ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ways in which politics, through discursive and structural powers, influences research agendas, interpretive worldviews, methodological paradigms, evaluation practices, and hiring procedures. It analyses how logical systems are created to justify decisions made and not made, and how the logical systems are used to prevent debate over the allocation of funds, the hiring and evaluation of individuals, and the labeling of knowledge as legitimate or marginal. Academics pay a spiritual price as well for taking a presumed apolitical stance. Universities have been the victims of unscrupulous attacks by right-wing censors, neoconservatives who claim that the university is in fact controlled by tenured radicals, that the curriculum is ghettoized, and that standards are crumbling. The political dimension of academia has become more apparent and appears to be more of an issue in university, because lines between private and public have become more blurred. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
