Mass Intellectuality of the Neoliberal State: Mass Higher Education, Public Professionalism, and State Effects in Chile (Palgrave Studies on Global Policy and Critical Futures in Education)

"Fleet's main contribution is to identify the key role played by a totally unexpected actor: a large mass of highly educated public servants, who are the product of the explosive expansion of education and for decades have also contested the neoliberal state from within." --Patricio Silva, Professor of Modern Latin American History, Leiden University, The Netherlands "This highly original and readable study is going to re-invigorate debates on state theory and enliven current discourses on cognitive capitalism and the knowledge economy. The author's insightful investigation of the Chilean university student and secondary school student movements is eye-opening and vitally relevant to the current struggles in Chile and all of Latin America today." --Stefano Harney, Honorary Professor, Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia, Canada This book addresses the political effects of the massification of higher education and intellectual labor in the neoliberal state. Using the case of Chile, the author argues that public professionalism emerges in the mass university system, producing excesses of knowledge which infuse the state with political purpose at many levels. The emergence of the student movement in 2011, then the major social mobilization against the neoliberal state since the restoration of democracy in 1990, provided a clear manifestation of the politicization and ideological divisions of the mass university system. In conditions of mass intellectuality, public professionals mobilize their political affinities and links with society, eventually affecting the direction of state power, even against neoliberal policy. Through several interviews with academics, public professionals, and other documentary and statistical analyses, the book illustrates the different sites of political socialization and the ideological effectiveness of the emergent mass intellectuality of the neoliberal state. Nicolas Fleet is Dean of Social, Legal and Economic Sciences at the Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez, Chile. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on political sociology and higher education Preface Acknowledgements Praise for Mass Intellectuality of the Neoliberal State Contents List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: The Political Potential of Mass Intellectuality 1.1 The Condition of Mass Intellectuality 1.2 Researching the Orientations of Mass Intellectuality in the University System 1.3 Effects of Mass Intellectuality in the Neoliberal State 1.4 Overview References Chapter 2: The Non-bureaucratic Basis of the Bureaucracy: Universities and Mass Intellectuality 2.1 Ideological Socialisation of Mass Intellectuality: Theoretical Remarks 2.1.1 Class, Professions, and Mass Intellectuality 2.1.2 Socialisation of Public Professionalism: Ideals and Ideology 2.2 Data Collection and Analysis 2.3 Universities as Ideological State Apparatuses 2.3.1 University Reform and Counter-Reform: From Development to Neoliberalism 2.3.2 Massification, Marketisation, and Material Differentiation 2.3.3 Patterns of Ideological Differentiation (A) Public-Elite (B) Private-Elite (C) Private-Mass/Commercially-Oriented (D) Private-Mass/Public-Oriented (E) Public-Mass 2.4 The 2011 Student Movement and the Politicisation of Intellectual Labour References List of Referenced Interviews Chapter 3: The Shift of State Autonomy: From Formal Bureaucracy to Autonomous State Work 3.1 The Classical Framework of Bureaucratic Action and Its Functionalist Critique 3.1.1 Weber’s Classical Framework 3.1.2 The Functionalist Critique 3.2 Marxist and Post-Marxist Theories on State Autonomy in Advanced Capitalism 3.2.1 Relative Autonomy and State Power 3.2.2 Transformations of the State Apparatus 3.2.3 The Technocratic Rediscovery of State Autonomy 3.3 Post-Structuralist Approaches: Mass Intellectuality, Neoliberalism, and Post-Bureaucracies 3.3.1 Mass Intellectuality as Labour and Critique 3.3.2 Neoliberal State Power 3.3.3 New Public Management, Post-Professions, and Post-Bureaucracies References Chapter 4: The Labour of State Transformations: Public Professionals and Political Process 4.1 State Autonomy in Chile and Latin America 4.1.1 State Autonomy in Latin America 4.1.2 Knowledge, Networks, and Elites in Latin American States 4.2 The Labour of State Transformations 4.2.1 Developmental Bureaucracy (1938–1973) 4.2.2 Authoritarianism, Neoliberalism, and the Economists of Financial Capitalism (1973–1990) 4.2.3 Technocratic Orientations of the Neoliberal State of Second Generation (1990–2010) 4.3 New Administrative Relations of Production and Mass Intellectuality of the State 4.3.1 Modernisation of the Administrative Relations of Production 4.3.2 Rapid Professionalisation of the Public Administration 4.3.3 The Moment of Mass Intellectuality References Chapter 5: Professional Configurations of Political Change and the Ideological Division of Intellectual Labour in the Chilean Public Administration 5.1 Changes of Coalition: Bachelet (2006–2010), Piñera (2010–2014), and Bachelet (2014–2018) 5.2 Production of Data on the Chilean Public Administration and Considerations of Analysis 5.2.1 Data Production Transparencia Database Comptroller Database 5.2.2 State Functions 5.2.3 Problem, Questions, and Hypotheses 5.3 The Professional Basis of Political Change 5.3.1 Personnel Turnover 5.3.2 Professional Reconfigurations 5.3.3 Exits and Hires 5.3.4 Rewards of Political Change 5.3.5 Regression Models 5.4 Towards an Ideological Division of Professional State Labour References Chapter 6: Administration and Emancipation: Intellectual Ideals and Autonomous Action of Public Professionals of the State 6.1 Administration and Emancipation 6.1.1 Dialectic of Professions and Bureaucratic Organisation 6.1.2 Professional Work as Political Action 6.1.3 Public Professionalism: Orientations and Effects 6.2 Data Collection and Analysis 6.3 Locating Public Professionals in the State 6.3.1 Between Authentic Representation and Efficient Management 6.3.2 Positions and Orientations of State Work 6.4 Alienation of Professional State Work 6.5 Influence on State Power References List of Referenced Interviews Chapter 7: Conclusion 7.1 Mass Higher Education and Public Professionalism 7.2 State Effects 7.3 General Protest and Crisis of the Neoliberal State References Appendices Appendix 1: List of Universities by Selectivity and Ownership Appendix 2: Coefficients, Standard Error of B, and Ratios of Regression Models Predicting Exits and Hires of Public Functionaries to the Political Function Appendix 3: Coefficients, Standard Error of B, and Ratios of Regression Models Predicting Exits and Hires of Public Functionaries to the Technical Function Appendix 4: Coefficients, Standard Error of B, and Ratios of Regression Models Predicting Exits and Hires of Public Functionaries to the Social/Cultural Function Appendix 5: Coefficients, Standard Error of B, and Ratios of Integrated Regression Models Predicting Exits and Hires of Professionals and Managers to the Public Administration Appendix 6: Coefficients, Standard Error of B, and Ratios of Logistic Regression Models Predicting the Possession of Information on University Index "Fleet's main contribution is to identify the key role played by a totally unexpected actor: a large mass of highly educated public servants, who are the product of the explosive expansion of education and for decades have also contested the neoliberal state from within." --Patricio Silva, Professor of Modern Latin American History, Leiden University, The Netherlands "This highly original and readable study is going to re-invigorate debates on state theory and enliven current discourses on cognitive capitalism and the knowledge economy. The author's insightful investigation of the Chilean university student and secondary school student movements is eye-opening and vitally relevant to the current struggles in Chile and all of Latin America today." --Stefano Harney, Honorary Professor, Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia, Canada This book addresses the political effects of the massification of higher education and intellectual labor in the neoliberal state. Using the case of Chile, the author argues that public professionalism emerges in the mass university system, producing excesses of knowledge which infuse the state with political purpose at many levels. The emergence of the student movement in 2011, then the major social mobilization against the neoliberal state since the restoration of democracy in 1990, provided a clear manifestation of the politicization and ideological divisions of the mass university system. In conditions of mass intellectuality, public professionals mobilize their political affinities and links with society, eventually affecting the direction of state power, even against neoliberal policy. Through several interviews with academics, public professionals, and other documentary and statistical analyses, the book illustrates the different sites of political socialization and the ideological effectiveness of the emergent mass intellectuality of the neoliberal state. Nicolas Fleet is Dean of Social, Legal and Economic Sciences at the Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez, Chile. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on political sociology and higher education