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Abstract
In this article we discuss recent university reforms aimed at enhancing university autonomy, highlighting various tensions in the underlying reform ideologies. We examine how the traditional interpretation of university autonomy has been expanded in the reform rationales. An analytical framework for studying how autonomy is interpreted and used inside the university is presented, which allows us to highlight that in order to understand the implications of enhanced university autonomy, we have to go beyond the scrutiny of formal arrangements and analyse practices of autonomy within the university which we refer to as the university?s living autonomy. Finally we introduce ideas for further research on the living autonomy with the use of our analytical framework.