From neoliberal domination to ideological warfare: public universities as a battleground

Abstract

After four decades of neoliberal governance—quasimarkets, human capital, and metrics—public universities have entered a phase of punitive ideological campaigns deploying financial sanctions, regulatory levers, and cultural loyalty tests to reshape academic life. This article revisits the genealogy of the culture wars and develops a comparative framework (United States, Spain/Madrid, Brazil, Argentina, Hungary, Poland, India and Israel) to show how governance by markets has been subsumed by an ideological regime aimed at disciplining knowledge production. Drawing on Marginson, Krugman, and Scholars at Risk, it contends that safeguarding the knowledge commons, institutional autonomy, and international cooperation is essential to sustain open, critical, and global universities. The paper outlines strategic guidelines to secure funding, diversify metrics, strengthen mobility, and protect peer review in the face of today’s neoliberalism plus.