STUDENT GOVERNANCE IN TRANSITION: UNIVERSITY DEMOCRATISATION AND MANAGERIALISM A GOVERNANCE APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF STUDENT POLITICS AND THE CASE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN Thierry M Luescher Supervised by Emeritus Professor André du Toit and Professor Martin Hall Thesis presented for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of Political Studies University of Cape Town December 2008 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my academic supervisor and intellectual mentor Emeritus Prof André du Toit for his dedication to teach me to apply my mind harder, to investigate further and write better, and his unwavering encouragement not to lose faith but to rejoice in all trials and tribulations, as it were. I would also like to acknowledge the intellectual guidance and strategic advice that I received from my co-supervisor Prof Martin Hall, and at specific stages in the research process from Prof Saleem Badat, Dr Lis Lange, Dr Antje Nahnsen, Dr Thiven Reddy, Ms Mary Simons, and Ms Ashley Symes, amongst others. In my few years of active involvement in student politics, I met a great number of highly intelligent student leaders who are genuinely committed to the development of university education in South Africa, its contribution to the public good, and to a prosperous and democratic nation and continent. I learnt from them first about the fascinating history of student politics in South Africa and beyond, and I would like to express to them my gratitude and respect. I hope you continue to be active citizens where you are now. While conducting research for this dissertation, I came across many helpful staff members in the Administrative Archives, the Departments of Institutional Planning, Human Resources and Student Affairs, the Office of the Registrar, the Libraries, Knowledge Common and Research Common, and the Postgraduate Centre of the University of Cape Town, and researchers and librarians in many other universities and institutes in South Africa and abroad, including the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of the Western Cape, the Centre for Higher Education Transformation, the Faculty of Education Library of the University of Pretoria, the UNISA Library and the Library of the Institute of Education of the University of London. Thank you all! I also want to acknowledge the scholarships and bursaries I received for the purpose of this study, including the Harry Oppenheimer Scholarship and the International Students‟ Scholarship of UCT, bursaries from the Swiss Canton of Argovia as well as grants from the Gottlieb Luescher Stiftung, the ProJuventute Stiftung and the Prince of Peace Trust. I wedme die Stuudie minere Mueter, de Helene Lüscher-Pendt, ond mim Vater, em Adolf Lüscher, wo meech met vell Liebi ond en Entbeerig uufzoge händ ond emmer dezue aagspornt händ, mini Talänt z‟entdecke ond z‟entweckle, mim Härz z‟folge, ond mini Nöigiir ganz uusz‟choschte. Danke au a t‟Malose ond t‟Dineo för eri Gedold, Onderschtötzig ond Liebi, ond em chline Maa Lesiba. Danke liebe Gott, ei Hörde esch g‟schaft, uf zor nöchschte, i wot Dech priise. (Psalm 30) Thierry M Luescher Cape Town, December 2008 i DECLARATION I, Thierry Moses Luescher-Mamashela, hereby declare that the work contained in this dissertation is my own original work and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it at any university for degree purposes. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work or works of others has been attributed. ..................................................................................................... Thierry M Luescher Cape Town, December 2008 ii ABSTRACT In the aftermath of university democratisation, only one critical change in university governance has sparked nearly as much academic interest and debate: the rise of managerialism. The participation of students in university governance was the key issue in debates on university democratisation; however, in the recent debates about managerialism in universities, there is little mention of the new place of students in university governance. This dissertation revisits the general topic of student participation in university governance. It sets out to provide a theoretical and empirical perspective on the interaction between university democratisation and the rise of managerialism in terms of their respective impacts on student participation in university governance. It does so in a number of ways: (i) based on a literature review of international debates and trends; (ii) by developing a theoretical framework for a governance approach applied to higher education, and; (iii) through an extended case study of student politics and transitions of university governance. In the theoretical investigation, I adapt Goran Hyden‟s theoretical conceptualisation of „governance‟ for a study of student participation in university governance. Key to the adaptation is a typology of four ideal-type regimes of student governance focused on respectively different conceptions of „student‟ involved in different justifications of the inclusion (and exclusion) of students in formal decision-making in universities. This typology and related conceptualisations of regime transitions is nested within distinct „visions‟ of the university and embedded in Hyden‟s general governance approach. By means of a longitudinal study of student politics and transitions of governance at the University of Cape Town, I investigate the context, origins, processes and outcomes of distinct historical transitions of student governance in this case and apply the conceptual-analytical framework empirically. I find that university democratisation has proceeded in two historically distinct waves at the case university which are conceived in analytically different ways. The first wave of university democratisation conceived of „democratisation‟ as the representation of the affected interests of functionally different university constituencies and thus involved in theoretical terms a transition towards a more stakeholder-democratic regime of governance. In contrast, the distinctive contribution of the second wave was the concern with demographic representivity in university governance, which can be understood theoretically as a transition towards a more communitarian regime. The outcomes of the two waves of university democratisation interacted differently with the emergence of managerialism at this university. While the legacy of the first wave was partly diminished, the outcomes of the second wave actually facilitated managerialisation in important ways. The study demonstrates the way student participation in university governance was accommodated in a hybrid collegial-managerial regime of governance and conceptualises problems arising from this with reference to the formal role of student representatives and two different types of activist student politics: entrepreneurial and emancipatory student politics. iii iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... i DECLARATION ......................................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................ v ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ..................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH DESIGN .................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Research Topic ........................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Research Purpose, Research Questions and Overview ......................................... 4 1.4 A Governance Approach to Study Student Politics ................................................ 5 1.4.1 Adapting the Governance Approach to the Study of Student Politics .......................... 6 1.4.2 A Typology of Regimes and Regime Transitions of Student Governance ................... 7 1.4.3 Applying the Governance Approach Empirically ........................................................... 8 1.5 The Case of Student Politics and Governance at UCT ......................................... 10 1.5.1 Single Case Study Design .......................................................................................... 10 1.5.2 Case Selection ............................................................................................................ 11 1.6 Research Methods and Data Collection ................................................................. 12 1.6.1 Data Sources, Data Collection, and the Case Study Database.................................. 12 1.6.2 Interviewing and Subjectivity ....................................................................................... 13 1.7 The Case Study Report............................................................................................. 16 CHAPTER 2: STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE: A LITERATURE SURVEY ................................................................... 18 2.1 Introduction: Students and University Democratisation .....................................