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Re-assembling knowledge production with(out) the university

Christopher Muellerleile Orcid Logo, Nick Lewis

Globalisation, Societies and Education, Volume: 17, Issue: 1, Pages: 1 - 10

Swansea University Author: Christopher Muellerleile Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1080/14767724.2019.1602352

Abstract

As an introduction to the themed issue, this paper interrogates the idea of university unbundling through a critical reading of Ronald Coase’s theory of transaction costs. Coase, who was initially interested in the structure of firms, later applied his transaction cost theory more broadly to anythin...

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Published in: Globalisation, Societies and Education
ISSN: 1476-7724 1476-7732
Published: Informa UK Limited 2019
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa49787
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Abstract: As an introduction to the themed issue, this paper interrogates the idea of university unbundling through a critical reading of Ronald Coase’s theory of transaction costs. Coase, who was initially interested in the structure of firms, later applied his transaction cost theory more broadly to anything that might be defined as ‘welfare’. Not unlike other abstract economic theories, in the age of market discipline, Coase’s ideas have been widely employed to discipline the provision of public goods with market forces. Read through Coase, the main effect of the unbundling discourse has been to rationalize the university—to make it subject to a logic of efficiency as an end, and ultimately we suspect, to do damage to universities as important institutions for the cultivation of democratic values and socio-economic justice. After a brief summary of the other six papers included in the issue, the paper concludes with a discussion of the possibility of maintaining a public university in light of the neoliberal discourse of unbundling.
Keywords: universities, unbundling, assemblage, transaction costs, efficiency, Coase
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 1
Start Page: 1
End Page: 10

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