Abstract

The rise of “competitive authoritarian regimes”, which shows an increasing trend in the last two decades, affects all educational institutions. Since these regimes maintain their power through populist policies, they invest in universities and care about controlling them. They use highly sophisticated methods to control higher education institutions, which are similar in almost all autocratic countries.

Russia, Hungary and Turkey, while attempting to create seemingly a running healthy democratic regime they always put pressure on academics and academic institutions and aim to ultimately completely control them. The pressures have reached to the extent of attempting to revoke educational licenses even closing international universities in Hungary and Russia. The pretext of an attempted failed coup attempt in Turkey was used as an excuse to shut down 15 universities and to dismiss about nine thousand faculty members and staff from the universities in Turkey.

Introduction

Democracies were expected to dominate the world after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Although there were some developments supporting this expectation at the beginning, as time progressed, we faced a phenomenon called “competitive authoritarian regime”. The tendency of authoritarianization, which accelerated in the last 20 years, is also reflected in universities and academic life. This seemingly new democratic form of government emerged after Vladimir Putin administration in Russia, and has been partially or completely implemented in many other countries in worldwide. With emergence of competitive authoritarian regime, some concepts began to lose their clarity nowadays. It is now more difficult to answer questions such as what countries are governed by real democracy and where academic freedoms are easier to practice. As the countries governed by authoritarian regimes proliferate, more and more academics are forced to leave their country. Since freedom of thought and expression is essential to any higher institution, controlling or even seizure of operations of universities can be the primary objective of the authoritarian governments.^[1]

The approach of these new hybrid or authoritarian regimes to universities differs from the approach of traditional kingdoms and the common dictatorships in the Middle Eastern countries. In traditional kingdoms, universities may be able to do all sorts of activities that do not directly target the kingdom. In a sense, universities are not critical to the royal and they leave a relatively free room for academia. There is not much regime debate in those countries anyway. As the dictatorships and monarchic regimes do not claim democracy, the academic environment in these countries cannot be compared with the true democratic countries. But ironically competitive authoritarian regimes claim to be the most democratic and try to ensure the approval of their assertion by academia. Therefore, the freedom of academics and the state-university relationship in these regimes are worthy of further investigation.^[2]

The fact that the authoritarian regimes initiated by Russia continue with elections does not make these regimes truly democratic, these countries can be named as electoral authoritarianism. However, to win elections these regimes prioritize populist policies, among other measures. They wish to appear in close relationship with the public by making investments in higher educational institutes, which have an important and high-ranking place in the public eye. In this context, such regimes develop very different and sophisticated ways of controlling universities as they see academic freedom as a major threat to themselves. The pressure of Hungary, a member of the European Union, to a university showed how close this danger was. Michael Ignatieff, president of the Central European University (OAU), writes an article on the subject, emphasizing such contradictions in the world and giving examples from his own university. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been in power for a long time with populist policies in Hungary, tried to shut down this university by putting heavy pressure on OAU. Strong objections from Europe and other parts of the world seem to have saved the university from being closed for now. However, universities in other countries may not be as lucky as OAU. Pressuring a university by the government or punishing an academician for political reasons may be enough to frighten an entire academia. These regimes use all kind of actions by covering their oppression and tyranny with some sheaths and use them rudely for the sake of maintaining their power. ^[3]

As underlined earlier, Hybrid authoritarian regimes use similar methods to put pressure on universities and they use similar arguments in doing so. Acting against the Hungarian government and saving his university from closure by raising awareness and getting support from the international community, the President Prof. Michael Ignatieff makes very interesting observations on the authoritarian administrations of this period and highlights that the governments of China, Russia and Turkey also use pressure to tightly control the higher educational institutes at these countries. As mentioned in his work, two internationally respected universities operating in Russia have been swept away by the Russian government. One of these schools is Moscow School for Social and Economic Sciences, and the Russian government has canceled the state accreditation of this school. Despite this, the university is still operational and continues its education. Other one is European University at St. Petersburg which about to be shut down due to bureaucratic difficulties put forward in renewing its license.^[4],[5],[6]

Authoritarian regimes do not like internationally reputable institutions that exist within their country. In these countries, the most unwanted ones are free universities and independent national or international academics who defend freedom of speech and expression. While authoritarian regimes fight with such institutions and academics, they find ways to clear themselves against possible reactions worldwide. One of the most frequently used methods for the international academicians is the bureaucratic difficulty in extending their visa to stay or cancellation of their visa or even residency permit. Another method commonly used by these regimes is to force institutions to terminate their operations due to economic reasons by avoiding students’ preferences with slanderous news in government-controlled media against the targeted universities.

Turkey recently experienced more sever and harsh version of restriction of academic freedom previously experienced in other countries around the world. By implementing far more radical practices, the Erdogan regime closed down universities that advocated freedom speech and expression. In July 2016, Erdogan’s regime closed 15 universities run by non-profit organizations, which they had tried to harm them by making smear campaign that lasted for nearly three years prior to the coup attempt and seized their assets on the pretext of supporting a suspected coup attempt.

The pressures experienced for three years involves the central authorities reducing the student quotas of these universities, local authorities and/or municipalities not approving licenses of educational buildings and revoking the existing approved licenses. Moreover, they employed other means to seize operations of such institutions, which involves reducing the interest of students by targeting such institutions in the pro government media outlets, confiscating the belongings of foundations running such schools by court order, changing the university administration, and detaining or arresting faculty members, staffs and administrators. But they must have decided that all these pressures were not enough, they seized operations of all 15 universities they targeted by a government decree affecting the lives of approximately sixty-five thousand students, which is 40 times the number of students at OAU. These students had to transfer to other schools; many of them lost their scholarships some lost their educational rights. Moreover, about 2500 faculty members have lost their jobs, benefits and legal rights

The pressures we have mentioned thus far included the private universities whose ownership and management are not directly state-owned. Of course, similar pressures can easily be implemented with desired results in the state-owned universities. The employment contracts of foreign academicians working in the state-owned public universities can easily be revoked and these people can be deported out of the country. It is also not too difficult to fire and dismiss tenured faculty members and staff in these regimes by newly passed laws. Since the administrations are directly appointed by the government in such institutions, it is not difficult to create the desired pressurized environment. In state universities, there are often numerous ambitious academicians who cannot stand out with their academic work. These people often help to create any kind of pressurized environment as a voluntary collaborator of such regimes.^[7],[8],[9]

In today’s world where knowledge gains more value and power and academic diversity comes to the fore, it is unlikely that institutions that are pressured by the state can compete with their competitors and continue their vitality. Academics by nature are often timid and tend to leave their institution under pressure and go elsewhere. They often avoid to engage in conflicts and political fights if their expertise is not in that area. Likewise, in the face of the attacks of the authoritarian regimes and giant media power controlled by them, students will not be willing to study at such universities that have been labeled as ‘dissident’ by the regime. Public universities would not hire academics labeled as opponents and put extra pressure on existing ones. Another consequence of the pressures on people and/or groups who are in opposition is to be extra careful not to touch the topics which are the sensitive to the regime, which is a kind of self-censorship, this way the opposition wing becomes increasingly faded.

New tools are needed to protect academic freedoms in authoritarian regimes, even to a minimum. Presumably, the creation of an international awareness on this issue can be a deterrent for repressive regimes. Developing an atmosphere of solidarity between academic institutions and academics may be the most effective approach.

1. Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Erica Frantz. How Democracies Fall Apart- Why Populism Is a Pathway to Autocracy. Foreign Affairs; December 5, 2016. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-12-05/how-democracies-fall-apart ↑
2. Erica Frantz. Democracy Dismantled: Why the Populist Threat Is Real and Serious.. World Politic Revie, March 14, 2017. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/21516/democracy-dismantled-why-the-populist-threat-is-real-and-serious ↑
3. Michael Ignatieff. The role of universities in an era of authoritarianism. University World News; 13 April 2018. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20180413093717351 ↑
4. Ivan Nechepurenko. The New York Times; Aug. 26, 2018. In Russia, a Top University Lacks Just One Thing: Students. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/world/europe/european-university-st-petersburg-russia.html ↑
5. Ivan Nechepurenko. The New York Times; Aug. 26, 2018. In Russia, a Top University Lacks Just One Thing: Students. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/world/europe/european-university-st-petersburg-russia.html ↑
6. Meduza. Regulators have revoked their accreditation of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, one of Russia’s last major private colleges. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/06/22/regulators-have-revoked-their-accreditation-of-the-moscow-school-of-social-and-economic-sciences-one-of-russia-s-last-major-private-colleges ↑
7. Berk Esen & Sebnem Gumuscu. Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey. J Third World Quarterly; February 19, 2016. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2015.1135732 ↑
8. http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2016/07/20160723-8.htm ↑
9. Ayse Çaglar. Blow by Blow: the Assault on Academic Freedom in Turkey. ResetDOC; 29 September 2017. https://www.resetdoc.org/story/blow-blow-assault-academic-freedom-turkey/ ↑