The 1974 Instrument of Government and state higer education institutions: Academic freedom with weak guardrails
In an international comparison, Sweden’s public higher education institutions are characterised by their form of operation, as they are formally administrative authorities. An administrative authority under the government is subordinate to the government and is normally tasked with carrying out the tasks decided by the Riksdag and the government, which are communicated via regulations, instructions to authorities, letters of appropriation and specific assignments. It is easy to see that the stated relationship of obedience to the government does not sit well with the idea of universities and colleges being free from politics and the market. In their current form of operation, Swedish state universities are thus wide open to political control, and do not enjoy the institutional protection that can now be claimed within the framework of EU legislation. This contribution analyses how it is that the absolute majority of Swedish higher education institutions have ended up in the category of state administrative authorities. This in many ways remarkable fact is never the subject of proper discussion – not even when the new Instrument of Government was introduced in 1974, the consequence of which was that the state universities were de facto codified as administrative authorities. The overarch-ing theme of the contribution is thus the lack of safeguards for academic freedom in the Swedish constitution, and the more precise aim is to describe the creeping ‘agencification process’ that has taken place with the state higher education institutions during the 20th century up to the present day. In this process, the introduction of the 1974 Instrument of Government has played a central role.