The double bind of audit culture in Romania
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2453
The paper focuses on the implementation of audit culture in the post-communist Romanian academic field, using a neo-institutionalist approach. The case of academic competition between anthropology and ethnology is scrutinized in order to illustrate the double standards, nationally and globally oriented, of the quantitative metrics promoted by state institutions.
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Vintilă Mihăilescu
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The double bind of audit culture in Romania
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Forum: Anthropologists in/of the Neoliberal Academy
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Vintilă Mihăilescu
2016
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2453
51
National School of Political Studies and Administration, Bucharest, Romania
2239-625X
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en
54
The double bind of audit culture in Romania
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                                                       2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90




                                                                                                      FORUM




Student-led demonstration, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, February 4, 2015. Overpass Light Brigade, Joe Brusky
photographer. Source: overpasslightbrigade.org/love-light-for-uw-fight-the-cuts/.



Anthropologists in/of the neoliberal academy
Edited by
Tracey HEATHERINGTON & Filippo M. ZERILLI

Contributions of
Cris SHORE & Susan WRIGHT, Vintilă MIHĂILESCU, Sarah GREEN, Gabriela VARGAS-CETINA
& Steffan Igor AYORA-DIAZ, Tracey HEATHERINGTON, Dimitris DALAKOGLOU, Noelle MOLÉ
LISTON, Susana NAROTZKY, Jaro STACUL, Meredith WELCH-DEVINE, Jon P. MITCHELL.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)
Anthropologists in/of the Neoliberal Academy
2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90.
ISSN: 2239-625X – DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2437
TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                                 51




The double bind of audit culture in Romania
Vintilă MIHĂILESCU
National School of Political Studies and Administration, Bucharest


ABSTRACT: The paper focuses on the implementation of audit culture in the post-communist Ro-
manian academic field, using a neo-institutionalist approach. The case of academic competition
between anthropology and ethnology is scrutinized in order to illustrate the double standards, na-
tionally and globally oriented, of the quantitative metrics promoted by state institutions.



The brave new post-communist world
    “Transition” in post-communist countries was essentially a transfer of property and
a reframing of the main institutions of the state according to good (western capitalist)
practices. In the academic field, this institutional re-building was a kind of wishful
shortcut of the “new management” trend which in Occident produced the «audit socie-
ty» (e.g. Power 1997) – or what anthropologists prefer to call «audit culture» (e.g. Stra-
thern 2000). A neo-institutional approach to this process can also be used in as far as it
started to speak about «formal structure as myth and ceremony» forty years ago
(Meyer, Rowan 1977), it devoted a lot of research on the educational field (e.g. Meyer
et al. 1981), and also coined some concepts that fit into the description of early stages
of neo-liberal restructuring of the academic field across the world (Schriewer 2009) we
may find in post-communist Romania too. In this respect, one may identify a «coercive
isomorphism» (i.e. a mechanism of isomorphism rooted in «political influence and the
problem of legitimacy» – DiMaggio, Powell 1983) imposed by EU standards and regu-
lations, later on internalized by the state and promoted at national level as a reformist
ideology. «Rationalized myths» about what constitutes a proper organization (a central
idea of neo-institutionalism, what Power described as «rituals of verification» and Ma-
rilyn Strathern referred to as such in her Introduction to the edited volume on «Audit
culture») became an “ethical” must in the struggle to overcome “communist mentality”.
In Stratherns’ terms of a policy-audit-ethics triad, ethics came first – but it was mainly
ideology.

Audit culture is coming to Romania
   In practical terms, this meant that some mimetic standards of “quality” had to be ta-
ken over from Western countries and imposed to academia, not as much for their own
sake but rather in order to de-legitimize and thus get rid of the “old guys”, presumed


                                                2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90
52                                                  ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN/OF THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY


not to qualify according to these “real” meritocratic standards. A selection of audit cul-
ture means and rules of the game was thus instrumented as “audit cleansing” in an
ought-to-be reformatted academic field. Joining the exquisite club of the Bologna pro-
cess offered a prestigious frame of references and gave an impetus to this trend. In or-
der to make it easier and more “objective”, quality control was in fact only quantitative,
i.e. pure metrics, the same for all and everywhere. Even if asking for high impact of re-
search, funding is still based only on the author(s)’ impact indexes (e.g. Hirsch) prior to
the research project. As noted by Meyer forty years ago, this kind of practice «provides
legitimacy rather than improves performance» (Meyer, Rowan 1977). And legitimacy is
further used for accessing resources (positions, grants etc.)
    «The impact agenda appears to assume that impact is by definition a good thing»
(Mitchell 2014). Relying on this assumption, governmental institutions are authorized
to decide who is to be included and who should be excluded from the redistribution of
resources. Thus, «formalized accountability» (Power 1997) just «served to transform a
political discourse into an essentially technical issue» (D’Ascanio 2014: 155). Behind
it, power games go on. Thus, in the case of the Romanian academic field, “universal”
rational criteria of value and legitimacy changed with the change of governments, mini-
sters and groups of interest. On one side, Romania joined the European club of iso-
morphism1 and shared audit ritualization, but on the other side, inner «decoupling»
(DiMaggio, Powell 1983) and cluster isomorphism are huge: networks of power and in-
terest compete for the most profitable taken-for-granted form of audit.
    The post-communist reframing of the academic fields of ethnology and anthropolo-
gy may illustrate this dynamic.

The ethnology/anthropology divide…
   Following Stocking’s distinction (Stocking 1984), we may say that «diffuse ethnolo-
gy» in Romania (Mihăilescu 2007), institutionally divided in ethnography and folklore,
was entirely a «nation-building ethnology», deeply involved in the historical process of
nation building; in recent parlance, we may say that it had a huge “impact factor”. On
the other side, socio-cultural anthropology in the Western «empire-building ethnology»
tradition was (almost) lacking in Romania till the fall of communism.
   Being compromised to some extent by their implication in national communism,
folk studies stepped back from the main academic scene just after the fall of communi-
sm, but recovered a decade later under the new brand of ethnology, and its association
(The Romanian Association of Ethnological Sciences – ASER) was (re)launched in
2005. During all this time, even if losing power, the field kept its institutions and peo-
ple. Most of the scholars regrouped, however, around the Romanian Academy, which

1. As noted by Meyer in 1981, «peripheral nations are far more isomorphic – in administrative form and
economic pattern – than any theory of the world system of economy division of labor would lead one to
expect» (in DiMaggio, Powell 1983: 152).


2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90
TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                              53


sustains both their knowledge production and legitimacy as promoters of the “real tra-
ditions” of the nation – an increasing state and public demand due to growing nationali-
st movements.
    On the other side, lacking an autochthonous model and having to build itself from
scratch, post-communist socio-cultural anthropology had to take over the western sta-
tus and brand, and professionalize according to them. Even if a national association
(The Society of Social and Cultural Anthropology – SASC) started in 1990, anthropo-
logy was lacking both people and institutions. Emerging anthropologists managed to
take some strongholds mainly in universities, but have to look for their legitimacy
abroad via international publications and conferences; there is not yet a real demand for
anthropology in Romania.
    The two academic fields do not communicate and «dissident» ethnologists, eventual-
ly embracing “anthropological approaches”, are not welcomed in the anthropological
club. The profile of the two professional fields is striking different, as illustrated in the
Table below:

       Members Mean age         Affiliation                        Publications
                                                   In Rom.    Foreign lang./Ro.    Abroad
                               Universities
SASC      96        36                               36%            23%             41%
                             Doc and post-doc
                             Folklore centers,
ASER      107       56                               84%            10%             6%
                            Museums, Colleges


    In their competition for resources, (younger) anthropologists need at any price inter-
national audit culture standards in order to get their legitimacy on a broader academic
market (e.g. two thirds of them are publishing abroad or in English edited Romanian
journals). On the contrary, (elder) ethnologists are seeking for more nationally-rooted
“quality control” and “impact” and fight for adapting international standards to local
“real” needs (e.g. only 6% of them are publishing abroad, mainly in neighboring coun-
tries).

The double bind of audit culture
   Audit culture myths and practices are an ideological must in Romania – but also in
other “emerging economies” and/or “weak states” seeking for political reasons to line
the neo-liberal global frame. But in doing so, the “audit culture kit” may changes ac-
cording to national, local and/or institutional interests, sometimes favoring some cate-
gories of people, sometimes other. The new management of the university X, for in-
stance, introduced some years ago a radical kit, taking over British standards. It was in-
tended to move out “the old guys” and make room for younger, western trained scho-
lars. The first goal was achieved, but the quality standards were too high for the young

                                                2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90
54                                               ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN/OF THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY


scholars, unable yet to have a high “impact index”. The only ones to benefit were thus
the leaders of this “reform”. With the next management, the quality kit became less
exigent. But thus everybody could rank very high, so that the western publications of
the higher-performing scholars lost their competitive advantage.
    The dilemma around audit culture in such a context may be roughly phrased as fol-
lows: commitment to audit culture makes you its prisoner, but rejecting it makes you a
loser. Adopting international academic audit standards helped the new generation of
anthropologists to take advantage over some representatives of the older generation of
less competent professionals, but put a strong pressure on their intellectual achievemen-
ts. Rejecting such «rituals of verification» and fighting to adapt them to their own com-
petences and interests, ethnologists gained a relative professional autonomy, but at the
price of parochialism. In both cases, the production of knowledge is failing…

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