CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

Sec. Research Assessment

Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frma.2025.1579627

This article is part of the Research TopicCritique of the University: On Current Challenges for Research and Teaching and Possible SolutionsView all 4 articles

Bastian Ronge Is the University an authoritarian institution? A theoretical exploration with Lacan, Fromm and Rancière

Provisionally accepted
  • Institut für Philosophie, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

This article examines the ambivalent role of the contemporary university in the face of rising authoritarianism. While universities are commonly perceived as bastions of humanism, committed to ideals such as freedom, critical inquiry, and Bildung, this optimistic view may obscure the fact that authoritarian dynamics can persist within the institution itself. Rather than labeling the university as an inherently authoritarian institution, the article argues that it constitutes a social field in which authoritarian tendencies may emerge and take effect—often in subtle and structurally embedded forms.The first part of the article reconstructs Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic account of the university’s authoritative structure and its transformation after 1968, focusing on how authority functions discursively within academic contexts. The second part draws on Erich Fromm’s theory of the authoritarian character and combines his perspective with Lacan’s framework to propose a heuristic model for identifying and analyzing authoritarian dynamics within present-day academic life. In the third part, the article turns to Jacques Rancière’s concept of the ignorant schoolmaster as a means of outlining an anti-authoritarian pedagogy. Rancière’s approach is presented as a practical and conceptual tool to carve out spaces of resistance and autonomy within the university. Finally, the article reflects on the limitations of its approach and suggests directions for future research.

Keywords: Authoritarianism, University, Lacan (Jacques), Ranciere, Fromm, Diversity education

Received: 19 Feb 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Ronge. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Bastian Ronge, Institut für Philosophie, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

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