2. The Hegemony of Neoliberalism and Educational Chauvinism

Of all the projects of educational theory, leadership education theory is the project under the most extreme pressure to conform to the new and pervasive educational pragmatism situated within the current macro-economic market and political contexts of neoliberalism[i]. Blake et al claim that ‘[t]his new educational pragmatism, impelled by globalization, seems to be draining practice of normative interest and validity.’ They go on to claim that ‘[t]he traditions that have long mediated teaching and learning are currently under radical assault from managerialist reformers, operating within a taken-for-granted worldview of economic crisis[ii].’ I do not call into question the taken-for-granted-ness of these pressures felt by traditional liberal, or leadership, education, i.e. I do not oppose capitalism, as this is the global context whose emergence and continuation we, as leadership educators, find ourselves in. But consequently, I do take issue with the form of idealism represented by Blake et al’s call to a revised educational theory to ameliorate the affects of this managerialist and economic crisis. Only, my critique of this idealism concerns the absence of an acknowledgement of a political formulation to leadership education as the basis of a solution to the pressing concerns of neoliberalism, rather than a straightforward complaint that such education is overly prescribed by this particular cultural and political regime. Instead, my claim is that leadership education – both its creation and consumption – is not just situated within the global contexts of neoliberalism, but that it actually bolsters that regime. It is not just a case of politics entering into leadership education endeavours as the content of that education. Leadership educators have a political responsibility to those whom they claim to educate. But this balance of responsibility is an act of ‘becoming’ that cannot ever be completely fulfilled. Paraphrasing a reference Chomsky[iii] makes about neoliberalism’s aversion to gaining general public consent, ‘the people who own leadership education ought to govern it’ – which, of course, begs the question of who owns leadership education? Rather than new theories of leadership education simply critiquing the impact of dominant political worldviews on, say, the politically inert ‘instrumental versus intrinsic’ debate, progressive theories of leadership education should, as Giroux urges, [d]istinguish professional caution from political cowardice and recognize that their obligations extend beyond deconstructing texts or promoting a culture of questioning. These are important pedagogical interventions, but they do not go far enough. We need to link knowing with action.[iv]

To this end, I believe it is necessary to trouble the axiomatic status of the sentiment embodied in the phrase ‘knowledge into action’ as it relates to leadership education, and to radically destabilize the duality between the instrumental and intrinsic divide outlined at the start. My post-application viewpoint breaks with the tradition[v] of employing purely educational philosophy (principally of the analytic and positivist varieties) and instead draws on political philosophy (mostly from poststructuralist-inspired and communitarian thinkers) as the more relevant basis for examining the truth claims made in reference to ‘action’ in the name of so-called ‘pragmatic leadership education.’ The political framing’s novelty rests on a deliberate intention not to continue to valorize explicit educational inputs, educational outputs or any other educationally chauvinist claims or processes that institutions of leadership education espouse; but instead to re-cast those claims as entirely political. I am not claiming that there is nothing else to be learned, or that higher educational endeavours are bankrupt or that technical training in leadership serves no purpose; nor, even, that one cannot learn via politics. Rather, my claim is that by positively discriminating in favour of a political conceptualization of leadership education, and by consciously substituting a pedagogic term for a political term when describing organizations, the acts of organizing and the execution of decisions within hierarchical structures, one is acknowledging an all-consuming aspect of the leader’s role of determining and undertaking action in the social realm. This activist role of the leader has hitherto been obscured by the language of pedagogy. This activist-building aspect of the education of the leader comes through the development of collectivist political agency. Amy Gutmann says of education that ‘it is always political because it is connected to the acquisition of agency, to the ability to struggle with ongoing relations of power, and is a precondition for creating informed and critical citizens’[vi]. The same is true when these relations of power are viewed conversely, such as when Gramsci claims that ‘every relationship of hegemony is necessarily an educational relationship’[vii]. Henry Giroux, referencing Gramsci, urges us to view education as a cultural pedagogic practice which takes place across multiple sites as it signals how, within diverse contexts, education makes us both subjects of and subject to relations of power[viii]. This is illustrated when institutionally oriented processes of leadership education (e.g. business schools in particular) play a part in creating the subject position of ‘leader’ by creating and accepting onto ‘programmes’ of leadership such subjects. By continuing to privilege a humanist and individualistic conception of education stripped bare of the antagonisms of ‘the political’, normative leadership educators are embargoing an entire realm of action (namely, activism) that has increasing validity and currency at a time in the world when the overthrow of hegemonies is rife[ix]. I will come on to critique the belief in the liberal hero, the dominant individualist orientation of leadership education, via communitarian political theory as I believe this critique is one of the few capable of countering the unstoppable force with which a psychologistic conception of leadership education is nullifying debate in the field, and perpetuating educational chauvinism.

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[i] Mark Beeson [‘Competing Capitalisms and Neoliberalism’, in K. England & K. Ward, Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p.47n.] says “the basic tenets of neoliberalism have been captured by John Williamson’s (1994) idea of the “Washington Consensus,” which provides a template both for neoliberal public policy and for an “appropriate” environment for private sector economic activity. The key ideas are now the familiar staples of much governmental rhetoric in the “west,” at least: small government, low taxation, deregulation, privitization, and enhanced competition.” For some useful critical commentaries about neoliberalism and its consequences, see N. Chomsky, Profit over People (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999); H. Giroux, The Terror of Neoliberalism (Boulder: Paradigm Press, 2004); D. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); M. Peters, Poststructuralism, Marxism and Neoliberalism (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001); K. England & K. Ward, Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).

[ii] N. Blake, P. Smeyers, R. Smith & P. Standish, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p. 8.

[iii] Chomsky was referencing the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the US, John Jay; see N.Chomsky, Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999), p. 46.

[iv] H. Giroux, The Terror of Neoliberalism (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2004), p. 123.

[v] A tradition embodied in the work of Ronald Barnett, Colin Symes and John McIntyre.

[vi] A. Gutmann, Democratic Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 42.

[vii] A, Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Press, 1971), p. 350.

[viii] H. Giroux, The Terror of Neoliberalism (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2004), p. 138.

[ix] R. Koch & C. Smith, Suicide of the West (London: Continuum, 2006).