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Abstract

Abstract In contemporary higher education studies, ‘politicization’ is frequently invoked when describing state-university tensions, yet the term often serves as a rhetorical device rather than an analytical tool. Drawing on scholarship in political science and sociology, we address this conceptual ambiguity by introducing four divergent approaches to defining and operationalizing ‘politicization’ in the field of higher education. We proceed to illustrate the usefulness of one of these, the Sheffield School, which approaches politicization as a deliberate governance strategy involving institutional, rule-based, and preference-shaping tactics. We apply it to the Israeli higher education system (2010–2025), a case historically characterized by strong ‘arm’s-length’ autonomy that is ostensibly facing state encroachment. Employing a predominantly qualitative approach and multiple methods (legislative analysis and elite interviews), supplemented by descriptive statistics based on Israel’s Council for Higher Education’s composition, we reveal a distinct trajectory of (re)politicization in recent years. The findings demonstrate how the state has eroded arm’s-length bodies by weaponizing ‘student rights’ legislation to intervene in academic autonomy and by engineering the regulator’s membership to marginalize research universities, perceived as overly liberal. We argue that politicization manifests as a purposive administrative process, often bipartisan and fueled by anti-elitist narratives. Our analysis offers a blueprint for detecting politicization of HE governance in democracies, particularly those facing neo-nationalist pressures.