SYMPOSIUM

open access: nothing much new
(or very little, anyway)
terrell carver
School of Sociology, Politics & International Studies, University of Bristol, 11 Priory
Road, Bristol BS8 1TU, UK
E-mail: t.carver@bristol.ac.uk

doi:10.1057/eps.2015.86; published online 15 January 2016

Abstract
Open Access has been around for many years. The only new developments
of pressing interest are primarily related to UK university and research
management bureaucracies. It is unlikely that the laws of copyright – which
protect academic and other authors in various ways – will disappear, and
certainly not overnight. Commercial publishers will find a business model
that sustains them, and experimentation in novel forms of information
dissemination will continue. Current rights in intellectual property are of
course subject to critique and change, but internet access to information
has not and will not suddenly dissolve the basic economics of information
production and consumption.

Keywords open access; publishing; copyright

The online version of this article is available Open Access

I
t is of course important to get on
board with the latest, and be up to
date with the new. It is even impor-

tant of course to anticipate change, and
get ahead of the game. Being behind
the curve is nowhere to be, of course.
Hence the flurry of meetings, papers,
day-long (even two-day) workshops,
open fora, seminars, roundtables, brief-
ings, draft procedures, proposed mech-
anisms, information sources, blogs and
posts, publicity, news stories and gen-
eral twitter-storms of interest in – ‘Open
Access’ (OA).

However, it might just be a good idea to
step back (600 years, if necessary) and
get a grip on this. It might also be a good
idea to turn on a cold shower and get
under it. The reason for this counter-
move is political in the broad sense. While
there may not (or perhaps may) be con-
spiracies ‘out there’, there are certainly
vested interests at work, and most prob-
ably unholy alliances and strange bedfel-
lows. But people, such as ourselves in
political science, are ‘coming from’ differ-
ent places, because they are located dif-
ferently. They have different ambitions,

european political science: 15 2016

(183–190) & 2016 European Consortium for Political Research. 1680-4333/16 www.palgrave-journals.com/eps

183

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/eps


perceptions and reactions. It is not ‘one
world’, and we are not ‘all in it together’.
The UK is not – as was hyped – going to
lead the world in an OA crusade.
Sometimes, like Christopher Columbus,

you can get lucky by sailing in the wrong
direction. But it does not happen often,
and – given the two-years or so since the
publication of the ‘Finch Report’ (Working
Group on Expanding Access, 2012) – we
can afford a backward glance and then
consider the way forward, which, in the
case of the UK, is something of a U-turn.
We in global political science now have the
benefit of hindsight, and would do well to
get an overview. But where do we start?
Even to mention the (now dreaded)

words ‘Finch Report’ is to contextualise
Open Access to very particular aspects of
UK politics, very particular ministerial
(and other) projects, and very particular
responses and ramifications. The over-
view analysis below argues that there
are, possibly, opportunities and signifi-
cant changes arising through Open Access
for the world at large, but that threats (to
various more or less valuable interests
and practices, particularly in academia)
are so far confined to the UK (and indeed
possibly to some sections and sectors of
it), and rather unlikely to leak out else-
where. If you are a UK-based academic,
you should be on your guard, even if you
are also pro-OA – and on your charger.
If you are otherwise or elsewhere, chill out
and put it on the backburner. The world is
always changing.

IN THE BEGINNING …

Instead of starting with Project Guten-
berg, let’s start with the guy himself and
his press. This is the model of self-pub-
lication in the machine-age, that is, say
what you want, get a medium, get it out
there. Maybe you make money if you
want, but anyway you have incurred some
costs, if only your time, opportunity costs,

and maybe some overheads (you have to
eat and live, after all). Since then ‘we’
(now mostly the whole world population)
have been living in various zones of legal
and other authoritative modes of restric-
tion on ‘speech’, but also various protec-
tions of authorship rights and intellectual
property. The latter of course may be
disregarded by you; if you don’t care who
uses your work for whatever purpose,
then no one else does, either. Where there
is ‘free speech’, there is ‘free publication’,
in the sense that you can say what you like
in a medium you can afford (even ‘Jesus
saves’ on the street corner costs some-
body something), provided that you stay
within the criminal law and don’t incur civil
liabilities (or pose a security threat).

Posting anything on the internet isn’t
really any different, provided you can get
a digital device and some server-space,
and others can find your words, pictures,
songs, verses, videos, animations and the
like. It’s easy to say that your materials
are ‘freely’ accessed, and of course your
readers and viewers may not be paying-
per-view, but they have their own costs
and overheads associated with enjoying
your labours. You could ask them for
donations, if you wanted; this is surpris-
ingly effective (and also works for ‘Jesus
saves’ on the street corner). If you care
about the use, re-use and attribution of
authorship to your work, don’t worry. It’s
still yours, because you’ve tacitly asserted
your rights (as they may be locally
defined), and if you want to get a lawyer
to chase infringers and miscreants, then
that’s just fine if you pay their bill, so ‘good
night and good luck’.

However, if you want to cover your costs
and maybe make a profit, then you can
set up a shop (of some sort), find paying
customers, and attempt to collect the

‘It might also be a good
idea to turn on a cold

shower and get under it’.

european political science: 15 2016 open access184



money safe from banditry. You can try to
do all this yourself, or use your capital (or
day-job) to hire others to help. (And you’ll
need an accountant and lots of time to do
paperwork.) But don’t worry, there are
any number of publishers – and pub-
lisher-type outfits – who are there to help,
quite freely, but probably not ‘for free’,
that is, gratis. And they will probably want
to stay in business by making more
money than you do.
So let’s be clear. If you want to self-

publish and self-market, with or without
payment or profit, then go right ahead.
However, if you want to get some help
with producing and marketing your work,
then it is there to be had. If you can get
good help for nothing, then great! But
famously you get what you pay for, and
your only redress if you don’t like a gratis
service is moral suasion and going else-
where. However, if you sign a contract
with a publisher (even religious ones, as
a rule, miracles being past their sell-by
dates), then there will be rights and duties
on either side. You can judge the terms,
and then sign or not, maybe go else-
where, or revert to self-publication and
see how you do. You may or may not like
any given publisher’s terms, personnel,
business model, tax arrangements, loca-
tion, work practices or balance sheet. But
there are lots to choose from.
Publishers are not all the same, and you

can always get an agent (for a cut) and
see how you do ‘out there’ on the market
as an author. Academic work is no excep-
tion. Anyone who thinks that universities,
their employees and products are in a
‘zone of exception’ away from commercial
relations should look again. Learned
societies, charitable foundations and the
like – the same applies. Many govern-
ments in recent years have created ‘hived
off’ agencies which make things (e.g.,
maps), publish things (e.g., guidebooks),
and do things (e.g., maintain roads and
run railway stations), and these are
‘outfits’ which, shall we say, operate in

something like a profit-and-loss environ-
ment and reporting structure, even
sometimes to taxpayer-shareholders.
I mention this because the word
‘taxpayer’ arises in the discussion below,
and there are considerable anti-commer-
cial sentiments in (what remains of) the
public sector and academia generally
(however it is organised). Being anti-
commercial is fine, maybe noble; but
being in a zone of illusion is dangerous.
I find it intriguing that the previously
commonplace and banal concept ‘price’
has – in propaganda-speak – suddenly
become a ‘paywall’.

WHAT IS THE ‘OPEN’ IN
OPEN ACCESS?

The overview above has sketched out a
very broad picture of where ‘we’ (globally)
are, and has left aside any instant critique
or defence relating to the various interest-
ing boundary lines involved: public/pri-
vate, academic/commercial, production/
consumption, author/reader, gratis/priced
and the like. Continuing the binary theme,
I contend that OA as a political project has
two very broad strands:

● An anarchist/libertarian argument for
freedom to access and use ‘information’
independent of authorial property rights,
particularly as licensed to publishers;
this ‘free’ access is made visible in var-
ious internet repository arrangements
where there is no charge per view or
restriction on use.

● A public accountability argument relat-
ing to academic research and taxpayer
funding for universities and the like, but

‘If you want to self-
publish and self-market,
with or without payment

or profit, then go right
ahead’.

terrell carver european political science: 15 2016 185



also to taxpayer funding of libraries
which make major subscription pay-
ments to publishers, particularly for
research journals.

There is no reason why these political
projects cannot exist (or co-exist) most
anywhere. However, in relation to the
second strand, there are very particular
circumstances that many UK-based aca-
demics see as a major change, and some
perceive as a threat or inversely as an
opportunity. Hence it is important to rea-
lise that the situation of academics – and
their perceptions as well as those of their
managers and policy-setters – will vary,
and outside the UK will very likely be at
variance with UK fears and hopes.
The first – anarchist/libertarian – pro-

ject arises as out-of-copyright materials
are made accessible gratis for those with
internet connections, hardware, software,
skills and interests. It is of course an
interesting question how this productive
activity is funded, who is paying, and
where this enterprise is headed. Your
‘free’ access will probably be subject to
advertising pop-ups, commercial infor-
mation aggregation and no doubt security
surveillance of certain kinds, legal, consti-
tutional or otherwise. It is important to
note, however, that there is a something
of an illusion at work here – perhaps ‘the
illusion of the epoch’, as Marx and Engels
put it – that the internet is a ‘realm of
freedom’ where you get what you want as
a consumer for nothing, but then leave
aside the more difficult questions – often
deliberately obscured – as to who is pay-
ing for the services and products involved
in the first place.
The second – public accountability/tax-

payer funding – is somewhat more com-
plicated and less easily generalisable. But
it relies on even more powerful ideological
sloganising (rather than just an illusion
that the internet tells us that goods and
services are produced for free and con-
sumed for free – which as a reality even

Marx and Engels thought was some
way off). Amidst the commissioned
reports, ministerial statements, press
releases, consultative documents, parlia-
mentary testimony and the like, I discern
the following three contentions:

1. Information should be freely available.
2. Publishers make too much profit.
3. Taxpayers should not pay twice.

Politicians can be forgiven (well perhaps,
anyway it’s their job) for sloganising with
sound-bytes and half-truths, headline-
grabbers and crowd-pleasers, crypto-prin-
ciples and claims that do not stand up to
scrutiny and reason. However, academics
– and their manager and paymasters –
possibly have less excuse. I take these
three slogans in turn:

SLOGAN 1. INFORMATION SHOULD
BE FREELY AVAILABLE

Information (whatever that is) is some-
times available gratis (e.g., ‘Jesus saves’,
free newspapers, flysheets, advertising
‘alerts’ etc.), but – as explained at the
outset – there are costs associated with
its production. Cost of production, of
course, is not a sure guide to value –
whether of exchange or use (another nod
to Marx). Nonetheless goods and services
may arrive ‘freely’, but their production is
anything but. The perception that produc-
tion happens ‘freely’ is related to the
illusion of the internet, mentioned above.
Often debates in this area evolve
into ‘geeky’, alphabetical disputations
on licensing issues (CC-BY-NC-ND) and
‘Creative Commons’ use and abuse,
aspiration and enforcement. While
undoubtedly interesting and germane,
this kind of discussion turns on accepting
OA premises in the first place, and buying
into the idea that content-producers
just make things and ‘put them up’ for
nothing, and that’s that.

european political science: 15 2016 open access186



SLOGAN 2. PUBLISHERS MAKE TOO
MUCH PROFIT

Excessive profit and tax avoidance are both
in the news, the latter on a rather firmer
legal and political basis than the former, but
even so, there are issues. Quite how much
profit is excessive, though, is hard to deter-
mine against even political criteria. Most
parties defend commercial success as
essential to national interests in the first
instance, or at least economic success is
acknowledged as a hugely important resi-
dual. Market regulation works – as well as it
does – against the tendency of markets to
monopoly, so, in so far as ‘excessive’ profits
arise from an unwarranted monopoly, then
we know what to do (or say we do). Other-
wise profits ‘go to town’ unless and until
competitors challenge this position and
consumers get a better deal (or that’s
the theory, anyway). Starbucks was not
allowed to monopolise espresso coffee,
and competitors arose. McDonald’s never
monopolised hamburgers – so end of story.
So where are the excessive profits in

publishing, and who has an unwarranted
monopoly? Academic journal publishers
have proliferated journals, and publishers
themselves have proliferated. Global mar-
kets for research journals have expanded
even more. Possibly there is a problem
with monopoly here, but it is only one that
academic ‘journal ranking’ creates (and for
which certain publishers are doubtless
grateful). But then academics have only
themselves to blame.
Journal publishing is an international

industry, and many of its product-provi-
ders work for them for nothing (or nearly
nothing), for example, authors, reviewers,
editors (who might get expenses), and the
like. We academics could demand pay-
ment and withdraw our labour if payment
were not forthcoming. We could put the
publishers out of business (or that sector
of their business, anyway), and do all the
production work ourselves! Well, fine,
though it will be a lot of extra work for
no pay at all. As with any competitive,

commercial and commoditised set of
arrangements, there is a huge amount of
room for negotiation and ‘wiggling’ in all
directions, particularly push-pull. That is
what markets (more or less) allow. But
then we are back to the difficulties and
hazards of self-publishing.

What is largely missing from this situa-
tion so far is consumer-resistance, for
example, from those who manage library
budgets and simply pay up what publish-
ers ask. Thus they fail to negotiate (or fail
to negotiate hard enough) with suppliers
to get a better deal. Suppliers understand
this language; that is what sales depart-
ments do. But – to my knowledge – not
that many librarians, individually or col-
lectively, ring them up and threaten to
cancel. Instead, they go back to univer-
sity and similar institutional managers
with cuts and cancellations. There are of
course notable exceptions to this, and
some good results, including joint action
to get economies of scale (and clout). But
anecdotally I am also told that within
academic institutions the monitoring of
duplicate and inefficient subscription pat-
terns can leave much to be desired. Aca-
demics may of course be fairly happy with
this, given that they want secure (if dimin-
ishing) supplies, or demand trade-off cuts
elsewhere from others – or possibly
engage in income generation through
entrepreneurial activities (which takes us
into other areas).

Perhaps the major international journal
publishers are exemplars of greedy capi-
talist indifference to human needs and
talents, and perhaps they should be
taken down for that reason. But then if
that is the project, I would respectfully

‘So where are the
excessive profits in

publishing, and who has
an unwarranted

monopoly?’

terrell carver european political science: 15 2016 187



suggest starting elsewhere (maybe arms
dealers?).

SLOGAN 3. TAXPAYERS SHOULD
NOT PAY TWICE

Taxpayers paying once or twice is the
easiest illogicality to dispose of. Many citi-
zens are not taxpayers. Many taxpayers
pay for things they will never have access
to, gratis or otherwise (e.g., nuclear weap-
ons, defence installations, security agen-
cies etc.). Many taxpayers pay for things
that they might use, but never do (e.g.,
railways, airports, motorways etc.). Many
taxpayers pay again for things they have
paid for once already (e.g., railway jour-
neys, national monument visits, road and
bridge tolls etc.). Many taxpayers pay
further taxes to use things that they have
already been taxed for (e.g., airport usage
taxes per flight). It is of course interesting
– if tedious – to unpick the connec-
tions between, say, UK taxation, univer-
sity funding, academic teaching/research,
journal subscriptions, research grants and
the like. But let’s simply leave that aside as
a conundrum.

BACK IN THE UK

Here is where the very particular mix of
UK threats and opportunities kicks in.
UK research, done by academics at uni-
versities (and the like), is regularly
assessed for ‘quality’, and the relevant
agency has announced plans to require
OA (in some form or other) as a condition
of eligibility for peer-review of a ‘pub-
lished’ item. This is hugely significant to
UK-based academics and to their career-
concerns (and to the similar concerns of
their research managers). It is of zero
concern to those outside this system.
There are other national university sys-

tems of research quality assessment
operating in other countries, where so far
the kind of stringency announced initially

in the UK isn’t really taking off. It might,
but it isn’t. In any case, the UK agency
involved is backpedalling somewhat from
its original position (and hence the politi-
cal ambitions involved seem to be moder-
ating, i.e., the minister has moved on).
Possibly someone noticed that a blanket-
restriction on what can be submitted for
quality-assessment would diminish –
rather than enhance – the reputation of
the whole exercise within and outside
the UK. If you are not surveying a sample
of all ‘published’ research, but only a
rather arbitrarily filtered slice of it, then
the comprehensiveness of the whole
exercise is cast into doubt.

Moreover the UK research councils have
announced a policy that OA (in some
form) would be required in the ‘outputs’
of the research projects that they fund
(and the funds are largely derived from
public sources). And some private or
charitable funders have for some time
had similar requirements. Thus UK
researchers can be hit both ways, via
research quality assessment, and via con-
ditions attached to grants that affect how
and where their work is disseminated.

Were the publishers upset by these
moves? Oddly not. A requirement that
articles from UK-based (or prospective
UK-based) authors will only go into a
journal, only to go out again gratis, seems
to work against their subscription model.
Why should university or other librarians
pay a subscription for research informa-
tion that anyone anywhere (academic,
taxpayer or otherwise) can access gratis
(given appropriate equipment and human
capital)? Actually many publishers have
had OA in place for years, and contrac-
tually it was always a potential, anyway. If
you license your work for a publisher to
exploit (and protect), and they produce
the intellectual product (at a cost to
them), then if you want out of the deal,
and wish to make the product available
gratis to the world, make the publisher an
offer. Or if you don’t like their price to buy

european political science: 15 2016 open access188



the rights back, complain and say you’ll go
elsewhere next time. Or don’t sign in the
first place. If your funder requires OA in
this way, then make sure you get it funded
by them in your grant. And complain if
they renege by cutting your budget.
It may not be nice, but that’s how it works.
Publishers were rather unworried

because – in general – UK authors and
income are significant, but not deter-
mining for their business models. They
sell journals all over the world, including
a number of all-OA ones now. These all-
OA journals do not have a free-produc-
tion/free-consumption business model –
no one does. For an OA journal (so-
called) someone pays production costs
(usually the author), so that you the
consumer can access the content gratis.
Moreover, publishers have responded to
the OA-threat (really a publicity threat,
rather than an economic threat) by mak-
ing all kinds of content free-to-view – old
content, special content, ancillary con-
tent, database content – and they are
constantly working on pricing, packages
and global sales. Free offers/limited
period, buy-one-get-one-free, whatever.
And – for those who have followed this
logic closely – since funded OA has come
in the UK, publishers have had an oppor-
tunity to collect twice for the same work!
Journal cancellations are not cascading in
because of OA in the UK; payments by
authors, funders and universities (via the
funding agency) are flowing into publish-
ers’ coffers as well. Maybe this is unstable
and unsustainable, but then so is every-
thing (or nearly everything) in a competi-
tive market situation. However, so far

OA has produced a situation that benefits
publishers, who are doing better than
ever.

A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING
ACADEMIA

In sum, what is threatening and shocking
is not OA, even in the UK. What is threa-
tening and shocking is the reaction in UK-
academia to a plausible-sounding – but
really not very important – ministerial
‘initiative’. Too many people in the UK
were far too willing to jump on board a
bureaucratically piloted ship, for the sheer
joy of being on such an exciting cruise,
advertised with such exciting slogans.
However, two years on, even the propo-
nents – both bureaucratic and overtly
political – have turned the ship around
somewhat, and in any case the party-
streamers have wilted. More people in
the UK should have kept their feet on the
ground, and stood their ground, painful as
it might have been at the time. The
authoritarians have backed off, but prob-
ably not because they encountered that
much resistance. Probably they are find-
ing other areas of interest … so watch out,
UK academics!

What is particular about the UK is the
interlocking system of public university
funding (and nearly all universities are
‘in the system’), and its susceptibility to
ministerial initiatives and bureaucratic
control by fiat. Sadly, complicity, gullibility
and misplaced enthusiasm are probably
everywhere. That is the spectre haunting
global academia – not OA.

Reference

Working Group on Expanding Access. (2012) ‘Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to
expand access to research publications: Report of the Working Group on Expanding Access’,
18 June 2012, available at: http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Finch-
Group-report-FINAL-VERSION.pdf, accessed 17 November 2014.

terrell carver european political science: 15 2016 189

http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Finch-Group-report-FINAL-VERSION.pdf
http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Finch-Group-report-FINAL-VERSION.pdf


About the Author

Terrell Carver is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol, UK, and a Fellow of the
Academy of Social Sciences, publishing widely on Marx, Engels and Marxism, and sex, gender
and sexuality. He has held academic appointments in the UK since 1974 and served on the
executive committees of the Political Studies Association of the UK and the International
Political Science Association, where he is currently Vice-President for Europe.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
License. The images or other third party material in this article are

included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the
credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users
will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To
view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

european political science: 15 2016 open access190

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

	open access: nothing much new (or very little, anyway)
	IN THE BEGINNING …
	WHAT IS THE ‘OPEN’ IN OPEN ACCESS?
	SLOGAN 1. INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREELY AVAILABLE
	SLOGAN 2. PUBLISHERS MAKE TOO MUCH PROFIT
	SLOGAN 3. TAXPAYERS SHOULD NOT PAY TWICE

	BACK IN THE UK
	A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING ACADEMIA
	Note
	References