Mass Intellectuality of the Neoliberal State

This book addresses the political effects of the massification of higher education and intellectual labor in the neoliberal state. Using the case of Chile, the author argues that public professionalism emerges in the mass university system, producing excesses of knowledge which infuse the state with political purpose at many levels. The emergence of the student movement in 2011, then the major social mobilization against the neoliberal state since the restoration of democracy in 1990, provided a clear manifestation of the politicization and ideological divisions of the mass university system. In conditions of mass intellectuality, public professionals mobilize their political affinities and links with society, eventually affecting the direction of state power, even against neoliberal policy. Through several interviews with academics, public professionals, and other documentary and statistical analyses, the book illustrates the different sites of political socialization and the ideological effectiveness of the emergent mass intellectuality of the neoliberal state.

Engages with post-Marxist views on the productive and social transformations of post-industrial societies into cognitive capitalism Provides extensive original analysis on the political roles that intellectual labour assumes in the post-bureaucratic organisation of the neoliberal state Invigorates debates on state theory, cognitive capitalism, and student movements in Chile and Latin America

Auteur

Nicolas Fleet is Dean of Social, Legal and Economic Sciences at the Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez, Chile. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on political sociology and higher education.

Contenu

1. The Political Potential of Mass Intellectuality.- 2. The Non-Bureaucratic Basis of the Bureaucracy: Universities and Mass Intellectuality.- 3. The Shift of State Autonomy: From Formal Bureaucracy to Autonomous State Work.- 4. The Labour of State Transformations: Public Professionals and Political Process.- 5. Professional Configurations of Political Change and the Ideological Division of Intellectual Labour in the Chilean Public Administration.- 6. Administration and Emancipation: Intellectual Ideals and Autonomous Action of Public Professionals of the State.- 7. Conclusion.