engleski

(Cyber) Bullying by Faceless Bureaucracy in Research Funding: A Case Study from the Balkans

The paper’s specific research deals with issues such as: - How (in)appropriate are funding priorities, funding rules, reporting and control mechanisms of public research funding? - At what point, how and why does ordinary public project administration turn into faceless bureaucracy? - What happens when such faceless bureaucracy starts (cyber) bullying its clients, the project managers, instead of assisting them in efficiently managing public research funds? - Would such (cyber) bullying by faceless bureaucracy constitute a unique type of (cyber) bullying, and should it therefore be studied as a manifestation of (cyber) harassment? - If yes, should such manifestation of (cyber) harassment be scientifically investigated within the framework of criminological violence research? After having addressed these questions on a conceptual level, the paper presents a criminological case study on (cyber) bullying by faceless bureaucracy from the Balkans. The case study itself follows two lines of research. First, it deals with the issue of capturing and measuring cyber bullying by faceless bureaucracy in the sector of public research funding, termed as “bureaucratic cybullying”, while presenting findings from an exploratory victimisation survey conducted among project managers whose research is (co)founded by the Croatian Science Foundation. Second, the case study provides a first analytical overview of the survey’s implications and the impact these have so far had on the Croatian and European research community. In addition to that, it will be argued that Croatia’s failure to adopt appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures towards the full realisation of academic freedom in the domain of public research funding constitutes a breach of its obligation to ensure academic freedom by actively creating, establishing and maintain the conditions for its optimal realisation. This will not only be based on an overall analysis of the relevant normative, judicial and administrative vacuums in Croatia, but also be discussed within the framework of the actual case study.

cyberbullying ; cyber harassment ; cyber violence ; criminal tycoonisation ; research funding

Extended version available on-line https://www.bib.irb.hr/1054936