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Neoliberalization/Centralization of Higher Education and Protest in Turkey

Sun, August 17, 12:30 to 1:30pm, TBA

Abstract

This paper approaches the issue of transformation of the higher education system in Turkey from three foci: state, institutional change and social movements. Framing in student protests, different versions of Higher Education Legislation proposal drafts, and the discussions in the university forums in the aftermath of Gezi protests will be analyzed. Furthermore, content analyses of the responses to the higher education legislation proposal from 98 universities, labor unions and NGOs like MUSIAD (Independent Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association) will be made. These analyses suggest a framework of hegemony construction and coexistence of centralization and neoliberalization.

In doing so, I will argue that neoliberalization can lead to centralization, increase in the power of the state, and loss of autonomy of the universities. Secondly, in reference to the Social Movements literature this paper will demonstrate how student protest can target the academy and the state simultaneously and how faculty might act as both insiders and outsider to the system. Thirdly, in this process of reconstruction (discursively and institutionally) when combined with a parallel mobilization in the society in general we might see a reconfiguration of the publics within the institutions depending on the way previous experiences are reinterpreted.

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