Universities as Democratic Spaces: Institutional Responses to Campus Protest in Sweden
Universities are expected to protect open debate and to keep their campuses safe, and protests force them to weigh the two against each other. Yet we know remarkably little about how those decisions are actually made. This project builds the first systematic record of protest responses across all Swedish higher education institutions since 2010, and identifies what drives the variation between them.
Details
- Period: 2026-07-01 – 2027-12-31
- Budget: 607,000 SEK
- Funder: Forskningsprogrammet för demokrati och högre utbildning, Uppsala Universitet
Beskrivning
Campus protests constitute a key form of democratic self-expression, through which students articulate political claims, challenge authority, and seek to influence institutional and societal
developments. At the same time, universities are complex organisations that operate at the intersection of academic freedom, public authority, legal regulation, and managerial
governance. Universities must promote and protect democratic practices and open discussion, while simultaneously guaranteeing the safety of students and employees. How universities
respond to campus protests (e.g., demonstrations, occupations, sit-ins, symbolic walkouts) is therefore not only an organisational matter but also has significant democratic implications,
as these responses structure students’ opportunities for political participation, voice, and dissent within higher education institutions.
This project studies how Swedish universities respond to various campus protests and how university governance styles shape these responses. Empirically, we conduct a quantitative analysis of institutional reactions to protests that have occurred on the premises (campus) of all Swedish higher education institutions since 2010, and assess which factors determine the varying outcomes.
Project leader Katrin Uba:
Every time a university decides how to handle a protest, it is teaching students something about democracy, whether it intends to or not. We are the first to look systematically at what Swedish universities have been teaching.