In this article, we examine the practices of academic resistance and the forms of silencing, obstruction, and suppression they encounter. The research material consists of interviews conducted in 2024 with academics (n = 36) identified as democracy activists at seven Finnish universities. The individuals we define as university activists have actively opposed and sought to remedy internal injustices at universities and defended the democratic self-governance of universities. By conceptualizing resistance and the actions that suppress it, we also structure the spaces for resistance at today's universities and its limits.

 According to several reports by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, university communities in Finland have experienced a decline in their influence in recent decades (Kohtamäki & Poutanen 2025). The higher education policy has sought to improve the cost-effectiveness and competitiveness of universities by streamlining administrative structures, centralizing power from the university community to university management, and tightening performance management. University communities have struggled with organizational changes and limited opportunities for participation, and have protested against the changes (Kallio et al. 2020; Poutanen et al 2022). A key point of contention has been the self-governance of universities, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, and its implementation in university practices.

In the research literature, the forms of resistance practiced by university community as well as the perceived obstacles to resistance, and the reasons for passivity have been analyzed in various ways (Anderson 2008; Kalfa et al. 2018; Poutanen et al. 2022; Nikkola & Tervasmäki 2022; Smidt et al. 2020). Studies have described negotiations between researchers, teachers, and middle management (among themselves and with others) about how visibly they dare to resist and what kinds of experiences and feelings this arouses in them and their immediate communities (e.g., Li & Li 2023; Suopajärvi 2024). The research literature has also highlighted a paradox: many university employees reject changes to their work and organizations, but still comply with the rules and practices that cause these changes (Alvesson & Spicer 2016; Kalfa et al. 2018; Rintamäki & Alvesson 2023). The literature on forms resistance emphasizes the micro level and often personal forms of everyday resistance related to the organization of work. However, examples of open resistance by university staff are rare in the research literature and often consist of individual case descriptions (e.g. Bowes-Catton et al. 2020; Nikkola & Tervasmäki 2022). 

The discontent and dissatisfaction of university communities has been widely described, but less attention has been paid to the practices used to suppress resistance among them. Researchers in other countries have shown how those who engage in resistance have been harassed or threatened, for example, with termination of employment and cuts in resources (e.g., Gagnon & Collinson 2017). Examinations of forms of resistance prevention, repression, and suppression can be found in general political research (e.g., Martin 2016), but no comprehensive presentation of this kind has been made in the university field prior to our study.

The scarcity of research literature mapping out diverse forms of resistance and describing practices of suppressing resistance among academics leads us to formulate the following research questions: What forms of resistance do the interviewees describe? What kinds of obstacles to influence and means of preventing resistance do the interviewees account? By answering these research questions, we also increase the understanding produced by previous research literature on the forms and practices of academic resistance in the Finnish context.

Our interview data (n=36) consists of Finnish academics considered university democracy activists from seven universities. In order for a person to be identified as an activist in the sense we mean, we required that their activities had been long-term and, at least within their university, widely recognized as statements and advocacy on behalf of university democracy. Since we sought to reach university staff with experience in university administration, the data emphasizes individuals with long careers – a clear majority (80%) of the interviewees had over 20 years of experience in university work. The majority of respondents (n = 29) were in career stages 3 (university lecturer, senior researcher) and 4 (professor, senior university lecturer, or research director). Three respondents were in career stage 2, and four were emeritus. The semi-structured interviews were conducted by one or two project researchers. The interviews lasted between 1 and 3 hours (average 1,7 hours). The interviews were transcribed and encoded with Atlas.ti in two iterative phases by the authors. In order to work through sizable interview transcripts, we first engaged in broader index-coding in the first phase, which was then reworked through a second round of closer analytical coding. Index codes reflected the broader topics of the interviews. As index coding captures large chunks of the text, this coding serves as a basis for data reduction, before applying a closer analytical reading and analysis of the coded subsections with more specific themes - coding data to pursue an answer to a specific research question (Deterding & Waters 2021: 715). Analytical coding focused on poorly perceived administrative activities (190 citations), legal issues (52), precariousness (65), and exclusion (from decision-making) (106). In addition, an open category was used in the coding (143 citations). Since emotional experiences were an essential part of resistance and its prevention, a separate code was added for them (156 citations), and the motivation for resistance (and its decline: 122 citations) was also included in the analysis. All these analytical codes related to the prevention of resistance were compiled for thematic content analysis and typification. Typology is a means of organizing data and a step in the process of theory formation. It is used to define the core elements that connect concrete examples (Deterding & Waters 2021, 730). Since there are few previous theories on university resistance, we are forming a new theory using data-driven typology.

In addition to structural criticism of higher education policy, our informants describe the emotional experiences aroused by resistance and repression. The interviewees also describe concrete examples of regulations that prevent democratic participation, as well as practices that have led to an atmosphere of fear, the suppression of resistance, and passivity among the majority of university staff. What kinds of means of preventing resistance do the interviewees describe? How does a managerialist university stifle resistance? What kinds of means of resistance do the interviewees describe, and what has successful resistance required? Based on the interview data, we outline how university democracy activists experience the rules and practices of management, administration, and organization as preventing or suppressing attempts to influence within the university. As a result of the study, we present a typology of resistance and suppression of resistance in contemporary Finnish universities. In this way, we structure the inability of universities to tolerate democratic participation and internal criticism, and we supplement the research literature with a description of the concrete practices of academic resistance and the means of preventing resistance, which have received little attention. The results of the study improve understanding of how resistance forms and is suppressed in managerial and competition-driven higher education systems in Europe and beyond.

Alvesson, A. & Spicer, A. (2016). (Un)Conditional surrender? Why do professionals willingly comply with managerialism. Journal of Organizational Change Management 29(1), .29-45, https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-11-2015-0221 Anderson, G. (2008). Mapping Academic Resistance in the Managerial University. Organization 15(2), 251–270. Bowes-Catton, H., Brewis, J., Clarke, C., Drake, D. H., Gilmour, A., & Penn, A. (2020). Talkin’ ’bout a revolution? From quiescence to resistance in the contemporary university. Management Learning 51(4), 378-397. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507620925633 Deterding, N. M., & Waters, M. C. (2021). Flexible coding of in-depth interviews: A twenty-first-century approach. Sociological Methods & Research, 50(2), 708–739. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124118799377 Gagnon, S. & Collinson, D. (2017). Resistance through difference: The co-constitution of dissent and inclusion. Organization Studies 38: 1253–1276. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616685362 Kalfa, S., Wilkinson, Adrian & Gollan, P. (2018). The Academic Game: Compliance and Resistance in Universities. Work, Employment and Society 32(2), 274-291. Kallio, T. J., Kallio, K.-M., & Blomberg, A. (2020). From professional bureaucracy to competitive bureaucracy – redefining universities’ organization principles, performance measurement criteria, and reason for being. Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management 17(1), 82–108. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRAM-10-2019-0111 Kohtamäki, V., & Poutanen, M. (2025). External university autonomy evaluations: the new autonomy ecology of Finnish universities. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2025.2470697 Li & Li. (2023). Masked Resistance in Neoliberal Academia: Academics’ Responses to the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 in Hong Kong. Higher Education Policy 36, 270–288. Nikkola, T. & Tervasmäki, T. (2022). Experiences of arbitrary management among Finnish academics in an era of academic capitalism. Journal of Education Policy 37(4), 548-568. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1854350 Poutanen, M., Tomperi, T., Kuusela, H., Kaleva, V. & Tervasmäki, T. (2022). From democracy to managerialism: foundation universities as the embodiment of Finnish university policies. Journal of Education Policy 37(3): 419-442. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1846080 Smidt T. B., Bondestam, F., Pétursdóttir, G. M. & Einarsdóttir, Þ. (2020) Expanding gendered sites of resistance in the neoliberal academy. European Journal of Higher Education 10(2), 115-129. Suopajärvi, T. (2024). Moving with affects in Finnish academia: Resistance practices of social science and humanities researchers and a possibility of change. European Journal of Cultural Studies 27(6) 1233–1248. Rintamäki, J. & Alvesson, M. (2023). Resisting Whilst Complying? A Case Study of a Power Struggle in a Business School Article. Academy of Management Learning & Education 22(2), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2020.0070