Are Australia’s universities in deficit? A tale of generic managers, audit culture and casualisation

Abstract

Managerial changes to Australian universities have had considerable impact on employees. In this article, we consider some of these changes and apply a theory known as the democratic deficit to them. This theory was developed from the democratic critique of managerialism, as it has been applied in the public sector in countries with Westminster-type political systems. This deficit covers the: weakening of accountability through responsibility being replaced with responsiveness, denial of public values through the use of private-sector performance practices and hollowing out of the state through the contracting out and privatisation of public goods and services and the redefinition of citizens as customers and clients. We suggest that the increased power of managers, expansion of the audit culture and the extensive use of contract employment seem to be weakening the democratic culture and role of universities in part by replacing accountability as responsibility with accountability as responsiveness.

Keywords:

• audit culture
• casualisation
• democratic deficit
• managerialism
• universities

Acknowledgement

We thank two anonymous referees for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.