Academic Neocolonialism: Clickbait and the Perils of Commercial Publishing
My colleagues Lisa Ann Richey , David Simon , Ilan Kapoor & Stefano Ponte with a timely guest post as the International Studies Association ’ s (#ISA2019) annual meeting kicks off in Toronto. The topic is once again the journal Third World Quarterly which is sponsoring the reception of ISA ’ s Global Development Section and the broader questions these discussions raise for higher education and academic publishing. In recent years, universities have been embroiled in debates about the appropriate ways to incorporate social justice concerns into teaching and research. From attempts to place hoax articles in academic journals in order to demonstrate biases in the editorial process to claims that campus activism impinges on free speech , these debates often suggest that radical and progressive politics are responsible for a decline in tolerance and academic standards. But the opposite is often true. Take, for example, “The Case for Colonialism,” an article published by Third World