The bulk of research on academic rankings is policy-oriented, preoccupied with ‘best practices’, and seems incapable of transcending the normative discourse of ‘governance’. To understand, engage, and properly critique the operation of power in academic rankings, the rankings discourse needs to escape the gravity of ‘police science’ and embrace a properly political science of ranking. More specifically, the article identifies three pillars of the extant research from which a departure would be critically fruitful – positivism, managerialism, institutionalism – and then goes on to outline three aspects of rankings that a critical political analysis should explore, integrate, and develop into future research from the discourses of critical theory – arkhè, dispositif, and dialectik.

关于学术排名的大量研究都是以政策为导向的，专注于“最佳实践”，并且似乎无法超越“治理”的规范性论述。为了理解，参与和适当地批评学术排名中的权力运作，排名话语需要摆脱“警察科学”的严重性，并接受适当的政治排名科学。更具体地说，本文确定了现有研究的三个支柱，从这些支柱中可以得出至关重要的偏离：实证主义，管理主义，制度主义–然后继续概述排名的三个方面，批判性政治分析应从批判理论的论述中探索，整合并发展到未来的研究中–arkhè，dispositif和方言。