| 11. |
- Andersson, Monica, 1948-
(författare)
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Politik och stadsbyggande : Modernismen och byggnadslagstiftningen
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to describe, understand and explain the role of modernism in Swedish urban planning, and analyze if modernist urban planning ideas influenced building legislation in ways that can explain the structural changes of our cities during post-war period. Earlier epochs were characterized by intense construction of working-class housing in garden cities and large courtyard housing blocks with double-sided lighting in residences. The dissertation has been carried out within the tradition of historical institutionalism with a counterfactual approach. It covers the time from 1928 to the present with a focus on the period 1928-1975. The object of study is the formal regulations in building legislation. The central analytical instruments are formative moments and path dependence. A formative moment should be characterized by uncertainty, significance and unpredictability. Path dependence is studied with the help of theories of experience-based learning and the power of bureaucracy. The dissertation shows that modernist ideas were written into the building code of 1931 in accordance with functional partitioning and a diagram by Walter Gropius from the 1920s calling for relative distances between houses, the longer the higher houses, and direct sunlight on facades, permitting one-sided lighting in residences. Instead of prevailing praxis, cities were built in conformity with principles of buildings-in-the-park with slab blocks. These regulations were gradually tightened over time and also guided redevelopment policy. In the sixties higher slab blocks and tower blocks began to be frequently built and functional partitioning assumed a unique guiding role in traffic policy and urban planning. Starting in the middle of the 1970s, modernist ideas gradually were dismissed in government policy. Leading modernist architects where driving forces in the formative moment, supported by the Association of Property Owners. Their colleagues could, in the path dependent process, augment the modernist ideas by virtue of their profession. They led state agencies, participated in commissions on building legislation and wrote referral comments on proposals, as well as sitting on building committees together with building contractors, entrepreneurs and construction workers.
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| 12. |
- Angerbrandt, Henrik, 1976-
(författare)
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Placing Conflict : Religion and politics in Kaduna State, Nigeria
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Decentralisation and federalism are often said to mitigate conflict by better meeting the preferences of a heterogeneous population and demands for limited autonomy. But it is argued in this thesis that this perspective does not sufficiently address the ways in which conflict-ridden relations entangle processes across different scales ‒ local, regional as well as national. The aim of this thesis is to explain how it is that while decentralisation may contribute to national stability, it may simultaneously generate local conflict. This problem is analysed through a conflict in Kaduna State in north-central Nigeria where there have been outbreaks of violence between Hausa-Fulani Muslims and Christians of different ethnicities since the 1980s. Christian ethnic groups claim to be excluded from state benefits, while Muslim groups claim that Christians have undue influence over the state bureaucracy. The conflict feeds off ethnic and religious mobilisation. Expanded local political space further fuelled the conflict following the decentralisation that came with the shift from military to civilian rule in 1999. Decentralisation in Nigeria implies that the authorities should be associated with the majority ethnicity or religion in a specific territory. A localisation of politics accordingly raises the stakes in identity-based conflicts, especially as control of local institutions is necessary for inclusion in wider political processes. In Kaduna, this has led to demands for separating the state on a religious and ethnic basis. Actors make use of “scalar politics” to conform to or challenge boundaries set by the state. Social relations are associated with different boundaries. Accordingly, decentralisation triggers conflicts on an identity basis, involving contestation over the hierarchy of scales. While national struggles between ethnic and religious groups may be subdued, conflicts play out locally as decentralisation in Nigeria makes religion and ethnicity a powerful tool for political mobilisation.
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| 13. |
- Bartonek, Leo
(författare)
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Der Topos "Nähe" : Ernst Blochs Eintrittsstelle in die Sozialwissenschaften : ein Beitrag zur Ontologie der modernen Gesellschaft
- 1992
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present age is a time of major societal change in which the social sciences are again faced with three key problems: the relationship between the social science and societal reality, the elaboration of a meaningful concept of human agency, and the need to incorporate a temporal dimension into theories of the interaction between institutional structures and human agents.Against this background I discuss in the first part of the thesis the work of three theorists - Jiirgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, and Anthony Giddens - who all share the ambition to overcome traditional dichotomies In social and political thought: the social versus the individual, the static versus the dynamic, objectivism versus subjectivism, freedom versus determination. None of the three, I argue, succeeds in providing a satisfactory solution to these key problems. In particular, they fail to account adequately for the time factor.In the second part of the thesis I present an alternative point of departure for grasping reality, one based on Ernst Bloch’s ontology in which the notion of time holds a central position. This permits us to launch our conceptual strategy from a specific point in history, the present, which is the crucial point in the continual process of social becoming. Thus social reality, understood as a process, is constantly produced and reproduced through everyday human practice. Based on this ontological foundation, the concept of social context, the relation between structure and human agency, is an essentially open one and for this reason, it is possible to explain both social change and stability.
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| 14. |
- Bedford, Sofie
(författare)
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Islamic Activism in Azerbaijan : Repression and Mobilization in a Post-Soviet Context
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Post-Soviet Azerbaijan is often portrayed as a very secular country. Thus the mobilization of mosque communities in the late 1990s and their conflictual relationship with the authorities came as a surprise. The main aim of the dissertation is to shed light on this mobilization, focusing on the Sunni Abu Bakr and the Shi’ite Juma mosque communities in Baku. On the premise that Islamic mobilization may be interpreted as a “social movement”, internal, contextual and interactional aspects of mobilization have been studied. The analysis is chiefly based on interviews conducted in Baku in 2004/2005 with Imams, worshippers, religious and secular authorities. The study finds that young people looking for new approaches to religion have been drawn to these communities, where they encounter an independent, educated, conscientious clergy and, indeed, a “new” religion. This “sovereign” Islam does not go down well with authorities who fear politicization of religion. The Soviet heritage has provided them with a view of religion as something that should not be publicly displayed and with the institutions to control religion. Another key feature whose impact on state policy towards religious organizations cannot be underestimated is the fear of imported radicalism. A look at Islamic mobilization in North Caucasus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan reveals many similarities, yet one momentous difference is the harsher repression in these contexts, which decreases the chances of a non-radical mobilization. The thesis concludes that the role of the state in mobilization processes in non-democratic contexts is crucial but counterintuitive, as the regimes’ efforts to stop the mobilization of movements actually leads to its intensification. In Azerbaijan, official pressure brings community members closer together and strengthens their resolve, rather than putting an end to mobilization. It also puts a spotlight on these communities which lights up the way for others in search of something new.
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| 15. |
- Behnke, Andreas, 1960-
(författare)
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Re-presenting the West : NATO’s Security Discourse after the End of the Cold War
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is a critical investigation into the discursive processes through which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has re-produced a geopolitical order, or nomos, after the end of the Cold War and the demise of its constitutive enemy, the Soviet Union. The thesis examines both the ontological as well as the epistemological aspects of these processes. It seeks to understand what new security relevant identities and spaces are defined in NATO’s discourse, as well as from what epistemic vantage point this new security political order is mapped and inscribed. More specifically, this thesis is based on the assumption that the continued existence and political relevance of the Alliance rests on its ability to re-produce ‘the West’ as a geo-cultural space that serves as its security referent object. The thesis concludes with a critical evaluation of NATO’s post-Cold War geopolitical order and the meta-theoretical commitments underlying its conception of security.
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
- Bergström, Hans, 1948-
(författare)
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Rivstart? : om övergången från opposition till regering
- 1987
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- En ingående granskning och jämförelse av regeringsskiftena 1976 och 1982 samt en redovisning av de borgerliga förberedelserna inför ett regeringsskifte 1985.
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| 18. |
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| 19. |
- Birnbaum, Simon, 1977-
(författare)
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Just Distribution : Rawlsian Liberalism and the Politics of Basic Income
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Should liberal egalitarians endorse the idea of an unconditional basic income for all? This thesis defends a politics of unconditional universalism, offering a liberty-respecting and non-perfectionist basis for maximin-guided policies. The argument starts off from a Rawlsian justification of basic income in the context of institutional ideal theory. This view is based on the aim of maximising the prospects of the least advantaged in ways consistent with a robust protection of people’s effective freedom, the social bases of self-respect and access to meaningful activities at each stage of their lives.The thesis then moves on to specify such a position in response to objections based on ideas of fair cooperation and strong reciprocity. Linking John Rawls’ arguments on property-owning democracy to Philippe Van Parijs’ case for ‘gift-equalisation’, the study defends the view that a basic income is not inherently exploitative or beyond the scope of justice. To the extent that unconditional universalism is tied to the idea of sharing gift-like resources, it is just a matter of distributing wealth to which nobody has a justified prior claim, not an unfair redistribution of labour income.Introducing a problem of feasibility, however, the thesis also argues that unconditional wealth sharing may fail to meet liberal commitments and to counter structural exploitation unless constrained by other requirements of justice. The latter include a minimal autonomy constraint on maximin-objectives and the set of in kind transfers and social infrastructure needed to foster the activities and virtues on which the stability of this ideal relies. The thesis concludes with a study on the application of such standards to real-world conditions. It is argued that policy options combining a modest basic income with work-based social insurance and universal access to social services are more promising than strategies where a high basic income would replace core components of the welfare state.
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| 20. |
- Björsne, Roland
(författare)
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Populism och ekopolitik : framväxten av en ekopolitisk ideologi i Norge och dess relationer till ett mångtydigt populismbegrepp.
- 1979
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the end of the 1960's the word "populism” began to be used in Norway to designate a policy for preventing the depopulation of the countryside and coastal areas and for stimulating a development in the existing local communities. As time went on, it even included political ideas concerned with structural and environmental questions in a wider perspective. From an ecological perspective, the solution to democratic, resource, allocational and environmental issues is seen in terms of a system structured in local communities. For this reason, and others, the designation was changed to ecopolitics. The purpose of the dissertation is to analyze how Norwegian populism developed into ecopolitics if it can be said to be a special political ideology, and how it compares to other populistic movements within the Nordic region and also to those movements outside of this region. In the first part of the dissertation, the methodological basis is stated and a description of how an ecopolitical ideal model can be constructed on the basis of different theoretical works is given. The ideal model is subsequently related to the political parties and groups which, in varying degrees, embrace populistic/ecopolitical ideas. The conclusion is that the ecopolitical ideology existing in Norway differs from the traditional ideologies in a number of ways. In the second part of the analysis, the application of the populism concept in various contexts i described. The conclusion is that the concept can, to a certain extent, be justifiably defined in several different ways and that general definitions of the concept are not precise enough. In the third part of the dissertation, the populistic ant. ecopolitical movements within the Nordic countries are related to different definitions of populism. Fundamental similarities are found to exist between ecopolitics and the Russian populism especially with regard to the structure of the society in local communities. The objectives are compatible with both socialistic and non-socialistic strategies. The dissertation is written in Swedish with a summary in English.
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