The Incentives in Academic Journal Publishing in Colombia: New Approaches from the Theory of Academic Capitalism

This article analyzes two Colombian national research policies known as Quality of National Publications Policies. Drawing on a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the aim here is to analyze the characteristics of the academic capitalism regime in Colombia by focusing on how these national research policies promote, justify, normalize, and/or resist the academic capitalist regime and its neoliberal roots. Promotion is related to the actions established by the policies in order to introduce the academic capitalist regime. Justification is related to the rationale behind the policies and presents the reasons why the analyzed policies introduce the academic capitalist regime. Normalization considers the accepted worldview that include assumptions about the right, normal or desirable. In other words, it shows how the policies naturalize certain ideas derived from the academic capitalist regime and its neoliberal roots. Finally, resistance considers the rationale, actions, and assumptions related to knowledge and education as public goods and/or against to the academic capitalist regime. The findings show that the academic capitalist regime is reflected and accepted in these Colombian national research policies and extend the theory of academic capitalism by adding the commercial for-profit model of academic publishing as a new layer and essential component of the academic capitalist regime that generates prestige behavior among professors.