| 1. |
- Feldmann Eellend, Beate, 1971-
(författare)
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Visionära planer och vardagliga praktiker
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- In the years after WWII the Baltic Sea Area developed into an area strongly divided between East and West. Because of the tensions between the blocs, the coastal areas where strongly militarized and prepared for war.The new political situation after 1989 propelled an international military disarmament and closing down of bases, training areas around Europe. Since the Baltic Sea Area was one of the heaviest militarized part of Europe the question of disarmament here is of particularly great economic, social and cultural importance.This study is about the post-military landscape in the Baltic Sea Area with examples from Dejevo on the Estonian island Saaremaa, Dranske on the (East)German island Rügen and Fårösund on the Swedish island Gotland.The aim of this thesis is to shed light on the process where the military landscape of the Cold War is transformed in order to be incorporated in the macro-regional endeavors for unity in the new Europe. I want to analyze the implications that planning visions have on the everyday life of people. A following aim is to shed light on the challenges that urban planning has to face in this transformation. Three research questions frame the study. The first question analyzes the process where the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea after the end of the Cold War are disarmed and transformed, from a landscape of production of military services and objects into a landscape of consumption for recreation and tourism. The second question takes its point of departure in the relation between planning visions and everyday life. The third question concerns the matter of the past and analyzes what aspects of the military landscape are emphasized respectively pushed aside in the transformation into post-military landscape.The study is based on interviews with inhabitants and local planners as well as macro-regional and local planning documents, articles and photographs.
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| 2. |
- Garberding, Petra, 1965-
(författare)
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Musik och politik i skuggan av nazismen : Kurt Atterberg och de svensk-tyska musikrelationerna
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with relations between music and politics in Sweden and Germany during the 1930s and 40s. I study how music was used as a political tool, and the ideas that existed about musical expression of national and ethnic identity and about “good” and “bad” music. I argue that these conceptions became a driving force and were important to Swedish relations with Nazi Germany. The study focuses on material by and about the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg (1887–1974). Atterberg was a central figure in the world of Swedish music during the first half of the 20th century and his life gives a glimpse of the spirit of the time. The theoretical platform arises from a critical discourse analysis combined with theories about modernity, nationalism and ethnicity. The empirical basis of the thesis consists of material from Swedish, German and Austrian archives, newspaper articles, radio programmes and interviews with composers of today. My study shows how Sweden and Germany inspired each other in the musical relationship. Both countries encountered similar problems. In the first half of the 20th century, modernisation accelerated in Europe, which also meant dramatic changes in musical life. Music could be spread to a greater extent without the composer’s control. New techniques, for example the sound movie, left many musicians unemployed. New musical styles appeared and challenged establishments. I argue that different ideas about national identity and its musical expression were important for the development of relations between Sweden and Nazi Germany. For many composers and musicians an engagement in Nazi Germany was interpreted as a contribution to the establishing of a strong national identity and the improvement of their own national musical life. Swedish-German musical relations were also influenced by different views on music and politics. For Nazi politicians music and politics ran together and music was to give expression to Nazi ideology. In Sweden music and politics were to be kept apart. Different perspectives on music and politics made it possible for Swedish composers and musicians to be active in Nazi Germany and to define their engagement as purely musical work. The Nazi government could for its part use Nordic composers and music to confirm Nazi ideas on race biology and to spread Nazi propaganda.
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| 3. |
- Söderholm Werkö, Sophie, 1972-
(författare)
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Patient Patients?
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This study examines patient empowerment in two local diabetes branch organisations in Sweden. In particular, the study focuses on the organisations’ membership, participation and influence on external actors. The overall aim of this thesis is to explore patient empowerment in order to discern what influence patient organisations and individual members can have and how they use it.This study is based on both quantitative and qualitative empirical data. Interviews with active members from two local diabetes organisations were conducted and a survey was carried out to identify the members’ thoughts and feelings about their membership, motivations, participation and influence, as well as to examine their local organisation, its work and influence.The findings form an overall picture of how members experience their organisation, memberships and empowerment. Characteristics of the two local patient branch organisations were identified and the leaders were found to be intensely dedicated people.The interviews, survey and participant observations revealed the members’ opinions about their organisation, their reasons for joining, their involvement, participation and influence, as well as their understanding of the local organisation and the Swedish Diabetic Association (SDA) and their possibility to empower them. Without organisations, members felt that they could not have a significant influence on external actors and events.
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| 4. |
- Jukkala, Tanya, 1981-
(författare)
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Suicide in Russia : A macro-sociological study
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This work constitutes a macro-sociological study of suicide. The empirical focus is on suicide mortality in Russia, which is among the highest in the world and has, moreover, developed in a dramatic manner over the second half of the 20th century. Suicide mortality in contemporary Russia is here placed within the context of development over a longer time period through empirical studies on 1) the general and sex- and age-specific developments in suicide over the period 1870–2007, 2) underlying dynamics of Russian suicide mortality 1956–2005 pertaining to differences between age groups, time periods, and particular generations and 3) the continuity in the aggregate-level relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality from late Tsarist period to post-World War II Russia. In addition, a fourth study explores an alternative to Émile Durkheim’s dominating macro-sociological perspective on suicide by making use of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. With the help of Luhmann’s macro-sociological perspective it is possible to consider suicide and its causes also in terms of processes at the individual level (i.e. at the level of psychic systems) in a manner that contrasts with the ‘holistic’ perspective of Durkheim. The results of the empirical studies show that Russian suicide mortality, despite its exceptionally high level and dramatic changes in the contemporary period, shares many similarities with the patterns seen in Western countries when examined over a longer time period. Societal modernization in particular seems to have contributed to the increased rate of suicide in Russia in a manner similar to what happened earlier in Western Europe. In addition, the positive relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality proved to be remarkably stable across the past one and a half centuries. These results were interpreted using the Luhmannian perspective on suicide developed in this work.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Nyman, Maria
(författare)
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Resandets gränser. Svenska resenärers skildringar av Ryssland under 1700-talet
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- 1700-talet kan på många sätt ses som det århundrade då den litterära genren ”reseskildringar” fick sitt genomslag i Europa. Det fanns ett stort intresse för att läsa om resor och beskrivningar av okända platser. Det var också en period när naturalhistoria och den alltmer detaljerade kartläggningen av vad som ansågs vara outforskade områden, gav en ny dimension till resenärers beskrivningar. I Resandets gränser står frågan om hur svenska resenärer skildrat det ryska riket och dess många folkgrupper i fokus. Genom en analys av svenskars rysslandsskildringar från det stora nordiska krigets dagar, fram till separationen från Finland och Napoleons intåg i det ryska riket, belyses skildringarnas mångbottnade funktioner och tillkomstsätt. Vilken roll spelade Ryssland i den svenska och europeiska omvärldsförståelsen?Resandets gränser är en studie som berör hur människor har förhållit sig till det främmande och annorlunda och vilka strategier som använts för att beskriva detta. Det handlar om kulturella normer, respresentationer, men även om resenärers möjligheter, och svårigheter att beskriva mänskliga möten.Maria Nyman är historiker och verksam vid Södertörns högskola, samt knuten till Lunds universitet och Forskarskolan i historia. Det här är hennes doktorsavhandling.
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| 7. |
- Aidukaite, Jolanta, 1968-
(författare)
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The Emergence of the Post-Socialist Welfare State
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This dissertation takes a step towards providing a better understanding of post-socialist welfare state development from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. The overall analytical goal of this thesis has been to critically assess the development of social policies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania using them as illustrative examples of post-socialist welfare state development in the light of the theories, approaches and typologies that have been developed to study affluent capitalist democracies. The four studies included in this dissertation aspire to a common aim in a number of specific ways.The first study tries to place the ideal-typical welfare state models of the Baltic States within the well-known welfare state typologies. At the same time, it provides a rich overview of the main social security institutions in the three countries by comparing them with each other and with the previous structures of the Soviet period. It examines the social insurance institutions of the Baltic States (old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, short-term benefits, sickness, maternity and parental insurance and family benefits) with respect to conditions of eligibility, replacement rates, financing and contributions. The findings of this study indicate that the Latvian social security system can generally be labelled as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models. The Estonian social security system can generally also be characterised as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models, even if there are some weak elements of the targeted model in it. It appears that the institutional changes developing in the social security system of Lithuania have led to a combination of the basic security and targeted models of the welfare state. Nevertheless, as the example of the three Baltic States shows, there is diversity in how these countries solve problems within the field of social policy. In studying the social security schemes in detail, some common features were found that could be attributed to all three countries. Therefore, the critical analysis of the main social security institutions of the Baltic States in this study gave strong supporting evidence in favour of identifying the post-socialist regime type that is already gaining acceptance within comparative welfare state research.Study Two compares the system of social maintenance and insurance in the Soviet Union, which was in force in the three Baltic countries before their independence, with the currently existing social security systems. The aim of the essay is to highlight the forces that have influenced the transformation of the social policy from its former highly universal, albeit authoritarian, form, to the less universal, social insurance-based systems of present-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This study demonstrates that the welfare–economy nexus is not the only important factor in the development of social programs. The results of this analysis revealed that people's attitudes towards distributive justice and the developmental level of civil society also play an important part in shaping social policies. The shift to individualism in people’s mentality and the decline of the labour movement, or, to be more precise, the decline in trade union membership and influence, does nothing to promote the development of social rights in the Baltic countries and hinders the expansion of social policies. The legacy of the past has been another important factor in shaping social programs. It can be concluded that social policy should be studied as if embedded not only in the welfare-economy nexus, but also in the societal, historical and cultural nexus of a given society.Study Three discusses the views of the state elites on family policy within a wider theoretical setting covering family policy and social policy in a broader sense and attempts to expand this analytical framework to include other post-socialist countries. The aim of this essay is to explore the various views of the state elites in the Baltics concerning family policy and, in particular, family benefits as one of the possible explanations for the observed policy differences. The qualitative analyses indicate that the Baltic States differ significantly with regard to the motives behind their family policies. Lithuanian decision-makers seek to reduce poverty among families with children and enhance the parents’ responsibility for bringing up their children. Latvian policy-makers act so as to increase the birth rate and create equal opportunities for children from all families. Estonian policy-makers seek to create equal opportunities for all children and the desire to enhance gender equality is more visible in the case of Estonia in comparison with the other two countries. It is strongly arguable that there is a link between the underlying motives and the kinds of family benefits in a given country. This study, thus, indicates how intimately the attitudes of the state bureaucrats, policy-makers, political elite and researchers shape social policy. It confirms that family policy is a product of the prevailing ideology within a country, while the potential influence of globalisation and Europeanisation is detectable too.The final essay takes into account the opinions of welfare users and examines the performances of the institutionalised family benefits by relying on the recipients’ opinions regarding these benefits. The opinions of the populations as a whole regarding government efforts to help families are compared with those of the welfare users. Various family benefits are evaluated according to the recipients' satisfaction with those benefits as well as the contemporaneous levels of subjective satisfaction with the welfare programs related to the absolute level of expenditure on each program. The findings of this paper indicate that, in Latvia, people experience a lower level of success regarding state-run family insurance institutions, as compared to those in Lithuania and Estonia. This is deemed to be because the cash benefits for families and children in Latvia are, on average, seen as marginally influencing the overall financial situation of the families concerned. In Lithuania and Estonia, the overwhelming majority think that the family benefit systems improve the financial situation of families. It appears that recipients evaluated universal family benefits as less positive than targeted benefits. Some universal benefits negatively influenced the level of general satisfaction with the family benefits system provided in the countries being researched. This study puts forward a discussion about whether universalism is always more legitimate than targeting. In transitional economies, in which resources are highly constrained, some forms of universal benefits could turn out to be very expensive in relative terms, without being seen as useful or legitimate forms of help to families.In sum, by closely examining the different aspects of social policy, this dissertation goes beyond the over-generalisation of Eastern European welfare state development and, instead, takes a more detailed look at what is really going on in these countries through the examples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In addition, another important contribution made by this study is that it revives ‘western’ theoretical knowledge through ‘eastern’ empirical evidence and provides the opportunity to expand the theoretical framework for post-socialist societies.
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| 8. |
- Andersson, Linus, 1979-
(författare)
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Alternativ television
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This dissertation analyses social critique, communication critique and aestheticalcritique in television produced by artists. Theoretically it draws on researchon alternative media, TV studies, especially genre analysis and narratology,and media aesthetics. It conducts a text-production study of three examplesof alternative television from the period 2004-2008: ContemporaryArt Center TV (CAC TV): A show produced by the CAC in Vilnius, Lithuaniaand aired on a commercial TV-channel; Good TV who aired video art ona local public access channel in Stockholm, Sweden; and Candyland TV, apirate transmission from an art gallery in central Stockholm.Empirically it builds on TV-texts, web sites and documents, as well asinterviews with participants. Through a study of form and stylistics, relationto conventional genres and modes of narration, it engages in a discussionabout the features of a critical, alternative media text.The study shows how these televisions work in a tradition of alternativetelevision and connects them to tactics and aesthetical forms as found inhistorical examples, but also how this type of formalist media critiquemight inform an understanding of alternative media. From the analysis ofrelations between social and formalist aspects of alternative television, adistinction between alternative as ”alternative worldview” and as ”alternativeexpressions” is suggested, a distinction that contributes to the developmentof theory in the study of alternative media.
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| 9. |
- Bartonek, Anders, 1977-
(författare)
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Philosophie im Konjunktiv : Nichtidentität als Ort der Möglichkeit des Utopischen in der negativen Dialektik Theodor W. Adornos
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- This study "Philosophie im Konjunktiv. Nichtidentität als Ort der Möglichkeit des Utopischen in der negativen Dialektik Theodor W. Adornos" (Subjunctive Philosophy. Nonidentity as the Place for the Possibility of the Utopian in the Negative Dialectics of Theodor W. Adorno) deals with Adorno’s utopian thinking and asks on what it depends and on what it is founded. Moreover, the study asks the question wherein the possibility of fundamental societal change can be found and on what it can be founded. This study develops an answer to these questions through the analysis of the concepts of the nonidentity and the nonidentical – central concepts in Negative Dialectics –, which in the theory of Adorno constitute a place at which thinking and human beings are not fully absorbed by and integrated in philosophical and scientific systems or in the structure of society. Within the nonidentical the subsuming identities of philosophy and society are broken up. Therefore, the possibility of the utopian appears in this break of the identical. Here, the emancipation of the nonidentical could be realized: an emancipation, however, which is made possible in the nonidentical. The utopian thinking and the possibility of the utopian on the one hand, and nonidentity and the nonidentical on the other hand, are – this is the main claim of the study – inseparable. In developing this answer the study also tries to solve a certain problem in the discussion of Adorno’s philosophy, namely the difficulty in connecting the critical dimensions of his thinking - which are dominating his work and directed against the tradition of philosophy (and science) and capitalist society - with its utopian motives, through which he is calling for change in different ways. Finally, it is argued that Adornos’s thinking, which attempts to realize the utopian and to transcend reality on the basis of nonidentity, must be understood as a subjunctive philosophy.
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| 10. |
- Bedford, Sofie, 1975-
(författare)
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Islamic Activism in Azerbaijan
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)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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