Defending and Promoting Academic Freedom across the Globe

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

This round-table, organized jointly by the Association française de science politique (AFSP) and APSA, is a follow-up to the roundtable Comparing Threats to Academic Freedom in North America and Europe. The latter provided a comparative perspective and explanation of the various types of attack on academic freedom that affect democracies: limiting access to certain fields, conservative takeovers of academic institutions, restrictions on freedom of expression, neo-liberal reform of higher education and research, judicialization of research, etc. This panel also aimed to put into perspective the convergences and divergences in the structural transformations of higher education and research, and to question, on both sides, their effects on academic freedom, as it is perceived here and there; to highlight different conceptions of academic freedom and contrasting ways of qualifying a given phenomenon in terms of infringement of academic freedom, depending on the context.
On this basis, this very roundtable will endeavor to identify a minimally shared point of view on academic freedom, in order to explore together the most effective means of defending researchers prevented from carrying out their scientific work, welcoming in the best possible way refugee researchers fleeing conflict zones and authoritarian regimes, facilitating access to – or research on - difficult terrain and reinforcing the statutory and legal security of researchers, etc. Finally, we need to think not only about defending academic freedom, but also about promoting it among non-academic players: institutions, politicians, the judiciary, journalists, as well as students and the general public. After all, isn't one of the most important challenges of all to make as many people as possible understand that the professional freedom enjoyed by researchers indirectly benefits society as a whole?

Sub Unit

• Partner Associations / French Politics Group

Cosponsors

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

• Division 59: Education Politics and Policy

Chair

• Amy G. Mazur Washington State University

Presenters

• Christophe Jaffrelot CERI

• Delphine Allès Inalco (French National Institute for Oriental Studies, Paris)

• Jerome Heurtaux Paris-Dauphine University

• Pascale Laborier Paris Nanterre University

• Stéphane Paquin École nationale d'administration publique

• Darrell M. West The Brookings Institution

• Stéphanie BALME CERI

• Steven Rathgeb Smith Georgetown University

• Amrita Basu Amherst College

• Simone R. Bohn York University