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| 2. |
- Ahrne, Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Flawed Globalization : Why Traditional Political Organizations Have Problems Forming Transnational Meta- Organizations
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Departing from an organizational perspective and using the cases of Socialist International and four European trade unions, this paper illustrates why political parties and trade unions have difficulty acting globally. The analysis shows that international or transnational organizations for national parties or trade unions are established as meta-organizations, and herein lies the key to explaining their problems in becoming global actors. The national embeddedness of their members results in broad agendas and quests for national solutions, which divides and weakens leadership. Comparing these meta-organizations to a more successful global political organization, Amnesty International, reveals that its organization is quite the opposite: a centralized leadership, a narrow agenda, not working for the immediate interests of its members or finding solutions to the issues it raises. The paper concludes that if this form of organization is necessary in global politics then there is little room for political parties and unions on a global arena.
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| 3. |
- Edberg, Karin, 1984-
(författare)
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Energilandskap i förändring : Inramningar av kontroversiella lokaliseringar på norra Gotland
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Energisystemet omstruktureras. Nya energikällor tillkommer och andra fasas ut samtidigt som efterfrågan på energi kvarstår ur ett globalt perspektiv. Lokaliseringen av de fysiska strukturer som genererar och distribuerar energi innebär en högst praktisk påverkan i den fysiska omgivningen liksom i det sociala landskapet innan, under och efter en etablering, vilket gör det relevant att undersöka hur nya lokaliseringar av energiinfrastruktur tas emot. Det övergripande syftet med den här avhandlingen i sociologi är därför att bidra till en ökad förståelse av lokal hantering av globala energidilemman.I avhandlingen analyseras lokaliseringar av kontroversiella energiprojekt, eller mer specifikt hur två sådana fall förstås och tolkas av berörda aktörer. Det görs genom ett teoretiskt ramverk baserat på inramningsteori (frame analysis) och sociala praktiker. Studien erbjuder en sociologiskt grundad förståelse av plats och förståelsens betydelse för inställningen till lokaliseringar av energiinfrastruktur.Avhandlingens empiriska fall utgörs av lokaliseringen av logistiskt arbete kring byggandet av en storskalig naturgasledning och av en planerad men inte realiserad etablering av en vindkraftspark till nordöstra Gotland. Dessa studeras genom intervjuer, observationer och textanalyser.Studien visar hur olika aktörer kombinerar och väger olika aspekter mot varandra i sina inramningskonstruktioner. Resultaten visar att även komponenter bortom det lokala ingår i inramningarna och att de inkluderar relationer mellan olika aktörer liksom förändring över tid. Denna förståelse presenteras genom en analys av fyra centrala aspekter – platsrelaterade, platsöverskridande, position och process – vilka tillsammans fångar den multidimensionalitet och komplexitet som kännetecknar kontroversiella lokaliseringar. Ett resultat är att den mest framgångsrika inramningsstrategin visade sig vara att särkoppla olika aspekter, det vill säga att uppmärksamma flera olika aspekter men på olika sätt hålla dem isär. En av studiens styrkor är att den inkluderar såväl strategiska inramningar som görs av olika aktörer i syfte att exempelvis få en lokalisering till stånd eller förhindra densamma, som inramningar som görs av dem som inte tar aktiv del i den formella lokaliseringsprocessen. Det ger en komplex bild som sträcker sig bortom policynivån och som visar att det inte finns en enstämmig förståelse i ”lokalsamhället”. Avhandlingen bidrar därmed till att bredda förståelsen av inramningar av kontroversiella lokaliseringar.
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| 4. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Discretionary Governance : Selection, Secrecy, and Status within the World Economic Forum
- 2021
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Ingår i: Global Governance. - : Brill. - 1075-2846 .- 1942-6720. ; 27:4, s. 540-560
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Built on the exclusive funding of 1,000 large transnational corporations, the World Economic Forum is a not-for-profit Swiss foundation, aiming to shape the direction of globalization. Its events are characterized by low degrees of formality and transparency. Research on what this organization does is scarce. This article suggests the term discretionary governance to capture the precarious, yet existing, social order that the organization shapes. By discretionary governance, we mean a set of discreet practices based on the organization’s judgement in ways that escape established democratic controls. Drawing on ethnographic data the paper demonstrates how selection, secrecy, and status form key components of this tenuous ordering. Selection processes and secrecy contribute to status elevation of the individuals and organizations chosen to participate. Upon them and the organization itself is bestowed a symbolic capital that is practical and possibly profitable in the world of global governance.
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| 5. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Future by Design : Seductive Technologies of Anticipation within the Future Industry
- 2021
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Ingår i: Futures. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - 9780198806820 - 9780191898358 ; , s. 501-513
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter critiques the anticipatory practices of contemporary organizations, such as think tanks and management consultancies, which offer methods and forecasts about possible and desirable futures. These organizations, the chapter argues, contribute to creating a sense of urgency with respect to the future, capitalizing on the perceived need among decision makers to grasp contemporary events, and provide tools and content by which the future can be designed. It argues that future forecast scenarios assist in the creation of a particular type of authority: one geared to the contemporary global situation and to an increasingly complex system of global governance. The chapter interrogates this particular type of authority to argue it is not singular and dominant, but instead comprises the varying interests of many different actors and is underscored by rational process, which offers the possibility of a wider shared understanding
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| 6. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Magical formulae for market futures : Tales from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos
- 2016
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Ingår i: Anthropology Today. - : Wiley. - 0268-540X .- 1467-8322. ; 32:6, s. 18-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Markets are often portrayed as being organized by way of rationalized knowledge, objective reasoning, and the fluctuations of demand and supply. In parallel, and often mixed with this modality of knowledge, magical beliefs and practices are prevalent. Business leaders, management consultants, and financial advisors are often savvy in the art of creatively blending the ‘objective facts’ of markets with magical formulae, rites, and imaginaries of the future. This article looks at the World Economic Forum's yearly Davos meeting as a large-scale ritual that engages senior executives of global corporations, top-level politicians, and civil society leaders to contribute to the overall aim of ‘improving the world’. The Davos gathering has become a vital part of the business calendar, just as much for the intensity of its networking as for the declarations of action from the speakers’ podiums. The presentations and performances in Davos work as ‘technologies of enchantment’ in Gell's (1992) sense, instilling a sense of agency onto participants. The ritual also contributes towards securing the acquiescence of individuals and organizations in a transnational network of politico-economic intentionalities. By invoking global and regional challenges and risks, discussing possible scenarios and solutions, presenters invoke a sense of urgency and contribute to the articulation of global ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’. It is proposed that the magic of Davos resides to a large extent in the ritualized form of interaction and the technologies of enchantment through which it is set up.
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| 7. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Secret Societies, Opaque Routes: Advancing Corporate Politics through the World Economic Forum
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- LAEMOS 2014Subtheme 8The Corporatization of Politics and the Politicization of Corporations The Politicization of Corporations: The Case of the World Economic ForumChristina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom Abstract This paper departs from an interest in the involvement of business leaders in the sphere of politics, in the broad sense. At a general level, we are seeing a proliferation of usages of non-market corporate strategies, such as testimony, lobbying, interlocking of positions and other means to influence policymakers at all levels of government and international institutions as an adjunct to the firm’s market strategies. This paper brings to the fore the role of corporations in the World Economic Forum (WEF), and how firms act through the WEF to advance their interests, financial as well as political. What is the role of business in the WEF, and how do business corporations advance their interests through the WEF? Inspired by Stephen Barley's (2010) work on how corporations have systematically built an institutional field to exert greater influence on the US Federal government, we aim to enhance knowledge on how the WEF and the 1,000 corporations that are active within it influence the larger socio-cultural context in which they are embedded. Empirically we depart from ethnographic field studies of the World Economic Forum, drawing on observations from WEF-events and interviews with participants and organizers. Theoretically we will employ an organizational perspective, using the concept of "partial organization" as introduced by Göran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson (2011). The results show that corporations find a strategically positioned amplifier for their non-market interests in the WEF. The WEF functions to enhance and gain leverage for their ideas and priorities in a highly selective and resourceful environment. In the long run, both the market priorities and the political interests of business may be served by engagement in the WEF. However, the WEF cannot only be conceived as the extended voice of corporations. The WEF also makes strategic use of the corporations to organize and expand their own agency, which not necessarily coincides with the interests of multinational corporations. By way of corporate financial resources, the tapping of knowledge and expertise, and access to vast networks of business relations, the WEF is also able to amplify its own voice. The organized network, in the format of partial organization, which is the preferred form of organization of the WEF, comes with weakened power in the form of oversight and sanctions for the member corporations, but may allow for a concentration of resources at the center. The periphery has little sanctioned insight into the core of the organization, and a weak voice in influencing the operations of the organization. Actors in the partially organized environment thus have to rely on the goodwill of the leadership.
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| 8. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Small places, big stakes : "Meetings" as moments of ethnographic momentum
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The World Economic Forum is essentially a world of meetings: staged, circumvented, formal, organized meetings to which access is tightly restricted. The annual Davos meeting, the WEF show case meeting, is also a microcosm of the organization, set up in a small place but speaking to bigger issues. Ethnographic fieldwork in organizations such as the WEF – and more broadly incorporations, state agencies, and international organizations – often involves doing fieldwork in workshops, at ceremonies, and at other staged, formal events. In addition, such fieldwork tends to be multilocal, mobile, and discontinuous. What, if anything, can we learn from doing ethnography in such small, temporary meeting places, where we may not even have full access?The paper shows that researching an organization such as the WEF is as methodologically and theoretical challenging as it is rewarding. It is argued that to understand the practices constituting meetings we need to broaden the perspective of the meeting as a phenomenon. The meeting as research locus should not be seen as a given entity, but as a contingent and continually constructed social arena. In the WEF case the meeting is both a continuous organizing effort, and a social arena, temporarily bounded in time and space.
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| 9. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Small places, big stakes : "Meetings’" as moments of ethnographic momentum
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Davos summit is surrounded by air of seriousness and hype, but it is also something like a huge cocktail party. The Davos meeting is, in essence, a kind of human beehive, attracting and organizing a multitude of actors around its core, each contributing to the existence of the beehive community, and each disseminating its ideas and perspectives to the world at large. The WEF is essentially a social world of meetings – staged, circumvented, formal, organized meetings – and meetings to which access is tightly restricted. The annual Davos meeting, which is the showcase meeting of the WEF, is also a microcosm of the organization, set up in a small place and speaking to bigger issues: market regulations, financial crises, environmental risks, armed conflicts, and the like. The kinds of questions that arise out offieldwork in organizations such as this, but also more broadly, are to do with access, representation, validity, and the predicaments of doing ethnography in organized settings.At a more general level, ethnographic fieldwork in organizations – such as corporations, state agencies, and international organizations – often entails that the ethnographer has to rely on meetings as the primary point of access. Oftentimes, this involves doing fieldwork in workshops, at ceremonies, and at other staged, formal events. In addition, such fieldwork tends to be multilocal, mobile, and discontinuous. It may not provide as much of a flavour of the different local sites and a sense of ‘being there’ as one would wish for. The tendency in anthropology to favour the informal, the ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ as well as the spontaneous, may leave one with a lingering feeling of having to make do with second- rate material, i.e. the formal, the superficial, and the organized. Fieldwork in meetings, and in meetings to which one may not get full access, may, from that angle, be problematic.What, if anything, can we learn from doing ethnography in such a small, temporary meeting place, where we don not even have access to much of what goes on?
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| 10. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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The Politicization of Corporations: The Case of the World Economic Forum
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Politicization of Corporations: The Case of the World Economic ForumChristina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom Abstract This paper departs from an interest in the involvement of business leaders in the sphere of politics, in the broad sense. At a general level, we are seeing a proliferation of usages of non-market corporate strategies, such as testimony, lobbying, interlocking of positions and other means to influence policymakers at all levels of government and international institutions as an adjunct to the firm’s market strategies. This paper brings to the fore the role of corporations in the World Economic Forum (WEF), and how firms act through the WEF to advance their interests, financial as well as political. What is the role of business in the WEF, and how do business corporations advance their interests through the WEF? Empirically we depart from ethnographic field studies of the World Economic Forum, drawing on observations from WEF-events and interviews with participants and organizers. We propose that corporations find a strategically positioned amplifier for their non-market interests in the WEF. The WEF functions to enhance and gain leverage for their ideas and priorities in a highly selective and resourceful environment. In the long run, both the market priorities and the political interests of business may be served by engagement in the WEF. By way of corporate financial resources, the tapping of knowledge and expertise, and access to vast networks of business relations, the WEF is also able to amplify its own voice and agency in the field of global governance.
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