global political actor of
our times. In addition to their other tasks, they
legitimize the ‘expertization’ of public affairs
and the reign of the professionals.” (Ashis
Nandy 2000, p. 116)
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2.3 The transnational knowledge
system
• Global disparities and the international
division of labor in knowledge production
• International orthodoxies of knowledge and
their institutional supporters
• Towards a new international knowledge
order: “re-drawing the map of world
culture” (Böhme and Scherpe 1996)
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2.4 The political economy of the
commercialization of knowledge
• The changing economy of knowledge
production
• The growing knowledge dependency of
economic activity
• New alliances between knowledge and
commerce: The story of Silicon Valley
• The international dimension: GATS
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2.5 The politics of knowledge:
Three discourses
• Development: The role of knowledge in
redefining “development”
• Gender: The politics and the epistemology
of feminism
• Democracy: Democratizing knowledge
production and the governance of science
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Part 3 – The politics of knowledge
and the future of higher education
3.1 The politics of knowledge in teaching and
research: A new agenda for cultural studies
3.2 Disciplines and the structures of academic
power: Resistance to change
3.3 Higher education and the changing role of
the state: Autonomy and ambivalence
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Part 3 – The politics of knowledge and
the structures of higher education (cont.)
3.4 The politics of knowledge and the assessment
of academic quality: Orthodoxy and renewal;
accountability and transparency
3.5 Transnational knowledge and national
universities: Critically monitoring the process of
globalization
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Ceterum censeo …
“It is high time that Western societies
change from being cultures of
lecturing to being cultures of
learning” (Lepenies 1997, 40)
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Email
weiler@stanford.edu
Website
http://www.stanford.edu/people/weiler
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