Governmentality, European Politics and the Neo-Liberal Reconstruction of German Universities

Abstract

This article deals with the governmental strategies basic to the construction of the European Higher Education Area within the Bologna Process. With regard to the actual reconstruction of German universities, these strategies are verified on a structural level, in individual and collective subject relations and also in the subject matter which is to be taught and learned. The introduction of standardized quality assurance procedures, the promotion of entrepreneurial forms of subjectivation and the dividing of knowledge into functional modules are powerful instruments which combine to form a reduced understanding of what is supposed to be economic with a universal claim. Now, after the first half of the Bologna Process, some possible effects of these strategies are visible. From an educational perspective, there are two corresponding tendencies in particular which are noteworthy: while the knowledge of educational experts outside the university is devalued by a common prudentialism, educational sciences within the German universities are trivialized by structures and curricula which tend to obstruct the production of new dimensions of knowledge and to curtail the possibilities of scientific scepticism and critique.