‘Little Boxes All the Same’: Exploring and contextualizing paradoxes of power in a strategic change programme in a UK university

Drawing on the paradox literature, this article considers its relevance for those working in a UK university. First, through focusing on a strategic change programme that constituted the university, staff and students as ‘little boxes’, it empirically examines the paradox of centralized empowerment. Second, we argue that centralized empowerment is a manifestation of the wider neoliberal project confronting universities and its paradox of controlled freedom. Finally, we extend a critical understanding of paradox by exploring how power operates in simultaneously repressive and productive ways.