Book summary
Academic freedom and institutional autonomy are increasingly important components of the development of democracy. At the same time, these fundamental democratic values are subject to pressure in many countries.
The relationship between academic freedom, institutional autonomy and democracy is fundamental: it is barely conceivable that they could exist in a society not based on democratic principles, and democracy is enriched when higher education institutions operate on this basis. Higher education institutions need to be imbued with democratic culture and that, in turn, helps to promote democratic values in the wider society. None of these issues are simple and the lines between legitimacy and illegitimacy are sometimes hard to discern, as is illustrated by perspectives from Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and the Mediterranean region.
Extract from paper:
The paper is organized as follows. First, a brief review of recent studies on institutional autonomy will be presented, followed by a discussion of the notion of "living autonomy" in higher education and recent public administration literature addressing "de facto autonomy". Next, the rationales underlying recent higher education higher education reforms will be discussed, followed by an examination of how institutional autonomy is interpreted in the arguments and ideologies underlying reform agendas. Finally, the chapter will address differences among higher education systems in Europe and the possible consequences of these differences for the relationships between European and non-European higher education systems. (Maassen, 2020. p. 86)