Social media has figured prominently in two literatures in recent years: the rise of authoritarian populism and the desirability of publicly engaged scholarship. This paper connects these two usually isolated areas of study through comparison of the role social media plays in each, identifying a tendency to avoid the complexity of this influence…

This paper examines the ways in which administrators, academics and students living under conditions of authoritarianism come to imagine the university's political possibilities and horizons. To this aim, we first consider how alternative imaginaries are constructed and contained at Bogaziçi University, where the parameters of political…

This paper seeks to address the wider questions of populism and its seeming contemporary rise within the specific context of the Philippines, regarding education. Starting from the assumption that neither politics nor education sits above cultures or spaces autonomously acting upon them but instead emerges with/because/against particularities;…

This article extends current debates in Education for Peacebuilding (EfP) in conflict settings. It presents and discusses two paradoxes I have observed when examining EfP literature and engaging in conversations with EfP scholars: 'the paradox of liberalism' and 'the paradox of decoloniality'. I unpack these two paradoxes by engaging in conceptual…

With the rise of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in education systems worldwide, recent research has attempted to categorise its various types and orientations. There are, however, limited insights into how different education stakeholders perceive and implement GCE in pedagogical practice. To bridge this gap between theory and practice, we…

This paper engages with the Freirean concept of politicity for critical policy studies in education. The first part lays the ground to expand the conceptualisation of teachers' politicity. I argue this entails an examination of the limits and possibilities within a juncture. To develop the argument, the second part focuses on a teacher strike that…

Higher Education (HE) constitutes a space that calls urgently for new understandings in the contemporary political moment. One way of establishing such an understanding of HE is to consider more fully the work of political theorists in relation to questions of power in the modern nation-state, particularly as these impinge upon the key problem of…

This article engages with the notion of 'post-fascism' in contemporary times, and explores how attention to the affective ideology of post-fascism can inform pedagogical thinking that cultivates an "anti-fascist sensibility" in education. It is argued that to do so, it is necessary to somehow break fascism's grip on the body and its…

In recent years, many populist leaders and parties have succeeded in taking over the levers of state power, in spite of the fact that much of their political rhetoric in opposition expresses anti-state sentiments. This paper examines how populist leaders and parties in Asia have been able to use the institutions of the state, including education,…

In this paper, we examine the rise of authoritarian populism in Brazil following the election in 2018 of Jair Messias Bolsonaro to the Presidency and reflect on the consequences of his far-right-wing politics for education. Our focus is broadly on three historical blocs (with five different presidents of the Republic) which make up the policy…

In this paper, we consider educational populism on social media in England and Australia. In both contexts, academics are positioned as a key constituent of an unjust elite with previously voiceless teachers (UK) and students (Australia) framed as the 'just people'. While populism often speaks to nations and nationalism, as 'the people' against an…

Activist research that conducts social investigation and analysis can be the key first step in organising at the grassroots and movement building. This paper critically analyses two research reports titled 'The Foreign Exchange of Hate' (Sabrang/Coalition against Genocide 2002) and 'In Bad Faith' (Awaaz South Asia Watch 2004) produced by…

This paper explores how, in what ways, and with what outcomes, deep structural transformations have reconstituted higher education in England, and are deeply implicated in the rise of authoritarian populism. We focus particularly on the ways in which our understandings and lived experiences of class, social mobility, meritocracy, social…

As immigration polices increasingly entangle with those of higher education (HE), institutions are being positioned as migrant surveillance actors. HE's participation in state-managed international student compliance regimes (ISCRs), for example, raises political and ethical questions, including those concerning the core mission of HE. This paper…

Across the globe school autonomy reforms have been criticised for opening up public assets to various dangers or risks, from misappropriation of public monies by private sponsors to secretive governance structures maintained by homophilic groups. While these risks are not the exclusive product of school autonomy reforms, they are an endemic…