The crisis of scholar-activism

Activism has become central to academia; left-wing scholar-activism is prominent in fields which use qualitative methods and universities endorse certain causes. But recent months have seen a crisis. Some left-wing positions have become risky – support for Palestine is the most prominent – and many scholar-activists have fallen silent, raising questions about the foundations of scholar-activism and its trajectories.

As many observe, contemporary scholar-activism has a tense relationship with the original ideal. The activist should hold truth to power, irrespective of personal consequences. For example, many communists were ready to die for their beliefs, Eric Hobsbawm’s memoirs recalling an inter-war vanguard who often perished. Anthropologists call this the credibility enhancing display (CED), such martyrdom being vital to the spread of ideas.

Of course, activism progresses from this stage. When they are successful, ideologies receive institutional support, reversing incentives. At this point, ideologies become associated with the status quo, attracting conformists; in the West, Christianity has long had this problem. Universities have an intrinsic association with left-liberal values – academic employment involves creativity and flatter hierarchies, encouraging ideologies which value liberation – and, recently, have institutionalized activism. Following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, universities adopted activist slogans, continuing to do so for causes such as Ukraine. Crucially, this establishes a link between activism and careerism. If employers incentivize a behaviour, the ambitious will do it.

Yet the tensions between activism and careerism are obvious. Universities can never be entirely committed to activism. As organizations which are constrained by the imperatives of profit and social legitimacy, they must adopt positions which maximize these goals. Industrial relations are an obvious tension – as employers, universities can scarcely side with union activists – and the Israel-Palestine conflict has underscored strains.

Generally, universities have adopted neutral positions on the conflict, reflecting revulsion at October 7^th and concerns about anti-Semitism. Pressure from donors is a key influence. In an important essay, Heather MacDonald discusses the potential of rebel donors to change strategy at the University of Pennsylvania, following the resignation of president Liz Magill. As MacDonald notes, such donors aim for a sector which upholds institutional neutrality and freedom of speech.

Whilst the outcome of this conflict is unclear, a dilemma is emerging. For activists, Palestine is a key cause, straddling topics such as decolonization and indigenous rights. Like no other time in the post-2020 era, the values of universities and activists are diverging. Certain scholar-activists have been as vocal as ever. The extreme have attracted headlines, yet more reasonable voices have (to their credit) persisted.

But many have fallen silent. It is hard to establish the extent of this phenomenon, silence being difficult to identify and measure, yet social media hums with denunciations of such people. Evidently, certain scholar-activists are disgusted with their peers.

Such behaviour has a clear motivation – as we have seen, the institutional embrace of activism attracts careerists – and academics have engaged in similar conduct in other areas. During the UK lecturer strike, there were reports of scholar-activists crossing picket lines.  

Such cases should serve as warnings. Beyond the longstanding critique that scholar-activists are less able to undertake objective research, recent embarrassments show that scholar-activism is prone to unravelling. The political behaviour of traditional academics is unimportant, reflecting detachment from research and professional identity, yet scholar activists cannot achieve this. Research, political behaviour and person become intertwined, failure in one area raising questions about other areas. Some may be able to cope with this pressure – we should admire these people (!) – yet for many, it is too much.

The future of scholar-activism is uncertain. Of course, compromised scholar-activists could throw in their lot with universities, apologizing for neutrality on Israel. In communist regimes, official activists played such a role. In liberal democracies, this is unlikely; notwithstanding the careerist motivations of certain scholar-activists, the oppositional nature of activism is the whole point.

Probably, those who have retreated on Palestine or the lecturer strike will quietly return to their research on activist topics. Will the experience make their research less radical? In the long term, this may take place – every movement has a shelf life and crises play an expediting role – yet, in the short term, little may change.

Activist fields are part of the path dependency of contemporary academia, long predating the post-2020 turn towards institutional activism. Even if these fields face pressure to change, entrenched practices and interests will frustrate this. In other words, scholar-activism will endure for a while yet.

Whether it will be convincing is another question.

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