Uppsala University Call for Abstracts: Academic Actors under Autocratization
Sebastian Zhao
That the current world order—marked by democratic backsliding, political polarization and a growing presence of autocratic leaders—creates pressures on the academy is evident. To date, researchers have primarily focused on the effects of these pressures on academic freedom, and the university’s role in democratic societies. Less attention is paid to how the relationship between democracy and academia functions, under what conditions it comes under strain, and what academic actors themselves do to take part in, or counteract, what can be termed an autocratic turn. The conference Academic Actors under Autocratization explores this relationship. The focus is on academic actors—universities, scholars and students—and their significance in the protection and promotion of democracy: What are their roles and their abilities, if any, to act, react, and counteract tendencies for democratic backsliding?
Threats to academia and its actors under increasing autocratization cannot be understood simply in relation to issues of academic freedom, nor as subjects of erratic autocratic leaders attempting to curb their enemies. The conference will examine how the relationship between democracy and universities actually functions in times of democratic backsliding.
Keynotes
Adrian Daub, J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Stanford University. Author of The Cancel Culture Panic: How an American Obsession Went Global (Stanford University Press, 2024).
More keynote speakers to be announced soon.
Themes
The conference will focus on a set of related questions pertaining to the role of different actor groups in academia, as well as on the dynamic processes that may play out between these. Below we provide some examples of questions for each theme:
What are the core missions of democracies and universities respectively, and do they overlap? If so, how? Are these missions challenged by autocratization?
What are the legal foundations for, and constraints of, the role of universities and their
actors (students/researchers) in supporting democracy?
To what extent are universities contributing to, or counteracting, autocratic developments?
To what extent are researchers expected to protect and promote democracy under conditions of autocratization – and by whom—and what countervailing forces do they face?
How do teachers navigate pluralism and authoritarian tendencies in the classroom,
balancing demands for inclusion with defending democratic norms when needed?
How are students represented and problematized in literature and debates on learning
during critical junctures, historically and today?
How do students in different countries themselves experience their agency, describe,
interpret, and exercise their influence, and how do these experiences shape their
understanding of their own role during de-democratization?
How is student agency framed in public discourse, and when is student activism
perceived as threatening or promoting democratic values?
Under what political, institutional, and legal conditions do universities, scholars, and
students converge or diverge in their response to autocratic encroachments?
The list of questions are only examples, and many more questions could be relevant for the overarching theme. We encourage empirical as well as theoretical papers exploring questions relating to academic actors and actorhood under democratic backsliding/autocratic developments.
Conference and abstract
The conference will be held at Uppsala University, Uppsala Sweden, on December 2–4 2026.
Deadline for abstracts (approx. 500 words excluding references) is September 30th, with notice of participation early October.
Registration by October 31st (online).
Deadline for draft paper submissions will be November 15th. We welcome work-in-progress as well as more developed papers.
Please feel free to distribute this call within your network!
There is no workshop fee but participants need to cover their own travel and hotel expenses.
For submissions or further information please email dohu@uu.se.
For more information about the conference, please visit the conference webpage.
Conference organizers:
Johan Boberg,
Sofia Näsström
Otto Fischer
Linda Wedlin
The Research program Democracy and Higher Education
Uppsala University, Sweden