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The elitism dispositif: hierarchization, discourses of excellence and organizational change in European economics

DOI:10.1007/s10734-016-0019-7
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Jens Maeße at Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Jens Maeße
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From the 1990s onwards, economics departments in Europe have changed toward a culture of “excellence.” Strong academic hierarchies and new forms of academic organization replace “institutes” and “colleges” by fully equipped “economics departments.” This article seeks to demonstrate how and why hierarchization, discourses of excellence and organizational change takes place in European economics departments. The concept of “elitism dispositif” will be developed in order to understand these changes as a discursive as well as power-related phenomenon based on rankings, on the formation of new academic classes as well as on the construction of an elite myth. An elitism dispositif is defined as a discursive power apparatus that transforms symbolic differences among researchers, constructed by rankings, into material inequalities, based on an unequal distribution of academic capital between departments and researchers. Based on an empirical study, the article will focus on a selection of economics departments in Germany and in the UK, in order to study the emergence of an “elite class” as well as the functioning of an “excellence culture” that is based on discourses of power and inequality.
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The elitism dispositif: hierarchization, discourses
of excellence and organizational change in European
economics
Jens Maesse
1
Published online: 18 October 2016
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract From the 1990s onwards, economics departments in Europe have changed
toward a culture of ‘‘excellence.’’ Strong academic hierarchies and new forms of academic
organization replace ‘‘institutes’’ and ‘‘colleges’’ by fully equipped ‘‘economics depart-
ments.’’ This article seeks to demonstrate how and why hierarchization, discourses of
excellence and organizational change takes place in European economics departments. The
concept of ‘‘elitism dispositif’’ will be developed in order to understand these changes as a
discursive as well as power-related phenomenon based on rankings, on the formation of
new academic classes as well as on the construction of an elite myth. An elitism dispositif
is defined as a discursive power apparatus that transforms symbolic differences among
researchers, constructed by rankings, into material inequalities, based on an unequal dis-
tribution of academic capital between departments and researchers. Based on an empirical
study, the article will focus on a selection of economics departments in Germany and in the
UK, in order to study the emergence of an ‘‘elite class’’ as well as the functioning of an
‘‘excellence culture’’ that is based on discourses of power and inequality.
Keywords Economic expert discourse Sociology of economics Economic sociology
Discourse studies Elite studies
Introduction
‘‘Economics is becoming an elite subject for elite UK universities’’ (Johnston and
Reeves 2016)
Guest Editor Name: Guest Editors of Political Economy of Higher Education (Prof. Dr. Johannes Angermuller,
Dr. Jens Maesse, Dr. Tilman Reitz, and Prof. Dr. Tobias Schulze-Cleven).
&Jens Maesse
jens.maesse@sowi.uni-giessen.de
1
Philippsring 29, 55252 Mainz-Kastel, Germany
123
High Educ (2017) 73:909–927
DOI 10.1007/s10734-016-0019-7
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... (3) safe-way, 2-3-star, B construction of exclusively recognised academic positions with high reputation. Thus, the construction of symbolic visibility through career trajectories implies a double selectionfor and within academialeading to the formation of a very specific group of academics (Maesse 2017;Rossier and Bühlmann 2018). ...
... Some academic disciplines inside and outside the economic sciences developed strong hierarchies between 'excellence' and 'standard academia', while others create flat hierarchies. According to ongoing research and confirmed by my interviewees, 'economics' and 'finance' tend to be more hierarchical than 'management', 'marketing' and other fields of economic science (Han 2003;Lebaron 2001;Maesse 2017). ...
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