Call for Book Chapters Proposals: "Politics of Reshaping Higher Education: Resistance, and Compliance Strategies and Practices"

Vernon Press invites book chapter proposals for a forthcoming edited volume on “Politics of Reshaping Higher Education: Resistance, and Compliance Strategies and Practices” edited by Berrin Yanikkaya.

Across the globe, higher education is undergoing profound transformations in response to shifting political, economic, and social pressures. These transformations—manifested in policy reforms, managerial practices, funding models, curriculum restructuring, and labour precarity—are reshaping the core values and missions of universities. In this context, the academy has become a contested site where various actors—faculty, administrators, students, policymakers, and communities—engage in practices of resistance and compliance.

We invite chapter proposals for an international edited collection that critically examines how higher education institutions and the individuals within them navigate and negotiate these changes amid accelerating global uncertainties, political pressures, and technological shifts. This volume will explore how institutions, educators, students, and administrators are responding—through strategies of resistance, compliance, and adaptation—to a complex and often contradictory landscape of reform, crisis, and innovation.

Higher education is being reshaped not only by longstanding neoliberal policies and marketization pressures, but also by an increasingly volatile global environment marked by polycrises—entangled crises spanning climate change, global conflict, economic precarity, public health emergencies, and democratic backsliding. Simultaneously, technological innovations, especially in artificial intelligence (AI), are radically altering teaching, research, and administration, raising critical questions about academic labour, surveillance, data ethics, and the very purpose of education in a digitally mediated world.

Amid these shifts, individuals and institutions are deploying diverse tactics: from overt activism and structural reform efforts to strategic compliance and quiet endurance. This collection aims to offer interdisciplinary and cross-national perspectives on the dynamic interplay between political forces and institutional responses, investigating how resistance and compliance are enacted, theorized, and experienced within different contexts of higher education.

This book seeks to examine the following topics:

Neoliberalism, Marketization, and Governance

• Corporate management models, managerialism, and institutional restructuring
• The audit culture, performance metrics, accountability regimes, and rankings
• Market-driven agendas and the commodification of knowledge
• Strategic planning, branding, and competition in academia

Academic Labor and Precarity

• The casualization of academic work and adjunctification of faculty
• Working conditions of contingent and early-career scholars
• Organizing efforts, labour resistance, and academic unionism
• Emotional labour, burnout, and resilience strategies among academic staff

Policy Reforms and Institutional Autonomy

• Impact of national and regional policy changes on governance structures
• Shifting relations between states and universities
• Autonomy vs. accountability: navigating compliance in policy implementation
• Institutional responses to funding cuts and regulatory reforms

Global Crises and Uncertainty

• Higher education's role in responding to polycrises (climate, war, pandemic, natural calamities)
• Crisis governance and the securitization of universities
• Education in authoritarian or post-democratic contexts
• Geopolitical influences on curriculum, research, and academic cooperation

Digital Technologies and AI Disruptions

• Impacts of generative AI on pedagogy and academic integrity
• Automation, algorithmic governance, and datafication in education
• EdTech, learning analytics, and surveillance technologies
• Online teaching, intellectual property, and digital labour control
• Hybrid learning and the remaking of academic space post-pandemic

Student Activism and Resistance Movements

• Student-led mobilizations around tuition, privatization, and social justice
• Mobilization around decolonization, climate justice, and mental health
• Alliances between students and staff in struggles for democratic education
• The surveillance and disciplining of dissent on campuses

Critical Pedagogies and Alternative Educational Models

• Faculty and staff resistance to institutional and political pressures
• Radical pedagogies, decolonial and anti-racist practices
• Community-based, cooperative, and non-hierarchical learning initiatives
• Curricular innovations that foreground social justice and critical inquiry

Compliance, Adaptation, and Survival Strategies

• Quiet resistance and strategies of accommodation
• Institutional resilience, complicity, and risk-aversion cultures
• Professional identity and values under constraint
• Self-censorship, bureaucratic accommodation, and technocratic governance

Intersectional and Global Perspectives

• Perspectives from the Global South and underrepresented regions
• Postcolonial, feminist, and anti-ableist analyses
• Experiences of marginalization and structural inequality in academic institutions
• Intersectional analyses of who resists, how, and at what cost
• Transnational education and mobility in a fractured world

Assessment, Quality Assurance, and Academic Freedom

• The politics of global university rankings and benchmarking
• Accreditation bodies as instruments of discipline or improvement
• The impact of assessment regimes on institutional priorities
• Strategies for resisting metric-driven cultures and preserving academic freedom

Target Audience:

• Academics in political philosophy, education, and higher education
• Researchers and academics working in higher education policy, digital transformation, quality assurance
• PhD candidates in education, higher education policy
• Higher education professionals, leaders, and policymakers

Dates of Interest

• Proposal submission deadline: 27 July 2025
• Acceptance notification: 8 September 2025
• Chapter submission (6,000-8,000 words): 21 December 2025

All proposals must include:

• Title
• Abstract (500 words)
• Five keywords
• Brief academic biography (200 words)
• Personal information: Name, email address, and academic affiliation

Edited by Berrin Yanıkkaya (Yeditepe University)

All proposals must be sent to: berrin.yanikkaya@yeditepe.edu.tr & berrin.yanikkaya@gmail.com