Does the Equal Opportunities Committee make democracy work (better) in academia?

Abstract

The democratization of organizations is studied in this article with reference to the university system. In recent years, Italian universities have followed the European trend in redesigning themselves as organizations attentive to performance, excellence, and achievement. This has resulted in the enhancement of mechanisms of ‘adverse selection' for women, both in career advancement and in access to decision-making positions. But compared to other European countries, Italian universities have lagged behind in policies to promote gender equality. However, they have for some time been endowed with bodies, the Equal Opportunities Committees (Comitati Unici di Garanzia, CUGs), established in order to reduce discrimination and to promote greater participation in the academic organization. The functioning of the CUGs, which varies greatly at local level, is linked to the possibility of benefiting from resources of various kinds. Research shows that the resources that central governance makes available to a CUG are important. So too are the relational networks in which the members of the CUG are involved and which increase their visibility, legitimacy, and motivation. The interaction between top-down and bottom-up resources furnishes an analytical framework useful for interpreting the variable effectiveness of the CUGs in the democratic quality of Italian universities. It also helps to conduct more detailed specification of some theoretical dimensions already brought to the attention of scholars in the perspective known as ‘fixing the organizations'.