Audit Culture: Why Law Journals are Ranked and What Impact this Has on the Discipline of Law Today
(2013) 23(2) Legal Education Review 291-312
15 Pages Posted: 13 Oct 2014
Date Written: October 22, 2013
Abstract
This article offers a site-specific study of neoliberalism in practice in the discipline of law. It documents how research assessment policies were imposed on the discipline of law leading to the creation of law journal ranking lists. It is a story about how law gradually lost autonomy over design of the methodologies for research assessment, whilst seeming to continually and steadfastly oppose that movement. The article concludes with some observations about strategic thinking around sector research policies and the need for law to focus efforts on forestalling further erosion of traditional, scholarly values and power distributions within the legal academy.
Keywords: Neoliberalism, legal research, journal ranking, research assessment
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