A Slow Form of Governance? Collegial Organization and Temporal Synchronization in the Context of Swedish University Reforms
2023; Emerald Publishing Limited; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1108/s0733-558x20230000086005
ISSN0733-558X
Autores Tópico(s)Evaluation of Teaching Practices
ResumoAbstract In the present discourse of university politics, collegiality has come to be viewed as a slow force – seemingly inefficient and conservative compared to popular management models. Concerns have thus been raised regarding the future prospects of such a form of governance in a society marked by haste and acceleration. One way to bring perspectives on this contentious issue is to perceive it in the light of the long history of the university. In this article, I derive insights about the shifting state of collegial governance through a survey of an intense period of reforms in Sweden c. 1850–1920 when higher education was allegedly engaged in a process of modernization and professionalization. Drawing on recent work in historical theory and science and technology studies (STS), I revisit contests and debates on collegiality in connection to a number of governmental commissions. Focusing on the co-existence – and collisions – of multiple temporalities reveals that overcoming potential problems associated with heterogeneous rhythms required an active work of synchronization by universities in order to make them appear timely, as higher education expanded along with the mounting ambitions of national politics, focused on centralization, efficiency, and rationalization. The analysis is structured around three focal issues for which collegial ideals and practices, including their temporal characteristics, were particularly questioned: (a) the composition of the university board, (b) the employment status of professors, and (c) hiring or promotion practices. Pointing at more structural challenges, this study highlights how collegiality requires a constant maintenance paired with an awareness of its longer and complex history. Keywords Collegial organization Multiple temporalities Synchronization University reforms Sweden Speed Efficiency Citation Gustafsson, H.Ö. (2023), "A Slow Form of Governance? Collegial Organization and Temporal Synchronization in the Context of Swedish University Reforms", Sahlin, K. and Eriksson-Zetterquist, U. (Ed.) University Collegiality and the Erosion of Faculty Authority (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 86), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 105-126. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20230000086005 Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited Copyright © 2024 Hampus Östh Gustafsson License Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited. These works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. Introduction A popular Swedish encyclopedia once stated that the “collegial system is considered to have the advantage of a more thorough consideration of cases, but also the disadvantage of their slower processing” (Nordisk familjebok, 1911, p. 543).1 Similar notions echo in today’s discourse about university reforms. Instrumental pressures to increase efficiency have long haunted the modern research universities, depicting them as “tired” institutions. Time thus has come to be treated as something burdensome rather than as a valuable resource, thereby transforming it into a central problem of university politics (Rider, 2016; Wedlin & Pallas, 2017b, p. 299). In line with such an approach, collegiality is commonly blamed for being cumbersome and slow. This has motivated organization theorists and others to probe whether this form of governance can survive in a society increasingly marked by haste and acceleration, a shift that has not left academia untouched (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016a, pp. 87, 103, 127; see also Bauman, 2012; Rosa, 2013). In many cases, “slow collegiality” is contrasted with other forms of governance, such as more “modern” management models, particularly with the emergence of New Public Management in the late twentieth century. Marketization and the rise of the audit culture are seen as going hand-in-hand with a general temporal acceleration (e.g., Bjuremark, 2002, p. 22; Burneva, 2022, p. 25; Shore & Wright, 2004, 2015). Moreover, democratic practices also tend to speed up the rhythms of academic life as the university sector is forced to adapt to brief parliamentarian cycles (Ahlbäck Öberg et al., 2016, pp. 9–10). In current discourse about university reform, collegiality, on the other hand, is typically described as resistant to change, embodying a nostalgic longing for idealized pasts (Barnes, 2020, p. 151; Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016a, pp. 26–27, 34; Tapper & Palfreyman, 2010, pp. 30–31). But does this depiction really hold sway if the longer history of universities is considered? While previous research has noted how collegial ideals were strained by new institutional reforms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Frängsmyr, 2017), few empirical studies have systematically explored the temporal critique of collegial organizations as a recurring theme in the history of universities. As noted in recent literature, it is imperative to historicize collegiality (Barnes, 2020). In line with this view, I demonstrate how a better knowledge of past negotiations of collegial ideals and practices may contribute to a revised understanding of the prospects of a collegial system today. To that end, I ask: Which conditions – including temporal ones – are required for this form of governance to function well and secure organizational legitimacy in the modern politics of knowledge (cf. Suchman, 1995)? A Contested Concept and the Need for Synchronization in an Era of Major Reform It took until the late twentieth century for the multilayered and contested term “collegiality” [kollegialitet] to be ideologically condensed and become part of the Swedish vernacular, particularly taking off in the context of new reforms in the 1990s, as pointed out by Henrik Björck (2013, p. 10) in an important study of its conceptual history (see also Boberg, 2022, p. 29; Rider et al., 2014, p. 13; Sundberg, 2013; Wedlin & Pallas, 2017a, pp. 10–11). A century earlier, the term typically was employed more pluralistically. University boards and faculties, as well as other institutions, were referred to as colleges, as the general Swedish public administration had been based on a system of collegially governed bodies ever since the seventeenth century. So, rather than treating collegiality as an ideal type (shaped by the current use of the term), I adopt a more flexible approach in this article to avoid anachronisms. Charting how collegial notions were interpreted and mobilized in various ways, it is imperative to take the broader semantic landscape into account. Different versions or closely-related concepts, such as “collegial system,” “colleges,” “colleagues,” “collegialism,” etc., were regularly employed by professors and other scholars, indicating how they clearly perceived the university as a solid, yet multifaceted collegial organization. While historically often regarded as an over-arching form of governance, collegiality today tends to materialize as “pockets” or “islands” within university organizations. Swedish state universities are generally based on a dualism, as management and collegial forms of governance blend or co-exist in shifting proportions (Sahlin, 2012, p. 199; Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016a, p. 11; Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2017; see also Lazega, 2020, p. 47). Most commentators, however, characterize collegiality as a waning phenomenon. In Sweden, recent debates have turned particularly intense as an abrupt process of de-collegialization has unfolded at a majority of institutions of higher education (Ahlbäck Öberg & Boberg, 2022, 2023). The most immediate driver of this process is the so-called “autonomy reform” of 2011, which deregulated collegial governance through faculty boards, and thus, in practice, promoted local centralization and line management. This development toward institutional autonomy, which paradoxically endangers academic freedom on various levels, has also been observed in other Nordic countries (Nokkala & Bladh, 2014). While the recent controversies have incited careful examinations of collegial conditions at Swedish universities, most studies have been relatively short-sighted, focusing primarily on the period after a major university reform in 1977. At that point, Sweden passed its first formal university law, which imposed a more centralized and standardized organization and strengthened ties between universities and societal recipients, for instance by incorporating additional public representatives into their local governance structures. The reform was seen as an epochal shift, marking a radical departure from traditional academic discourse. In line with that narrative, the previous organization of universities has been described as relatively static (e.g., Bjuremark, 2002, p. 33; Svensson, 1980, p. 39; Unemar Öst, 2009, p. 118). There are good reasons to nuance this picture, which falls into an archetypal dichotomic pattern, reminiscent of Mode 1 versus Mode 2, or Humboldt versus the mass university (Josephson et al., 2014, pp. 13–14). Even though the explicit use of the term collegiality is limited to recent decades, similar – and significant – debates on the university as a collegial organization do have a long history. By examining a period of major reforms in Sweden that saw higher education undergoing a process of purported “modernization” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I show that the collegial organization was considered an obstacle to change on several occasions. It received criticism as several segments of Swedish public administration successively abandoned the seventeenth century collegial system, especially in the 1870s, by placing governmental agencies under the authority of single directors. University reforms in the late nineteenth century were generally fueled by liberal political currents that sought to impose this new and more managerial pattern of the national public administration on universities (Agevall & Olofsson, 2019, p. 79; Boberg, 2022, p. 22; Gribbe, 2022, pp. 10–11). In his doctoral dissertation, historian Göran Blomqvist (1992) outlines these organizational changes at the universities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the shifting state of academic freedom. Identifying a fundamental tension between ideals of autonomy and heteronomy, Blomqvist demonstrates how the conditions of universities became subject to change in a constant interplay with societal transformations. Looking at one aspect of these processes of change throughout the period in question, I contribute to this previous research on the organizational history of Swedish universities by addressing how the collegial governance at universities was reformed and debated with respect to temporal implications. Issues of academic temporalities are still noticeably underexplored, despite a surge of anthropological, philosophical, and sociological inquiries into topics such as “academic timescapes” and “cultures of speed” in recent years (e.g., Kidd, 2021; Vostal, 2021), which are frequently linked to the “slow science” movement (e.g., Berg & Seeber, 2016; Salo & Heikkinen, 2018, p. 87; Stengers, 2018). Here, I approach the temporal features of collegiality through a special focus on the work of temporal synchronization conducted by a broad range of agents during the period in question. Assuming the co-existence of multiple temporalities at given points in time, in line with the works of Reinhart Koselleck (2018), historian Helge Jordheim (2014, 2022) stressed that societies are marked by rhythms that constantly need to be synchronized with each other. There is no given “in-synchness” in history; social cohesion must be generated and maintained through active efforts. This insight obviously is salient at the organizational level and informs my analysis of contests of collegial ideals and practices, which, along with their diverse temporalities, were jeopardized by attempts to impose new temporal standards and make universities more homogenous and efficient. As a dynamic arena, the university hosted a range of often colliding and seemingly incompatible times as academics had to take on a number of diverse roles and responsibilities (Ylijoki & Mäntylä, 2003; see also Clark, 2006). Synchronizing these times was critical to establishing the public legitimacy of the collegial organization. Universities, however, often exhibited a reactive pattern as they were forced to “keep up” with reforms implemented in other public sectors. With the general institutional expansion of the national university system (which in hindsight was rather small relative to the postwar period), the conditions of scholarship had been significantly transformed by the early twentieth century.2 The steadily growing university system was reorganized in order to fit into a rapidly changing society. This adaptive process included the meticulous work of synchronization, perhaps particularly visible in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, as this period was characterized by numerous attempts worldwide to synchronize various times and establish coherent temporal standards (Ogle, 2015). In empirical terms, this article illuminates discussions on the state of the collegial organization and its temporal entanglements in the context of a particularly intense period of university reforms (c. 1850–1920). Previously, the two Swedish state universities, that is, Uppsala (founded in 1477) and Lund (1666), had been regulated by statutes from the seventeenth century. Novel university statutes introduced in 1852, 1876, 1908, and 1916 were developed by governmental commissions and thus carried authoritative weight as they sought to balance dominant views, even though they did not fully represent public opinion. On the contrary, the commission reports provoked plenty of debates, and the proposals were not necessarily executed (Agevall & Olofsson, 2019, p. 91). This study, however, is not primarily concerned with the political processes as such, but rather with more fundamental discussions and how they evolved over time. The respective commission reports, together with some specific instances of fervent public debate, thus constitute the main sources for this analysis. Even if all commissions largely supported collegial ideals on a general level, they opened up discussions on which shape collegial governance should take in practice, and how it could be incorporated into wider narratives of modernization. In the empirical sections that follow, I explore debates about three focal issues that constituted significant challenges to the collegial organization and its temporal qualities: (a) the composition of the consistory (or university board); (b) the employment status of professors; and (c) hiring or promotion practices. Afterwards, I offer some concluding remarks on the implications of temporal conflicts and synchronization for academic governance and university politics more generally. Already in the first empirical section, I show how debates about collegial governance exposed tensions between narratives of “modern society” and “traditional” ideas of the university. Consistory Composition (And the Constrained Idea of the University) The two state universities, Lund and Uppsala, clearly adhered to German academic traditions and drew much of their legitimacy from the education of civil servants who were absorbed by the Swedish apparatus of public administration. Notably, the universities were still small scale. Located in minor cities, they significantly influenced their immediate surroundings (Svensson, 1980, pp. 19–21). Yet, one of the main tasks of university commissions in the late nineteenth century was to integrate them more thoroughly into an increasingly centralized national organization.3 Until that point, universities and the state had commonly been regarded as separate spheres with some mediating links, such as the Chancellorship, meaning that a chancellor represented the university against the government in Stockholm.4 As the government invested more in higher education, the formal political dependence of universities increased. Opinions of government and parliament could not simply be ignored (Blomqvist, 1992, p. 106). The university commission of 1846, formally chaired by crown prince Carl (chancellor of both universities), was a milestone in this regard, even if the activities of universities already had been debated and criticized in previous decades. The commission included one professor each from Lund and Uppsala, and two secretaries. Its main task was to synchronize activities at the universities according to a more uniform framework, aiming to replace their seventeenth century constitutions (Underdåniga förslag, 1852, p. 4). The new statutes, which were completed in 1852 by the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, have been described as a Swedish Magna Charta, as they codified long-standing practices of collegial governance. At the same time, however, they marked the start of an era of transformation in which a number of these collegial foundations would be called into question (Fehrman et al., 2004, p. 115; Frängsmyr, 2010, pp. 10, 73, 2017, pp. 36–37; Tersmeden, 2016, p. 84). A main issue discussed by the 1846 commission was the so-called academic jurisdiction, traditionally motivated according to a principle of “peers judging peers” (Underdåniga förslag, 1852, p. 10). Since the seventeenth century, Swedish universities had been incorporated into the general public administration, but they were still allowed to function as autonomous corporations maintaining their own civil–criminal jurisdictions (Hedmo, 2017, p. 40). As noted by the commission, there were strong protests in Uppsala when this system became subject to debate. It was perceived as a collegial cornerstone, but according to the commission members, universities could no longer function as “a republic within the state” with exclusive privileges. They argued that it would be more efficient if the academic staff spent their time fully on scholarly matters, and thus recommended the abolishment of the jurisdiction, as it was perceived as an antiquated phenomenon in a modern state (Underdåniga förslag, 1852, pp. 10, 31–32). Partly implemented with the 1852 statutes, this abolishment was eventually completed in 1908, in the wake of another (1899) commission (Förslag och betänkanden, 1901, pp. 81–82). The investigation of the academic jurisdiction warrants some closer scrutiny. By means of historicization, the 1846 commission sought to demonstrate that any composition of teachers as colleagues at a university was not universally given. Its report included a flashback to the founding of Uppsala University in 1477, stating that it had been constructed as a blended model based on the universities of Paris, where the teachers were in charge and the institution functioned as a unified entity, as well as Bologna (and Padua), where the students elected the governing body of the university and individual faculties functioned more independently. The commission thus argued that medieval academic jurisdictions had varied considerably in character, concluding that an autonomous jurisdiction should not be seen as inseparable from any general “idea of the university” (Underdåniga förslag, 1852, pp. 12, 17–31). This distancing from – and relativization of – a universal idea of the university (Karlsohn, 2016) is interesting as an argumentative strategy, as it portrayed the state of the collegial organization as historically shifting and dependent on diverse local models. In a similar fashion, organizational entities, such as faculties, were described as contingent products, rather than as abstract derivations from science as such. It was thus not obvious exactly which specific collegial constellation that was needed by a university for being functional (Underdåniga förslag, 1852, pp. 47–55). This deconstruction of traditional defenses of university autonomy created space for maneuvering and political intervention. A large part of the upcoming reforms focused on the governance structure of universities, as their traditional “guild structure” was criticized as anomalous in a modern, professionalized society. In particular, a transition from broad “republican” assemblies to limited representative bodies seemed urgent as universities grew. As noted by Sahlin and Eriksson-Zetterquist (2016b, p. 3), the local board or “consistory” [konsistorium] structure was “reshaped through a number of reforms,” ultimately taking the form of “corporate-like boards with an external chair and a large share of external members” in the twentieth century. The renegotiation of the consistory’s function and composition begun already in the nineteenth century, however, as this type of body was frequently criticized for being lethargic and conservative, and this criticism surfaced in other countries as well (Gerbod, 2004, p. 120). But according to a principle of complete representation of full professors as indisputable members of the local board – in contrast to so-called “extraordinary” professors, docents, administrative staff, and students – Sweden stood out in international comparison. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Swedish consistory composition was heavily debated, not least as non-permanent academic teachers began to organize collectively in order to improve their working conditions and gain the right to participate in the university governance (Blomqvist, 1992, pp. 246–247, 1993, p. 216). A new commission, established in 1874 and chaired by archbishop and Uppsala pro-chancellor, Anton Niklas Sundberg, sought to further pursue the ambition of the 1846 commission to minimize differences between the two state universities. In line with a general trend toward scholarly specialization, the new commission expressed doubts about the common assumption that individual professors had sufficient knowledge regarding the development of basically all disciplines, at least within their own faculty. As their peer authority was questioned, a need for a more realistic division of work emerged, creating incentives for the construction of smaller, specialized assemblies (Förslag till statuter, 1875, pp. 13–14, 21). This, however, provoked intricate questions as to which issues should be delegated or continue to be treated as common collegial concerns. As summarized by sociologist of education, Lennart G. Svensson (1980, p. 49): “The idea of a unity of sciences [was] shattered into pieces due to purely organizational reasons.” As a first step toward a new division of work, the 1846 commission had proposed a practically oriented Collegium Oeconomicum as a supplement to the Consistorium Academicum. The 1874 commission continued along this line, and also suggested a division of the academic consistory in two parts, major and minor – an order maintained until the 1960s (Underdåniga förslag, 1852, p. 42; Förslag till statuter, 1875, p. 5; see also Frängsmyr, 2010, pp. 75–76; Gribbe, 2022, p. 14). This successive split, codified by the 1852 and 1876 statutes, marked a departure from the German, or Romantic, idea of the university as a genuinely organic system, characterized by a continuous interaction of its dynamic parts as one large although diverse unit (e.g., Readings, 1996). In terms of organization, the university was now increasingly embodied by separate representative or specialized units that did not require the physical presence of all professors upon every collective decision. The major consistory was supposed to include all full professors and still carry the main responsibilities, but it would be free from dealing with most ongoing affairs. The minor consistory would consist of a limited group of elected representatives who would serve three-year terms. It was only with explicit hesitation, however, that the 1874 commission formulated this proposal. If the consistory was no longer entirely composed of equal peers, it was feared that the very “idea” of the university would be in danger, reminding us that this idea was the object of repeated negotiations. The most salient reason why the commission continued to champion this reorganization (“irrefutably needed”) was that the meetings had begun to steal too much time from “higher” scholarly duties. In Uppsala, the single board system required the attendance of all full professors at more than 30 meetings per academic year, lasting approximately three hours each. This was described as a slow process and a “waste of time and resources” with “detrimental” effects on the quality of decision-making, for instance as consistory members did not have enough time to prepare for all of these meetings (Förslag till statuter, 1875, pp. 6–7; see also Blomqvist, 1993, p. 210). Genuine collegial practice began to require inordinate amounts of time from scholars that could no longer be justified as the university grew. In an article in the periodical Svensk tidskrift [Swedish Journal], Lund history professor Claes Theodor Odhner criticized the statutes proposed by the 1874 commission, and demanded even more radical solutions. He agreed with the commission, however, that the consistory seemed fragmented and unable to act with proper authority. More generally, he emphasized that the distinctive pluralism of bodies within the academic structure of governance caused an “unnecessary retardation,” thereby reinforcing the critique of collegial slowness (“Universitetsreformer,” 1875, pp. 459, 496). A similar criticism was voiced over 20 years later. In 1898, Lund librarian and PhD Elof Tegnér initiated another debate in an article published in Nordisk tidskrift [Nordic Journal], arguing that it was necessary to modernize Swedish universities. This was in line with a common opinion that the novel statutes in 1876 had not implemented anything radically new. For instance, media accounts highlighted that “the collegial governance of faculties and consistories” had not been thoroughly reformed, thus forcing important issues to pass through the “purgatory of several colleges” (“Universitetsförhållanden,” 1898). Tegnér’s article was likewise interpreted as an attack on the foundations of the collegial organization that he found old-fashioned. The consistory at universities had no equivalents, Tegnér claimed, not even internationally. Swedish universities were likened to heavy machinery, as decisions about academic matters were not made “in haste,” given the large number of parallel collegial bodies that were dealing with the same issues. To keep pace with more wealthy European nations, Tegnér advocated more efficiency and less reverence to traditions. He claimed that a more authoritative vice-chancellor role in line with the vertical structure (or “monarchic” model) of other governmental authorities would increase the speed of decision-making and reduce the societal isolation of universities (Tegnér, 1898, pp. 186–199; see also Frängsmyr, 2010, pp. 82–84). Tegnér’s ideas were radical. Professor of literary history, Henrik Schück (1898a, 1898b), protested against the depiction of the consistory as an overly time-consuming collegial body, claiming that Tegnér’s negative view resulted from contingent, local conflicts in Lund (see also Hjärne, 1898b). Yet, Tegnér’s most prolific critics shared some of his basic assumptions. History professor Harald Hjärne (1898a) granted that there were, indeed, too many competing collegial bodies at the universities, causing “all sorts of lingering formalities and an often completely unnecessary delay.” The question was rather whether this should be seen as a necessary evil or not. As these discussions raged, a new commission, chaired by bishop Gottfrid Billing, was appointed in 1899. Although acknowledging the problems of temporal efficiency addressed by Tegnér, this commission did not accept his proposals, claiming that autonomous governance was foundational to the very idea of a university (Frängsmyr, 2010, p. 86). Nevertheless, the commission discussed further reforms, suggesting that the major consistory would be replaced by a university council, and that a smaller consistory (consisting of the vice-chancellor, pro-rector, and five elected faculty members) would deal with ongoing administrative issues (Förslag och betänkanden, 1901, pp. 9–13, 73–76). This aspiration toward a representative system was framed as a natural step in line with the process started in 1852. The successive reform proposals were thus incorporated into a grand, liberal narrative of progress, even though conservative voices warned that changes should not be introduced too swiftly as they could endanger the (slow) organic development of universities (Förslag och betänkanden, 1901, pp. 271–272). The principle of indirect representation, based on democratic elections, was met with repeated skepticism. This is not surprising, as these discussions played out before full democracy was introduced in Sweden. Several commentators pointed to the risk that various factions would form, indicating how frictions between collegiality and democracy have been central in the modern history of universities (Blomqvist, 1992, pp. 246–247; see also Ferlie et al., 2009, p. 11). The new university statutes of 1908 ultimately struck a compromise by blending two categories of membership in the major consistory: some would be included based on years of service and some would be elected. These statutes were revised in 1916 in the wake of another commission of 1914; after that
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