Swedish Universities towards Self-Regulation: A New Look at Institutional Autonomy

Abstract

Swedish universities are required to change towards more effective self-regulation as the government has recently reduced state steering and devolved further responsibilities to them. In this paper, ‘self-regulation’ is related to the concept of ‘autonomy’, a concept which is analysed on the two dimensions of ‘purpose’ and ‘authority’, resulting in four models of state governance and consequently in a different ‘space of action’ for the institutions. However, in order to develop self-regulation, the space granted must also be used effectively to realise autonomy. Six Swedish higher education institutions are analysed concerning how they have used their new space of action and what restrictions they have met in their efforts for self-regulation.