Between Skylla and Charybdis
The threat to academic freedom in Russia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Academic life in Russia is full of paradoxes. Although the Putin-led system sets itself clearly apart from the West, its values and procedures, the government is increasingly regulating teaching and research at universities and institutes according to neoliberal standards and principles, which have been adopted from the West. Market-based logic predominates. Russia’s leadership aims to drive forward the internationalisation of the universities and to raise the level of competitiveness of Russian research. At the same time, the authoritarian state is attempting to assert control over international contacts among academics. Several academics have been arrested as spies following dubious legal proceedings, while others have been stigmatised as ‘foreign agents’. Academic freedom is under threat from neoliberal practices and authoritarian rule alike.
(Osteuropa 10-12/2018, pp. 243–252)