Academic Freedom in the Politicocene: Erosion and co-optation in a European perspective

• In Event: Geo-political Shifts, Freedom and Disaster: the University in a new Spatio-temporal Era

Proposal

In recent decades, academic freedom has declined across Europe. Far from being limited to illiberal regimes, multiform constraints to academic freedom have been observed in countries that are dominantly identified as “consolidated” liberal democracies, including the Nordic “welfare states” (Author & Co-author, 2026; Douglass, 2021; Lyer et al., 2023; European Parliament, 2023). Building on the cases of France and Denmark, this paper discusses original empirical findings and explores the following research question: to what extent are ongoing reconfigurations of the geopolitical order affecting academic freedom in European liberal democracies?

In early 2024, the European Parliament adopted a resolution with recommendations to the European Commission on promoting the freedom of scientific research in the EU (European Parliament, 2024: 2023/2184(INL). Based on the STOA report (European Parliament, 2023) and the Academic Freedom Index, the resolution highlights how scientific research is gradually eroding in the EU. During the last decade, higher education and research have been deeply affected by the growing backlash against globalization that openly manifested in the Brexit referendum, the 2016 US elections and the growing Euroscepticism in the EU, since the global financial crisis in 2007-2008. These geopolitical shifts include intersecting dimensions such as democratic backsliding, multipolar superpower rivalry, and climate change that reach into and sometimes reinforce each other (Silova, 2024). Reconfigurations of the geopolitical order are influencing how nation-states and regional political unions such as the EU perceive and protect themselves and their future, prompting needs and fears that nurture a growing repoliticization of research and a renationalization of higher education (Author, 2023). In a new spatio-temporal era of the Politicocene, academic freedom declines as political powers increasingly co-opt the educational and scientific domains.

This paper provides a conceptualization and diagnosis of current conditions and pressures on academic freedom in Europe, building on the notion of academic freedom as a professional freedom (Hermanowicz, 2024). Theoretically, the paper takes inspiration in recent discussions on the shifting geopolitics in higher education (Moscovitz & Sabzalieva, 2023; Koch, 2014) and academic freedom (Author, 2023; Beaud, 2020, Douglass, 2021; Hermanowicz, 2024). The paper analyses EU policies and initiatives relating to academic freedom and connects these to the national level. Through a comparative study between France and Denmark, the paper examines how pressures on academic freedom currently manifest within two different domains. One domain characterized by political controversies around free speech, anti-gender and anti-woke agendas, a second domain characterized by security politics. The Danish and French cases allow us to explore how increasing pressures on academic freedom can take root well beyond the borders of (semi-)authoritarian regimes and far from the spotlight, adapting to different academic traditions and state formations while gaining strength from the geopolitical shifts discussed above.

The paper draws on EU treaties, policy agendas and strategies presented by the European Commission and the European Parliament, interviews conducted between 2021 and June 2023 with policy officials at the European Commission, representatives of higher education and research interest organizations in Brussels, Danish and French policy officials and academics, national policy documents and parliamentary debates.

Authors

• Katja Brøgger, Aarhus University

• Ester Zangrandi, Aarhus University, DPU