Academic Municipalities: Understanding University Governance as Urban Politics

Abstract

Conceptualizations of university governance have varied over time, with some scholars focused on the structure of stakeholder groups such as faculty, staff, and students in relation to how institutions make decisions, others focus on the competing spheres of political influence guiding institutional development, and most recently that higher education has adopted business management structures or academic capitalism. Each of these conceptualizations offered new insights into how universities make decisions and evolve. The interactions between the non-profit aspects of higher education institutions and their effects on the internal governance structures have been underdeveloped. In this chapter, the authors propose an urban governance approach to understanding how actors and their institutions make decisions.

In this chapter, the authors dissect these models and propose a shift in perspective described as academic municipalities. Prior models on university decision-making and its impact on institutional constituents all make certain sacrifices when attempting to conceptualize the complex organizational functions of the university. Birnbaum and Tierney in their arguments do not provide enough value to the structure imposed on higher education institutions by virtue of their non-profit status. The corporate concept does not account for the political ramifications to university functions that reach beyond corporate models. Academic capitalism explains the shift of the university to account for changes in the global marketplace but it does not explain the latent functions of the university, such as contributing to the public good, housing, libraries, public services, and other non-market-based activities. What is needed is an explanation that accounts for both market and political forces at play in the university.

Citation

Litsey, R. and McNaughtan, J. (2022), "Academic Municipalities: Understanding University Governance as Urban Politics", Sengupta, E., Blessinger, P. and Nezaami, N. (Ed.) Governance and Management in Higher Education (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 43), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 89-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120220000043006