The Political Logic In The Academic Field

"Academic power" has been a hot issue which has been paid much attention by scholars in the research field of higher education for a long time since1990s. A great number of research on the relationships between administrative power and academic power, and how administrative power influences the academic power has been done. Social debate among different groups pushed the issue of "de-bureaucratization" in the teeth of the storm before and after the promulgation of the National Mid-long Term Plan of Education Development. However, the crux of the problem is that only depending on the academic power, wether the academic system can operate well after the "de-bureaucratization". In other words, is there any hidden mechanism behind the operation of academic power? Based on this consideration, this study is trying to answer a more basic question:what the academic power structure looks like and how it’s institutionalized in the academic field. This is termed "political logic" in this study.Using the Sociological perspective and theoretical resources of Political Sociology, Micro-politics and Anthology, this study mainly analyzes the stratification and power structure of the academic filed and its forming logic of politics with the mixed methods; and then analyze the legitimacy and crisis of the legitimation; rethink the active and passive effects of the political logic in the academic field at last.The introduction part describes the formation of the question awareness from the personal life history; transforms the personal question to a sociological question——t what the academic power structure looks like and how it’s institutionalized in the academic field; then goes into the research value for the theory and practice from the reason of selecting the question; and then comments on the literature abroad and domestic; at last, rethinks the research methodology.Chapter1mainly analyzes and defines the key concepts, including academic field, politics, power, the political logic and so on, and discusses the structure of the academic filed, which are the foundation of the research.Chapter2begins with the analysis of two principles--universalism and particularism-in the academic field; discusses the character "guanxi" society and its applicability; then expresses the viewpoint that the "Chaxugeju" and its form of particularism in the academic field are the forming space of the political logic in the Chinese academic field..Chapter3and4, using the the theory and methods of Social Network Analysis, analyze two specific forms of the stratification and power structure in the academic field, which are:(1) departmental stratification and the structure character of the power based on the the PhD-granting departments of Physics scholars;(2) stratification of the academic communication and the structure character of the power based on the inter-citation of the Sociological Studies. It is found out that, departments in different level show big disproportion both in the PhD-exchange and the academic inter-citation, and these top departments occupy the advantaged position. So, the PhD-exchange and the academic periodicals are two pieces of important strength which mould the power structure of the academic field, while this formed structure becomes an "invisible hand" which reproduces the stratification and power structure.Chapter5, using the research materials collected by participant observation, analyzes the academic conferences regarded as ritual in the perspective of sociology, which presents the complicated power relations and its working mechanism inside the academic conferences. It is found that academic conferences are intervened by the administrative power in one side, and given hierarchic rank is formed inside while promoting the social unity of the academic field in the another side. The academic conferences are a new piece of strength which promotes the production of academic elites and the reproduction of the academic order, displaying the political logic in the micro-context. These results verify and explain the results of the quantitative research in chapter3and4, deepening the cognition and theoretical explanation of the political logic.Chapter6mainly analyzes the degree of recognition of the political logic and its rule, system of academic cultural value based on quantitative and qualitative research with the data which is obtained by the questionnaire investigation; after that, concludes the problem of the factors which constitute the academic field; and then discusses the legitimacy and crisis of the legitimation at last.The epilogue part includes three pieces of task. The first is to include the political logic of the academic field; the second is to analyze the active and negative effects of the political logic; and the last is to show the probable innovation, deficiency and the further research direction.