Rector Primaries as Political Contestation: Exploring the Potential and Limits of "Homo Politicus" in Neoliberal Authoritarianism

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Disruption and Contestation in Higher Education: Language, Politics, and Activism

Proposal

This paper draws from my dissertation, which examines the cultural political-economy of rector elections in Turkey between 1992-2016. During this period, Turkish universities held primaries to select rector candidates, with the Higher Education Board reviewing and modifying the list before presenting it to the President, who had final authority over the appointment. In 2016, these primaries were annulled by an executive decree. My research investigates how higher education leaders at flagship public universities navigated institutional autonomy and academic freedom with their candidacies and rectorships, and how shifts in the political-economy of higher education intersected with institutional history and culture to shape their actions.

This presentation focuses on a university-wide coalition advocating for a "democratic and free university" at one of the studied institutions. Sparked by faculty opposition to the government's neoliberal healthcare policies—specifically the shift to performance-based financing for university hospitals—the coalition quickly expanded beyond this issue. By forming alliances with unions and other actors, the movement grew into a broader political campaign for university autonomy and academic freedom. Despite winning the rector primaries, the coalition's candidate was bypassed by the President, who appointed a government-aligned runner-up.

This paper responds to Tate’s (2020) call to study both understudied groups and decision-makers in the anthropology of policy, and expands the CIE literature on universities and democratic backsliding, particularly in contexts of neoliberal authoritarianism (Doğan & Selenica, 2022; Gambetti & Gökarıksel, 2022; Marini & Oleksiyenko, 2022; Robertson & Nestore, 2022). In CIES 2025, I aim to contribute to the Higher Education SIG in continuing the recent focus on higher education and increasing authoritarianism by providing a nuanced narrative. While the coalition may seem like a failure in the face of an autocratic government, it provides critical insights for activism and long-term change in higher education.

Drawing on sociocultural studies of education policy (Levinson & Sutton, 2001), I conceptualize autonomy as a continuously negotiated nexus of relationships among a university’s external and internal stakeholders. I frame rector primaries as "fluid sites of political contestation" (Wedel & Feldman, 2005), shaped by power relations and interactions within Turkey’s centralized higher education governance. Using a vertical case study design (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2014), I analyze this contestation at micro, meso, and macro levels through qualitative interviews with over 45 higher education leaders and artifact analysis.

The coalition’s campaign, despite their victory in the primaries, faced resistance from centralized governance and eventually weakened under the state of emergency in 2016 and the transition to a presidential system in 2018. The movement’s transformation from opposing healthcare policies to advocating for university autonomy exemplifies “homo politicus” (Brown, 2015), reasserting political agency in response to neoliberal policies. This democratic impulse aligns with Mouffe, Laclau, and Bacevic’s emphasis on "the return of the political" in contesting dominant neoliberal ideologies.

The movement’s suppression under Turkey's authoritarian shift highlights the fragility of “homo-politicus” in the face of concentrated state power. However, this study highlights how democratic imaginaries persist within institutions under neoliberal authoritarianism, reflecting tensions between market-driven governance and political agency.

Author

• Batuhan Aydagül, University of Wisconsin-Madison