Education, Liberal Democracy and Populism: Arguments from Plato, Locke, Rousseau and Mill

173 Pages·2019·1.451 MB·English

by  David Sullivan

Education, Liberal Democracy
and Populism
Education, Liberal Democracy and Populism: Arguments from Plato, Locke, Rousseau
and Mill provides a lucid and critical guide shedding light on the continuing
relevance of earlier thinkers to the debates between populists and liberals about
the nature of education in democratic societies.
The book discusses the relationship Rousseau and Plato posited between
education and society, and contrasts their work with the development of liberal
thinking about education from John Locke, and John Stuart Mill’s arguments
for the importance of education to representative democracy. It explores some
of the roots of populism and offer a broader perspective from which to assess
the questions which populists pose and the answers which liberals offer. The
book makes a substantial contribution to the current debate about democracy,
by emphasising the central importance of education to political thought and
practice, and suggests that only an education system based on liberal democratic
principles can offer the possibility of a genuinely free society.
This book is ideal reading for researchers and post-graduate students in
education, politics, philosophy and history. It will also be of great interest to
Educational practitioners and policy makers.
David Sullivan, prior to his retirement, was Head of the School of Lifelong
Learning and Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophy and Religion at
Bangor University, Wales, United Kingdom. He has written widely on political
philosophy, philosophy of education and international politics and the second
edition of his Francis Fukuyama and the End of History (jointly authored with
Howard Williams and Gwynn Mathews) was published in 2016.
Routledge Research in Education Policy and Politics
The Routledge Research in Education Policy and Politics series aims to enhance
our understanding of key challenges and facilitate on-going academic debate
within the influential and growing field of Education Policy and Politics.
Books in the series include:
Academies and Free Schools in England
A History and Philosophy of The Gove Act
Adrian Hilton
Risk Society and School Educational Policy
Grant Rodwell
Neoliberalism and Market Forces in Education
Lessons from Sweden
Magnus Dahlstedt and Andreas Fejes
Reforming Principal Preparation at the State Level
Perspectives on Policy Reform from Illinois
Edited by Erika Hunt, Alicia Haller, Lisa Hood, and Maureen Kincaid
Theresa May, The Hostile Environment and Public
Pedagogies of Hate and Threat
The Case for a Future Without Borders
Mike Cole
Teaching History in a Neoliberal Age
Policy, Agency and Teacher Voice
Mary Woolley
Education, Liberal Democracy and Populism
Arguments from Plato, Locke, Rousseau and Mill
David Sullivan
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Research-in-Education-Policy-and-Politics/book-series/RREPP
Education, Liberal
Democracy and Populism
Arguments from Plato, Locke,
Rousseau and Mill
David Sullivan
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 David Sullivan
The right of David Sullivan to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-56929-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-70433-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
In memory of my parents, Frederick and Irene Sullivan

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 Populism, education and challenges to liberal
order: the crisis of democracy 8
2 Plato: two philosophies of education? 31
3 John Locke: a liberal philosophy of education 44
4 Jean-Jacques Rousseau: education,
Emile and remaking society 70
5 John Stuart Mill: education and liberty 103
6 Education in democratic societies 123
Bibliography 149
Index 157
Acknowledgements
I have benefited greatly from conversations about philosophy, politics and
education with colleagues and students over many years. I would particularly
like to thank Sheila Hughes, Dr Neil Evans, Professor Howard Williams,
Gwynn Mathews, Dr Anne-Marie Smith, Dr Jean Ware, Tony Elliott, Tim
Jepson, Dr Shirley Egley and Ian McGreggor-Brown.
I am very grateful to the editorial team at Routledge for their friendly advice
and proficiency. Chloe Barnes steered the book through its initial development
while Emilie Coin and Swapnil Joshi have provided much guidance and support
in the later stages. I also wish to express my gratitude to Rebecca White for her
skilful copy-editing.
Very special thanks to Dr Lucy Huskinson, Eleanor Huskinson-Smith and
Ludo.
Introduction
On the 3rd December 2018, the Rector of the Central European University
(CEU) held a press conference to announce the decision to move the majority
of the University’s teaching and research from Budapest to Vienna.1 The reason
given was, to many in the Western media and academic community, dramatic
and shocking, though not unexpected. The CEU, an English language graduate
school with an international reputation for the excellence of its teaching and
research in the Social Sciences has a strongly liberal and cosmopolitan ethos.
The Rector, Michael Ignatieff, claimed that the populist Hungarian government
led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had sought to undermine academic
freedom in Hungary and had particularly targeted the CEU because its liberal
values were perceived as a threat to the government’s populist policies.
Many commentators believe this dispute is of great importance because it
epitomises the conflict between the established liberal principles which have
dominated discussion of European and North American politics and education
policy since the end of the Cold War and the rapidly growing challenge to
these principles by populists. ‘… [F]or much of the past two years,’ Franklin
Foer writes, in the June 2019 edition of The Atlantic (Foer 2019),
CEU has been the barricades of a civilizational struggle, where liberalism
would mount a defense against right-wing populism. The fate of the
university was a test of whether liberalism had the tactical savvy and emo-
tional fortitude to beat back its new ideological foe.
Any suggestion that the clash between the CEU and the Hungarian govern-
ment is merely a disagreement over local educational arrangements misrepre-
sents the manner in which politics and education are deeply intertwined.
In modern societies of any sophistication and complexity a certain level of
education is required for society and the economy to function and to help
develop and sustain social cohesion and stability. This is well understood in
democratic societies, whose governments regularly stress their commitment to
the ideals of an education system which encourages a shared social identity.
What differentiates liberal democratic societies, such as the United States and
the United Kingdom, from illiberal societies such as China, which has invested
particularly heavily in developing a sophisticated higher education system, is the