ABSTRACT
The past two decades have seen vast changes in the organisation and ethos of UK universities. Most apparent to those who work within the academy has been the emergence of a neo-liberal governmentality in university management that appears to place economic rationalism at the core of its operating philosophy. This is a key principle of ‘neo-liberal’ practice. Harvey (2005: 3) provides a useful working definition of neo-liberalism:
Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practice that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional frame - work characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices.
