“The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions”: Quality Assurance as a Social Defence against Anxiety†

The paper spells out the conscious and unconscious social anxieties which drive the Quality Assurance (QA) process, particularly in the field of higher education (HE). It is argued that whatever the rational and conscious aims of such programmes there are deeply irrational processes at work, chief amongst which is the desire not to be made uncomfortable. In other words, Quality Assurance regimes are alternatives to thinking through difficult and anxiety provoking issues to do with failed dependency and failure to trust and are a form of manic1 defence against the losses and difficulties engendered by the need to control social risk in an era of quasi-markets and “markets” in human service organisations. The psychic and political costs of the QA process are considered and it is argued that to the extent that universities are internally colonised by quality assurance regimes they collude in a defensive and ultimately counter-productive process. The paper draws on literature from psychoanalysis, particularly from the work of Klein, Menzies-Lyth and Bion, and from critical accounts of Corporate Governance and New Public Management.