The Conservative Plagiarism Pandemic

I note with grim satisfaction that yet another conservative politician is facing allegations of having plagiarized in his doctoral disseration. This time it's Bernd Althusmann (g), member of the Christian Democratic Union center-right party. Ironically, he is also current chairman of the conference of education ministers, an influential working group of state education ministers that is responsible for maintaining standards of quality in the educational system.

I use the word satisfaction advisedly -- not because I feel Schadenfreude about this particular guy coming into the crosshairs, but because it's a good thing for Germany to be having this dissertation crisis. There are four kinds of university systems in the world, according to my experience:

First, those which aren't well-organized enough to confer doctoral titles.

Second, those who do confer doctoral titles, but in which much of the work is derivative, the process is often rigged or plagued with cheating, and nobody cares.

Third those who do confer doctoral titles, but in which much of the work is derivative, the process is often rigged or plagued with cheating, people do care and there are consequences.

Fourth and finally, those systems in which cheating or favoritism is rare, and thus virtually all doctoral titles really mean something.

For quite a while, Germany's system was, sad to say, in the second group of countries. Mechanisms for genuine accountability were pretty much nonexistent, and it was well-known that certain professors and universities would grant doctoral titles without too much fuss and bother about standards. Given Germany's obsession with titles, it was inevitable that hundreds of people would slap together piss-poor dissertations just to get the precious two letters, which are considered so important in Germany that they officially become part of your legal name (g).

Of course, the widespread toleration of third-rate career-enhancement dissertations debased the currency of the German doctoral title, punishing the majority of scholars who followed the rules and produced interesting -- or at least their own -- work. Yet the problem, as it is so often in Germany, was accountability. In order to clean out the Augean stables of crap dissertations, you might actually have to enforce rules and punish wrongdoers, which is hard to do in a culture, like Germany's, that enforces rigid insider/outsider distinctions and lets insiders get away with an awful lot of laziness and underhanded dealing.

This latest crop of revelations seems to be changing that. Universities are finally, belatedly beginning to put in force checks and sanctions for doctoral plagiarism, although it remains to be seen exactly how stringently they'll be enforced. Germany is slowly moving into the third category, and when that happens, it may be only a matter of time before it reaches stage four. The boil must be lanced! Reaching stage four also involves, not incidentally, reducing the number of dissertations handed out by weeding out the pure careerists. I see this as a very good thing.

I have one other comment. So far, all the doctor-cheaters have been members of center-right parties. Is this just a coincidence, or does it have something to do with the mindset of the kind of people who would join these parties? Could it be that German conservative politicians are unusually subject to a combination of yearning for social distinction commingled with a superficial careerist mentality?

Comments

[Wenzel]

I think that the focus on titles is not only restricted to dissertations but can be generelazid to any other degree: My impression is that the higher the position is, the more likely it is that the person holding it will have a higher degree (especially in administration services, such as Ministries, Bundesanstalten ...). This means that ascend in career is dependend whether on the kind of diploma you have and not your real qualification. Following this idea, it is logic that a Dr. must be better qualified than a person with "just" a diploma. So the whole dr thing is just the "tip of the iceberg"

[frank]

(Sorry if it comes as a double posting, I think I didn't send it correctly)

About careerists in the german government:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesregierung_%28Deutschland%29

From 1949 till today 36,5% of all chancellors and ministers were lawyers. The current rightwinged givernment has 43,8%, the last leftwined had 18,8%.

Germany would be more funny if politicans actually think of their work as a duty to their people.

And here you can see how many doctors the german parties have, its a bit different than I thought, but still the rightwinged (black and yellow) have the most.

http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/180860/umfrage/anteil-der-doktoren-und-professoren-im-bundestag-nach-parteien/

[frank]

I agree with Alex, Germany is actually in group three. The problem is, that we germans love to claim we are in the fourth group and that's why I also feel deep satisfaction about the current development. We germans should stop to lie to ourselves. If there is a flawed system, we should maybe modify it. But changing things in germany is... hard...?

It's not that noone cared about the "cheating". This might appear that way because an estimated 150% of the german people defended Guttenberg, the first really prominent name in this series of incidents. But he was special, because he was very popular. There is a saying in germany, that love makes someone blind. Well...

Its not a coincidence that most or all of the cheaters come from rightwinged FDP and CDU. But for two reasons, not just for one.

First thing to know is, that there are different kinds of promotions. The first would be the one we all know, someone creates a real nice scientific work and gets his title. That usually works well in Germany. But since academic titles replace your genital size, especially if you are a manager or politician, career people tend to want one. Obviously they want one by any means. And that usually doesn't attract any attention, because they usually take simple or uninteresting topics for their works. They are scientifically not interesting. No one ever reads them, so why caring about the standards? Those are the cheap doctors. They usually are former students of the law, economics, politcs. The worst thing is, that those people don't care at all. Even if they get caught, they defend themselves with phrases like "I was not elected because of my academical title!" They don't care, because it's just a title to them. There was no effort to get this title, they did not fullfill a dream by getting one. They just got it like the got an expensive car to impress other people, it's for show and to have a better career.

And since the rightwinged parties are usually more businessrelated, lawyers and managertypes are the usual politicans for those parties, they have more doctors than everyone else. And of all those doctors, they will have a higher rate of cheaters since they are professional politicans. It's a profession, not a duty. Well... career people :)

Then again, its a bit unfair to just look on those numbers right now, because a good part of the german internet community, and obviously a large part of those people who check out politicans, are leftwinged. And its a very human thing to pick your enemies ;)

Means: I do believe that the rightwinged parties have more cheaters, but once all the "bad guys" are found, the community will pick new targets. And then the other parties will have their losses.

I don't like to say this, but germany is pretty corrupt.

[lukas]

Alex, "Baron" is not a bourgeois title. It's an aristocratic title, which appeals to the fawning lower classes, but to be a part of the bourgeois elite, you need an academic degree.

[Martin]

I would like to add to Lukas and the other Alex that there is the concept "der Links-Intellektuelle" (left-winged intellectual) that doesn't have a right-wing counterpart. The right wing is supposed to be more oriented on values. But in case of titels it seems it is more on appearances than on values.

Also I think that the mindset of people spending time to hunt for plagiarism is also rather left winged, although this might change.

Martin

[Alex (the other one)]

I agree with Lukas. It's not a coincidence that plagiarism and crappy theses are so prevalent in CDU/CSU and FDP. The conservative parties are bourgeois enough to need a kind of title as social distinction. The only innovation is that a "Baron" was not enough ...

[FJM]

@15m: Of course, serious German academics (and yes, these people do exist) can easily distinguish the careerists from real doctoral candidates, i.e. those young people (not 40-year-old politicians) who actually intend to work in academia after completing their degree. But I think Andrew is right in saying that this is not enough. On the contrary, this is exactly what’s so depressing about the current situation. There simply shouldn’t be any career doctorates at all, full stop. Professionals in fields outside academia who really want to enhance their career chances can do an MBA or something of this sort. Plus, why do professors accept “external candidates” in the first place if they know that those usually produce nothing but rubbish? No, this system evidently needs an overhaul.

@Andrew: However, and to be fair, I think Germany was in category three, not two, even before the plagiarism scandal broke. If it had been in category two, Guttenberg would still be in office because, per definitionem, nobody would have cared. The cases of Guttenberg, Koch-Mehrin etc. demonstrate that people do care and that cheating has consequences, but that the folks in charge – even high-ranking professors and deans – are utterly deluded about the cause of the problem. They simply don’t want to acknowledge that it was a flawed system of recruiting and evaluating doctoral candidates that led to the disaster, not individual wrongdoing. I watched the Koch-Mehrin case particularly closely because, after all, it happened at my university, and I was baffled by the reactions of K-M’s supervisor (now an emeritus) and the current dean, who told the press (“Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung”, 18 June 2011) that
A) plagiarism-detection software was not yet around in 2000 when K-M’s thesis was handed in (which is wrong)
B) it shouldn’t be used anyway as there should be a state of trust between supervisor and candidate (why then, not between professors and candidates in written exams? Maybe candidates should be allowed to sit exams in their living rooms if only they promise not to look up the answers)
Summa summarum: I think Germany is in category three, but contrary to your hopes it won’t move anywhere near category four in our lifetime if German professors continue to be so naïve.

[Sebastian]

@Andrew:

the precious two letters, which are considered so important in Germany that they officially become part of your legal name (g).

That's not true, nor does Prof. Dr. Strack make that claim in his opinion piece for the Spiegel website, which you quoted. In fact, he correctly states and stresses the exact opposite. Here's what Strack actually writes:

Auch wenn das Kürzel "Dr." aus juristischer Sicht weder als Titel noch als Namenszusatz (wie das vormals adelige "zu" in "zu Guttenberg") gilt, haben die zwei Zeichen [...] enorme Vorteile. [...] wird die Anrede "Herr oder Frau Doktor" als Höflichkeitsgebot obligatorisch, die dann demjenigen allmählich das Gefühl gibt, der Doktor sei doch Teil des eigenen Namens.

And that on an occasion where standards of citation are at issue ...

[t5m]

Just for clarification: The doctorate is an acadamic degree but not a title. It is not part of the name -- albeit the myth is widespread. Yes, you can put it on your identity card (and business card and whatnot) but that's it.

I also believe that most academics in Germany can pretty easily distinguish career doctorates from real doctorates. The dissertations by Guttenberg et al are not taken seriously because they are bad and irrelevant to begin with.

[lukas]

In conservative bourgeois circles, the coupling between social distinction and educational credentials is especially tight. In the (wannabe-)working-class SPD or the (wannabe-)alternativ-egalitarian Greens, those precious two letters won't get you as far as in the centre-right parties.