RESEARCH SELECTIVITY, MANAGERIALISM, AND THE ACADEMIC LABOR PROCESS -THE FUTURE OF NONMAINSTREAM ECONOMICS IN UK UNIVERSITIES

This paper reports the results of empirical research designed to explo re the impact of research selectivity on the work and employment of ac ademic economists in U.K. universities. Research selectivity is seen a s part of the general trend toward ''managerialism'' in higher educati on in both the U.K. and abroad. Managerialism based on performance ind icators and hierarchical control has been contrasted with collegiate c ontrol-based or informal peer review. However, analysis of the academi c labor process has idealized collegiate relations at the expense of p rofessional hierarchies and intellectual authority relations. We argue that in the U.K., there has evolved a mainstream economics which is l ocated within a well-defined neoclassical core. We find that the exist ence of lists of core mainstream journals which are believed to count most in the periodic ranking exercise poses a serious threat to academ ic freedom and diversity within the profession, institutionalizing the control which representatives of the mainstream exercise over both th e academic labor process and job market. In this way, managerialism co mbines with peer review to outflank resistance to new forms of control ling academic labor at the same time as reinforcing disciplinary bound aries through centralized systems of bureaucratic standardization and control.