Between Freedom And Order

Confliction of autonomy and control is an eternal contradiction between university and government, and how to deal with the relation is important for modern university institution construction. Chinese social objective field which is dominated by political power has created power-based habitus of culture, institution and cognition. Power-based thinking method takes absolute obedience and order as inner logic. It attaches great importance to order and despises freedom, thinks highly of obligation and ignores rights. Absence of supervision and restraint leads to boundless and almighty power. As for the relation between government and university in our country, power logic frequently arrogates knowledge logic and hampers educational freedom. Modern society is in an era moving towards rights, so we should adopt right-based attitude rather than power-based one. This thesis is a theory seeking based on multidisciplinary research method and also a practical thinking for modern university institution. It intends to answer questions as follows: what is the value propulsion behind the contradiction between autonomy and control? What are the practical principles of confliction between freedom and order, and what has happened and operated? What is the logic of university field, and what kinds of confliction exist between university and government, academic and administrative circles? Why and how to realize right’s steering, how to implement common governance of stakeholders?According to a problem solving way which is from idea to operating, theory to practice, the thesis can be divided into5parts. Chapter1: introduction. University in our country is in a subordinate status, and it is leaded by administrative powers and deemed as ideological tools. Power logic deprives university of its dependence. Constitutionalism tells us that for a well-ordered society, there should be a proper tension between social order and individual freedom. The key is that individual choices can never be narrowed under government intervention. Only in this way, can wisdom be fully developed, knowledge be constantly accumulated, and can university be creative and energetic.Chapter2:Freedom-Order:Value propulsion between autonomy and control. As for theory and practice about relation of government and university, the value orientation of order and freedom are fulfilled with deep contradiction. Government takes order as its logic, stressing on public interests and absolute loyalty to organization and it takes problem solving for fun. On the other hand, university takes knowledge as logic and respects independence and inner laws of specialty. University criticizes popular theory and orthodox thought by keeping a certain mental distance away from society. Certainly, taking freedom as existing logic doe not mean lacking or refusing order, actually, university freedom is results of spontaneous and planning order. Similarly, taking order as a model does not mean it is far away from freedom, protecting public interests and free rights is its purpose. The eternal contradiction of control and autonomy is a game played between freedom and order, right and power.Chapter3, Dual character:the practical principles of freedom-order confliction. Right and power are real expression and practical methods of freedom and order. The purpose of power is to create a definitive order; the occurrence, development and operation of freedom is the domain of rights, in another word, freedom is the nature of right, right is the practical principle of freedom. The confliction of power and right in higher education filed is manifested by dual characters of university. Power character is adapted to political power. Foucault believed that there is an inner association between knowledge and power. Prison tames flesh and spirit through commandment, while university dominate individuals by descipline; Bourdieu thinks that education constructs social reality, the process of knowledge inquiry is a process of confirming, transferring and maintaining social order and recognition structure. Right character determines the conservatism and antagonism of university. The production and propagation of knowledge is not just a process of duplicating official knowledge, but also a process of producing truth and justice. Intellectuals correct falsehood of knowledge through professional autonomy, dare to say truth and criticize contemporary value.Chapter4, Right orientation:power confliction in university field and its steering. The inquiry of government and university relation is actually a relation research. True meaning of conception derives from different relation, and only in concrete filed can we obtain true implication. As a historical existence of social space structure, university is an objective net of producing, spreading and innovating knowledge; meanwhile, it takes value guiding and moral development as purpose. Field research is helpful for overcoming recognition drawbacks, such as the unclear border and lack of independence, and it also can present methodology for inner and external relation research. At the same time, deeming university as knowledge filed which has its own operation logic and clear border helps in answering the question what university is. University is qualified with confliction feature and the contradiction between academy and administration is its expression. Academic power faces dual control from the inner and the outer, administrative power obtains legal authorization from government meta-field. Field paradigm presents two research views for confliction between academic and administrative power. Confliction is no doubt propulsion of a field, but confliction without guiding will obstruct realizing organization goals. Confliction is to determine a definitive order rather than confusion. As to university field, we should keep a good coordination and guarantee academic rights.Chapter5, Moving towards common governance:institution route based on stakeholder theory. Rights without benefit are doomed to be invalid. Benefit is the purpose and value basis of right, in another word, benefit is propulsion of right forming. University field contains political, economic, cultural and symbolic capital. Based on input-output theory, government, bureaucratic manager, market and scholar all has their own benefit claim. From this point of view, we deem university as a contract net of stakeholders. Stakeholder theory offers a proper analysis frame, and in this frame we can clearly understand who are the university stakeholder and the common governance question. American universities have mature governance theory and practice experiences. Legal entity system ensures dependence and freedom of university, and it helps university in dealing with inner affairs freely. Board of directors is both a legal representative and a super high power agency, and it keeps flexible communication with government and society. At the same time, it initiates social responsibility of university and it is an important mechanism to guarantee government supervision. Board of directors is also responsible for overall planning and management, coordinating relation between academic and administrative powers. It can be said that common governance mechanism is meaningful for perfecting university governance structure and constructing modern university institution in our country.