| 1. |
- Andersson, Rickard
(författare)
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Bridges, Walls, Doors : On Democracy and Nature
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The concept of green democracy has been advanced in green political theory as a way to include the natural world in the political and, by that, overcome an alleged wall, a fundamental disunity, separating humans and nature in modernity and substitute it with a unity of identity that would bridge the gap between them. It has also been vested with the coupled power to transform society in a sustainable direction. This study argues that green democracy disqualifies the concept of democracy it adopts and that, instead of bringing humans and nature together in a unity of identity, it reproduces a relation between them according to which they form a unity of difference, a relation where they are connected as if being the inside and outside of a door. Through a historical analysis of medieval, early modern, and modern modes of Western thought, it is shown that modernity does not wall humans off from nature but instead relates them in such a unity of difference and that this particular relation is fundamental for the modern concept of democracy in general, which is shown to have the same meaning as democracy has in the concept of green democracy. A tendency within the modern concept of democracy to disqualify itself is also delineated. The analysis suggests that the conceptualisation of green democracy in green political theory reproduces a unity of difference between humans and nature because it adopts a modern concept of democracy presupposing such a relation, and that it disqualifies its own concept of democracy because modern democracy tends to disqualify itself. Also, this tendency, it is argued, is exacerbated in green democracy.
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| 2. |
- Gade Viksand, Sindre
(författare)
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A World of Persons
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This is a study of subjecthood in international thought. Human beings and states, while often held to be opposed to one another, share this: they are international thought’s key subjects. The following chapters attempt to answer the question of why that is. The main argument advanced is that this is because of the particular language in which subjecthood is articulated, the language of personhood, which stipulates certain criteria—chief among them rationality—by which someone or something becomes a person and thus a subject. This theoretical argument is one that is made historically: rather than explaining why this needs to be the way in which subjecthood is assigned, it is a study of how this came to be. Through a study of key texts in the history of international thought from the seventeenth-century to today, it purports to document both this language’s emergence and its effects. It traces, on the one hand, how the language of personhood became a central language of international thought and how this has led to the prioritization of human beings and states, on the other. The final chapter of this study broadens the scope to discuss other implications this language has had upon international thought in general and humanity and the state in particular, arguing that it has not only cemented these two as international thought’s central subjects, but also made them dependent upon one another, which in turn makes it exceedingly difficult to specify which of the two ought to be taken as the most important subject of international thought.
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| 3. |
- Gustafsson, Daniel
(författare)
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The Present People
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In modern political thought, one of the most recalcitrant, and increasingly pressing, questions of modern democracy is whether, and in what sense, the people can be present. While the presence of the people has, and continues to be, the sine qua non of the democratic form of government, it has also been for a long time held that the people cannot be present literally or in fact. According to the conventional narrative, this absence has been seen as a necessary acquiescence to the problem posed by the modern state, territorially expansive and populous, precluding an assembly democracy in which all can be physically present. The paradox which thus underpins modern democracy is that the people, being represented, is present in some sense, while not present literally or in fact.This thesis argues that the conventional narrative of the paradox of presence of modern democracy remains incomplete. It argues that in posing the question of what it means to speak of the presence of the people, contemporary political theory and intellectual history has so far neglected the question of time. Turning to the history of political thought of early modernity, the thesis contends that in the political thinking of Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf and Robert Filmer, the critique of the democratic assembly was indeed framed primarily as one of time, rather than size and space. The democratic assembly, it was suggested, could not be present often enough to ensure the continuance of political order. Taking this problem of presence as a point of departure, the thesis traces its constitutive role in the political thought of some of the key thinkers of modern political thinking, including John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as some of the central theorists of representative government from the end of the eighteenth century. It argues that while the question of time gradually came to be lost from the vocabulary of modern political thought, the problem continued to underpin and structure modern thinking on democracy and popular sovereignty. The imperative which thus continues to underpin modern democratic thought, though largely implicit, is that the people, understood as a political unity, must be made present often enough to ensure the continuance of political order.The thesis suggests that bringing this imperative to the fore allows political theory a greater understanding of the paradox of presence which imbues modern political thinking on democracy and popular sovereignty.
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| 4. |
- Røed, Maiken
(författare)
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Interest Group Influence on Political Parties in Western Democracies
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis asks when and why interest groups influence political parties. I address this question in two ways: 1) by examining the organizational ties between parties and interest groups, given that party-interest group ties may constitute an important step on groups' way to influence, and 2) by more directly examining interest group influence on parties. By doing this, the thesis contributes to the literatures on interest group influence, party positions, and party-interest group ties. Paper I examines the relationship between private and public party finance and party-interest group organizational ties. The paper lends systematic support to the idea that groups and parties are more likely to maintain closer relationships today when the groups donate money. The institutional setting the actors operate in may furthermore affect ties.Paper II gives an overview of the Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies (PAIRDEM) datasets, and presents descriptive results regarding the organizational ties parties and interest groups maintain today. Paper III considers the relationship between parties' goals and interest group influence on parties. I find that interest groups are more likely to perceive that they influence parties they are ideologically similar to as well as parties that are more willing to compromise on policy. Interest groups' access to parties moreover seems to be an important mechanism here. Paper IV asks whether organizational ties affect one-sided interest group influence on parties as well as mutual party-interest group influence. We find positive correlations between stronger ties and both types of influence.Paper V asks when parties listen to interest groups and adopt their input. I find that parties are more likely to do this when 1) the issue in question is less publicly salient, 2) parties emphasize the issue more than their competitors, 3) the interest group input is supported by a larger and/or more coordinated interest group coalition, and 4) parties are in opposition.
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| 5. |
- Strandgaard, Jakob
(författare)
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Normative Recursion : on Recursive Grounding and the Capacity for Radical Critique in Formal Pragmatics, Recognition, Social Freedom and Justification
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the meta-ethical question: What properties would be required of a normative critical concept in order for it to be (a) derived from the social facticity of prevailing norms, practices and institutions in a given society and (b) still be capable of informing radical critique? This thesis takes radical critique to mean one that escapes all charges of status quo biases and thus truly transcends the immanent content of the norms, practices and institutions from which it was derived.This thesis asserts that the necessary property of such a concept is recursion. That is, the property of a self-referentiality that allows for something to hierarchically contain copies of itself. The idea of finding the property of recursion in normative political theory and defending its utility is undertheorized in the political theory literature. By locating the property of recursion in the formal pragmatics of Jürgen Habermas, in Axel Honneth’s concepts of recognition and social freedom and in Rainer Forst’s concept of justification, this thesis remedies this situation. In doing so, a space is carved out for normative political theory between foundationalism and anti-foundationalism and between the utopian and realist approach.
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| 6. |
- Aggestam, Karin
(författare)
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Reframing and Resolving Conflict : Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations 1988-1998
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO in 1993 signalled a major shift in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This study examines, both theoretically and empirically, the basic question of how meaning of conflict may change and how conflict may be resolved. The broad aims are: first, to analyse and empirically improve knowledge of the transitional processes from conflicting interaction to cooperation in the Israeli-Palestinian case; and second, to develop conflict research by advancing theoretical ideas concerning these processes. Three analytical concepts constitute the core of the research problem: (i) meaning, (ii) reframing and (iii) resolving. These concepts are advanced throughout this study by an adaptive interplay between theoretical concepts and empirical analysis. The meaning of conflict highlights the dominant frames of political actors and the international and domestic normative and behavioural structures of conflict. The reframing of conflict is linked to negotiation by an emphasis on such concepts as turning point, motivation, opportunity and focal point. The resolving of conflict, which is the subject of the most extensive part of the study, focuses on frame, strategy, structural characteristics, and processes of negotiation. Drawing theoretical insights from constructivism, conflict research, negotiation theory and social psychology, the author advances a dynamic theoretical model, using an agent-structure approach. The single-case study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict covers a period of eleven years, 1988-98. The author presents an in-depth analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during this period, which constitutes one of the first major studies to cover the entire interim period. The empirical analysis centres on the implications of the intifada for the level of agent and structure, and the behavioural turning point, constituted by the 1991 Madrid Conference. The official negotiation process from 1991 to 1998 is then analysed and categorised in three phases: public diplomacy, two-track diplomacy, and trilateral diplomacy. The negotiation process was characterised by an oscillation between competitive and problem-solving frames of negotiation, a diversity of mediation and negotiation strategies, major structural restraints emanating from the domestic arenas, and various obstacles to communication. These phases of negotiation highlight the cyclical, transformative nature of conflict.
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| 7. |
- Ahrnens, Anette
(författare)
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A Quest for Legitimacy : Debating UN Security Council Rules on Terrorism and Non-proliferation
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the end of the Cold War, international politics and international law have not only become increasingly intertwined, but their mutual implications have also become increasingly recognized by scholars. Yet research explicitly addressing the question of how political factors affect the emergence of legal rules is still limited. This doctoral dissertation aims to take a step in the direction of solving that puzzle by focusing on the construction of legitimacy at the crossroads between international politics and international law. It is argued that all forms of international rule-making, whether through the international legal process or in more political forums, depend on being perceived as legitimate, but that they may differ in terms of what normative values their claim to legitimacy is based on. Viewing legitimacy as a continuously and socially constructed concept, this study focuses on the practice of legitimation. Distinguishing two logics of legitimation - one legal and one political - the author develops a framework for the analysis of so-called legitimation arguments. Each logic further consists of two elements of legitimacy: one procedural and one more substantive. In the case of the legal logic, these correspond to legality and justifiability, whereas in the political logic they are represented by consent and efficiency. This framework is then used to analyze states' legitimation arguments in relation to UN Security Council resolutions 1373 (on terrorism) and 1540 (on non-proliferation), which take the unprecedented step of creating instant and legally binding obligations for all 192 UN member states. The analysis demonstrates that all four elements figure prominently in states' legitimation arguments, thereby illustrating the utility of the framework. Furthermore, it reveals that political elements are often perceived as valid compensations for their legal counterparts in the general construction of legitimacy. With the Unites States being the initiator and main advocate for the creation of legal obligations through the Security Council, it is also possible to discuss these resolutions in terms of (collective) hegemonic international law. Lastly, the author concludes that a focus on the construction of legitimacy is a useful approach for analyzing the interrelationship between international politics and international law and that the deliberate substitution of political elements for legal ones in actors' legitimation arguments constitutes one example of how political factors may affect the emergence of legal rules.
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| 8. |
- Alasfoor, Reyadh
(författare)
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The Gulf Cooperation Council : Its Nature and Achievements
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When Britain decided, in 1968, to terminate its official colonial presence in the Persian (Arabian) Gulf as of 1971, this action prompted the Gulf Arab States (Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman) to start the search for a form of partnership that would bring them together to better cope with the insecurity and danger surrounding them and their regimes. A key problem after the British withdrawal has been the notable military weakness of these states and the inability to effectively defend themselves against aggressive action. The six states share a similar economic, social, and political system, and acquired marked geo-political importance after the conclusion of World War II as a result of the discovery of massive oil and gas reserves. Following two years of negotiation, the states signed, on May 25, 1981 a charter creating a regional entity called the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ? which turned out to be something of a unique integrative experiment in the Arab world. Its main objectives are a customs union and political cooperation; harmonization of policies; a common external tariff; and general integration within its specified cultural, geographical, economic, and political bounds. The present study aims to analyze the regional cooperation and integration of these states. It is an attempt to trace the nature, emergence, and development of the GCC in a primarily tribal culture. It furnishes a description and exploration of specific aspects of the GCC: its structure and charter; its economic and political achievements; the challenges facing it; the factors that either enhance or hinder its ambitions. It is also an attempt to identify and discuss the security problems the member states face. This study additionally advances a theoretical framework focusing on certain concepts stemming from existing integration theories that have applicability to the integration of the GCC. The dissertation suggests that the GCC is in fact unique; neither a federal or confederal, it represents an elastic entity and political framework. Empirically, the study examines the GCC during the first twenty-five years of its existence (1979-2004), with the just stated aims to explore, explain, and analyze this integration effort in its specified cultural, geographical, political, and economic settings. To aid our understanding of this integrative venture, several important questions revolving around the very concept of integration, are raised. For instance, what are the circumstances under which the GCC emerged? To what extent is integration projects elite-inspired and forged, and to what extent, if at all, is it grass-root inspired? What challenges are the member states facing when trying to achieve their objectives? What is the significance of the existence of a ?core? within this integration? What are the local integrative and disintegrative factors, and how do they operate to hinder or enhance the integration project? What general observations can this study engender in terms of past and present integration aspects with specific focus on locally, regionally, and globally generated supports and stresses?
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| 9. |
- Altermark, Niklas
(författare)
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After Inclusion : Intellectual Disability as Biopolitics
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation examines contemporary politics targeting people with intellectual disabilities. Since this group first emerged, under labels such as ‘idiocy’ and ‘mental deficiency’, around the turn of the 20th century, its members have been seen as lacking the capacities necessary for citizenship and full societal belonging. For the last forty years, however, liberal democracies and international organizations have set out to include the group through policies promoting citizenship, emphasising ‘self-determination’, ‘independence’, and ‘autonomous decision-making’ as key ambitions. As a result, institutional care has been downscaled and replaced by socially integrated living arrangements. This is often described as a shift of paradigms in disability politics. I argue that this shift means that the same ideas of humanity, as characterised by ‘reason’ and ‘rationality’, that was once used as a yardstick to define and exclude ‘intellectual disability’, are now being put to work to include the group. The purpose of the thesis is to provide a theoretical understanding of what happens after the introduction of this kind of politics, in the era that I call ‘post-institutionalisation’. I do so by approaching the government of this group as an instance of what Foucault called ‘biopolitics’, which denotes the efforts of governments to manage human life, and by drawing on Judith Butler’s theorising of subjectivity.The dissertation proceeds in three analytical steps. In its first part, by focusing on how ‘intellectual disability’ is constituted by scientific and classificatory knowledge, I argue that this diagnosis came into being and persists for purposes of government. Rather than being a biologically rooted condition that policies respond to and target, it is a political and normative category that is made to appear as biological and natural. In this way, a firm line between ‘normalcy’ and ‘intellectual disability’ is constructed. In the second part, I examine how this group today is targeted by policies aiming for inclusion and citizenship. The result of how intellectual disability is both seen as the opposite of the norm of the ‘good citizen’ and as the target of citizenship inclusion, is a politics that simultaneously includes and excludes intellectual disability. Thus, rather than discarding the power exercised over people with intellectual disabilities, power has transformed into a biopolitical regime that seeks to mould members of this group to become included citizens, whilst concurrently upholding their exclusion by continued constraints. Lastly, in the third part of the study, I examine the possibilities of contesting the contemporary biopolitical regime. Here, the main argument is that a productive critique of the government of intellectual disability needs to reconsider the notion that humanity is defined by its capacities of ‘reason’ and ‘rationality’.
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| 10. |
- Andersson, Per F.
(författare)
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Essays on the Politics of Taxation
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Taxation is a key activity of any state and a constant point of political struggle. The structure of taxation is continuously changing and evolving, and its size has grown dramatically during the last two hundred years. Many of the cross-national patterns we observe today are the result of centuries old conflicts and challenges, hence we need to take history into account if we want to understand contemporary tax systems. This dissertation is concerned with the evolution of taxation in the last two centuries. During this period modern parliamentary democracy developed and spread, and it is during this period that the contemporary party systems crystallized and the broad lines of conflict between the left and the right emerged. Thus, this period is crucial for our understanding of the effects of political institutions and ideology on policy making.Because of a lack of comparative information on taxation with a long time scale, previous research has been constrained to a small number of mostly European countries. In this dissertation I present a novel dataset (a collaboration with Thomas Brambor) over government tax revenues covering 31 countries from 1800 to 2012. The dataset is unprecedented in both temporal and geographic scope and includes countries from Europe, North America, South America, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.The first paper is concerned with the notion that democracy itself has an impact on taxation by extending influence to previously excluded groups of poor citizens. I present evidence for the argument that the effects of democracy depend on urbanization. Democratization in an urbanized state leads to higher taxes on income and lower taxes on consumption. In contrast, democratization in rural countries is associated with lower taxes on property.The second paper investigates the influence of ideology on taxation. A puzzle in the literature is why left-wing parties are associated with regressive taxation (e.g., on consumption). I argue that how left-wing governments tax depend on the institutional environment. In countries using majoritarian/plurality electoral systems the left relies more on income tax, and in countries using proportional representation systems the left relies more on consumption tax.In the third paper I investigate the mechanism behind left-wing tax strategy in more detail by studying reforms of consumption taxation in post- war United Kingdom and Sweden. I find that strategic considerations related to how the political system concentrates power in the United Kingdom affected the Labour Party’s attitude towards the value-added tax and its decision not to adopt the tax. The left-wing government in Sweden on the other hand, operating in a different institutional context, decided to introduce a similar tax.The fourth paper, which is coauthored with Johannes Lindvall, contrasts political investments, of which taxation is one example, with short- term crisis management. We present a game theoretic model in which institutions that concentrate power are better at handling sudden crises but worse at making policy with short-run costs and long-term gains. Power-sharing institutions, on the other hand, are better at resolving inter- temporal dilemmas, but perform worse when faced with sudden crises.
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| 11. |
- Badersten, Björn
(författare)
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Medborgardygd : Den europeiska staden och det offentliga rummets etos
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- What does it mean to be a good citizen? Starting with Aristotle’s ethics and philosophy of friendship formulated between the private and the public in politics' and with the timeless question of what makes a society possible as a backdrop, the author outlines a possible answer. A good citizen is a virtuous citizen, and a virtuous citizen is prudent, courageous, moderate and just. In addition, a good citizen is an active and conversing citizen in need of public places for deliberation and social interaction. By virtue of its proximity and density, the European city has throughout history generated such places and has provided a vigorous public sphere—the city has thus nurtured civic virtues. The phenomenon also has specific spatial characteristics. In the spatial configuration of the city, in the morphology of the city and the “grammar” of public spaces—of streets, squares and buildings—we find the physical environment of civic interaction. In the city we find places whose spatial qualities have stimulated the development of civic virtues and have given birth to a public ethos. The city has, however, not only been an expression of civic harmony. Throughout history it has also been an arena for antagonism and conflict and through its spatial configuration an expression of power, dominance and control. Between these analytical extremes—between the city as civic public life and the city as authoritarian control—the author tells a vivid story of the European city drawing on various examples across time and space. On a more abstract level, the book argues for the importance of using both normative and empirical theories in an attempt to give meaning to a complex reality. Moreover, a comprehensive use of methodological ideal types provides a pragmatic stance in the classical debate between realism and relativism in the philosophy of science.
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| 12. |
- Bengtsson, Marie
(författare)
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Stat och kommun i makt(o)balans : En studie av flyktingmottagandet
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Already from the title of this dissertation can two important points be made. The first is that the dissertation is about the relationship between central and local government, more specifically in Sweden today. The second point is that this relationship is seen from a balance of power perspective, where the relative power of the actors is an empirical question rather than derived from a given hierarchical structure. Such a perspective is based on analysing the actors as interdependent. The central government can thus be dependent on the local government, as well as the other way around, and this interdependence can vary over time and between policy areas. This perspective differs from that of most studies, which often see the relationship either in terms of steering (that local governments are executing centrally determined policies) or local self-government (that the Swedish local governments has a constitutionally protected right to handle their own affairs within certain legal limits). I argue that both these perspectives take a hierarchical point of departure and are, to a large degree, static in their approaches, which means that they risk not discovering, or have problem explaining, changes in the relation between central and local government. To view the relationship between central and local government as interdependence leads to a focus on the resources that the actors possess. For public organisations the most relevant resources are: authority-related resources, financial resources, political resources, informational resources, and organisational resources. The central government has a power advantage concerning authority and financial and political resources while local governments generally have an advantage in terms of informational and organisational resources. The policy area chosen is Swedish refugee policy. The basic paradox within this area is that the central government grants the refugees asylum but cannot give them a place to live without the permission of the local government. This permission is accomplished through voluntary agreements signed between the National Integration Office and the local governments. It is then the local governments that integrate the refugees to Swedish society by providing housing, education, healthcare and so on while the central government is giving the local government a grant to cover the expenses. The central government has lacked political, informational and authority-related resources. The resource used to compensate for this has been the financial resource. By economic incentives the central government has encouraged local governments to increase their refugee reception. This has been the central government’s universal weapon and has been used to reduce its vulnerability as well as its sensitivity. For local governments, authority-related and financial resources have been lacking. The resource that the local governments have had, all the way through the time period studied here, is the organisational resource. This is something that the central government simply cannot provide and this is why there is a relationship of interdependence – just as only the central government has authority in its power base, the local level is the only one with organisational resources.
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| 13. |
- Bengtsson, Rikard
(författare)
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Trust, Threat, and Stable Peace. : Swedish Great Power Perceptions 1905-1939
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study is ultimately concerned with the attainment of stable peace in international affairs. The notion of stable peace-understood as military conflict resolution being unthinkable, no matter the severity of a conflict-rivals traditional accounts of the logic of international relations. Confidence-certainty as to the intentions of another actor-are at the heart of stable peace relationships. In exploring this link between stable peace and confidence, the author also develops the concept of distrust, as an integral part of pre-carious peace relationships, and trust, central to integrative peace relations. The study features as one of its main accomplishments the establishment of an analytical framework for the study of distrust, trust, and confidence in international relations specifically and social affairs generally. In the course of this work, the author utilizes conceptions of trust and related matters from not only Political Science, but also Economics, Psychology and Sociology. Distrust and trust are both conceived of as an actor's cognitive responses to the expectations about the future behavior of a counterpart, where trust implies the acceptance or increase of vulnerability towards that other actor, and distrust implies refraining from accepting such vulnerability. Confidence rests on the same elements as trust (voluntary engagement, potentially adverse consequences, acceptance of vulnerability), but involves no reflection of the risks involved. Drawing on the crucial case of Swedish relations with its great power neighbors, a fundamental conclusion of this study is that not only trust, but also confidence, does exist in international relations also in the absence of institutional arrangements such as international regimes. Further analyzing the causality of trust, three sets of causes are extracted from the literature: prior expe-riences and preexisting images, compatible or incompatible identities, and interaction. The author shows that compatibility or incompatibility of identities, specified as similarity or dissimilarity in regime type, provides a good explanation for the existence of trust or distrust. It follows, then, that democracy as such is neither sufficient nor necessary for trust to develop. This conclusion is of central importance for expanding the debate on the attainability of higher qualities of peace, ultimately stable peace, also outside the democratic community.
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
- Bexell, Magdalena
(författare)
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Exploring Responsibility : Public and Private in Human Rights Protection
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The theory and practice of international relations are replete with dilemmas related to the distribution of responsibility for human rights protection. Institutionalized notions of public and private empower and shape knowledge of what the spheres of responsibility signify for different kinds of actors. This study examines how the public-private distinction is manifested in controversy concerning the character of corporate social responsibility. The study develops a conceptual framework centered on the public-private distinction and the concept of responsibility, drawing attention to the ambiguous and political character of the distinction. Through the analytical prism of the framework, debates concerning responsibility in the case of transnational oil corporations operating in zones where human rights violations are committed by governments are studied. A closer examination is undertaken of the controversy surrounding a Canadian headquartered oil company that operated in Sudan between 1998 and 2002. A range of political, legal and moral tensions arise from boundary-drawing processes between public and private in debates on the distribution of responsibility for human rights protection. The boundary between public and private responsibility is found to be a site of struggle, leading to charges of complicity in human rights abuse. Reconfigurations of authority and power relations question the state-centric focus of the international human rights regime. In the study is discerned an emerging global public domain of action where nonstate actors such as transnational corporations and advocacy NGOs interact and set agendas and standards. The pluralization of authority relations in webs of global governance and the expansion of private sector self-regulation challenge the association of authority with public actors that are accountable through political institutions. This diversification of authority relations is scrutinized in light of the principle of democratic accountability and legitimacy. Efforts at self-regulation, as well as the development of mechanisms for holding transnational corporations accountable for their impact on social conditions, expand the terrain of accountability in zones of human rights violations where transnational corporations are present. This indicates that the territorial boundaries of accountability systems related to human rights are becoming recast into a less territorially defined transnational sphere of action, influence, contestation and answerability. The analysis demonstrates that the study of responsibility, accountability and authority in the field of international relations is confronted with new challenges through the examination of corporate social responsibility in a global governance setting.
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
- Björkdahl, Annika
(författare)
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From Idea to Norm : Promoting Conflict Prevention
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study is concerned with tracing the process of how conflict prevention is moving from the realm of ideas to the field of action. Why is it that, despite historical as well as recent evidence of the infeasibility to prevent wars, the idea of conflict prevention has resurfaced to meet the challenge of the new wars of the post-Cold War era? The study investigates whether the growing interest in preventing the outbreak of violent conflicts marks the coming of age of conflict prevention as an international norm able to induce preventive practices. Adopting a social constructivist perspective, it analyzes the links between ideas, interests, norms and practices. Regarding actors and structures as mutually constitutive, this study advances an analytical framework that draws attention to the pivotal role of the norm entrepreneur in the dynamics of norm evolution. The evolution of a norm pertaining to conflict prevention is traced in the post-Cold War era, and Sweden’s activities as an international norm entrepreneur in the EU and the UN are analyzed. It depicts the Swedish efforts to construct, diffuse and institutionalize a norm pertaining to conflict prevention as well as to translate conflict prevention into practice by participating in the preventive UN peacekeeping mission (UNPREDEP) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The analysis reveals that a social constructivist perspective can assist us in investigating the links between ideas, norms, interests and practices. It shows that interests are defined in the context of internationally held norms, and that the growing interest in preventing violent conflicts may be derived from the emergent norm pertaining to conflict prevention. Norms emerge through the efforts of norm entrepreneurs. Through an analysis of Swedish norm entrepreneurship, this study finds that a small state’s ability to advocate norms relies on the powers associated with compelling ideas, on presentation of “good” ideas when the time is ripe, and on the use of persuasive rhetoric to convince potential norm followers. Norm diffusion and socialization are found to be interactive processes involving the norm entrepreneur and the norm followers in a mutual learning process that may, as this study demonstrates, shape and reshape the evolving norm. The analysis illustrates how the evolution of the emergent norm pertaining to conflict prevention is facilitated by the construction of a normative fit with the frame of mind of the norm entrepreneur, the normative convictions of the potential norm followers and the existing normative context. Finally, the study demonstrates the interactiveness of norms and practices by analyzing the preventive UN peacekeeping operation in Macedonia. Although that unique preventive peacekeeping mission has not been replicated, and conflict prevention has clearly not become a regular practice, this study suggests that the mission contributed to spur the process of norm evolution by bridging the gap between idea and practice of conflict prevention.
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| 18. |
- Bolin, Anna
(författare)
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The military profession in change : The case of Sweden
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The starting point for this study is the transformation that the latest decade has occurred in security and defence affairs. The focal point is the big challenges that these developments have implied for national armed forces. The perspective chosen to describe and analyse this is that of professionalism, and the object of study is that of the Swedish military. The aim of the study is in broad terms to investigate what the development in security and defence affairs has implied for the professionalism of the Swedish military. As a base for the study a framework of professionalism is used. The framework chosen is developed to describe and explain professionalism generally – not just military professionalism. This framework of professionalism is through out the study used as a structuring device. Through describing the Swedish military officer corps in terms of a general framework of professionalism a theoretical portrait of the Swedish military profession is obtained. In this portrait we can see that changes in the Swedish military reflect a number of elements of professionalism. For each such element, the consequences stemming from developments in security and defence affairs are presented and analysed. How can the changes in military professionalism be understood and characterised in more overall and concluding terms? To find an answer to this, existing approaches to describe military professional changes are analysed, and their capacity to portray the current changes of the Swedish military profession are evaluated. As a result of this enquiry an alternative model is constructed – a model that is considered to more accurately sum up and characterise the development of the Swedish military profession as it is described here. This alternative model depicts the development of the Swedish military profession as a movement away from a professionalism of the “sovereign warrior” towards a professionalism of the “involved constable”. Attention is finally directed towards the professionals themselves and what they think about the changes in security and defence affairs and in their profession. The question asked is what attitudes the military officers harbour towards the development of the military profession. Do they approve or do they oppose it? Etc. The overall conclusion concerning the attitudes of the military officers is that they stand behind the basic direction and strategic goals steering the development in defence and military issues, and accept and support the development and the changes facing them. The sources and material are of two main types. Data have mainly been found in existing literature and in different types of official documents. To investigate the attitudes of the military professionals, semi-structured interviews have been carried out.
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| 19. |
- Boussard, Caroline
(författare)
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Crafting Democracy : Civil Society in Post-Transition Honduras
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Civil society is frequently singled out as one of the most important factors in the democratization process, but existing research is often imprecise with regard to civil society’s relation to democratic development. This study analyzes how, and under what circumstances, civil society can contribute to democratic development in newly established democracies. A conceptual framework is outlined that draws attention to civil society’s multiple democracy–building functions and how they are constrained by the political context, the impact of development assistance and the degree of democracy within civil society. The empirical focus here is on a newly established democracy – Honduras – a country that initiated a transition to democracy in 1980. The present study shows how civil society organizations initially played a relatively limited role in the regime-controlled transition, but eventually reacted against the worsening human rights situation. In the post-transition period, civil society has emerged as an important agenda setter that has drawn attention to democratic deficits, as an educator for civic education of the mass public as well as the political elite, as a source of new political alternatives that has managed to bridge the gap between political society and civil society, and finally, as a counterpart of the government, particularly in development-related areas. Whereas civil society’s function during the transition is best described as a countervailing power that can, if it is democratic in its orientations, promulgate a democratic orientation of reforms, the functions in the post-transition period are best conceptualized as a complex mix of state-supporting and countervailing powers. The study concludes that the political context is crucial for our understanding of civil society’s democracy-building potential. Through different mechanisms, the Honduran state has managed to control civil society organizations, something that has a negative impact on civil society’s countervailing power, and this tendency has been visible during authoritarian rule as well as after the transition to democratic rule. Thus, examining the historical state-society relations can improve our understanding of civil society and its democracy-building potential. The attempts to control or co-opt civil society can be reinforced by the donor community’s efforts to strengthen civil society. Democracy-promoting strategies can, consequently, result in an undermined countervailing power of civil society.
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| 20. |
- Boyer, Kurtis
(författare)
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An Autocracy of Empathy : Human-Animal Relations and the Emotional Architecture of Speciesism
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- With a commitment to a relational ontology, scholars from within the feminist care tradition of animal ethics have been able to theorize how our moral significance - as well as our moral obligations to others - arise from the metaphysical and empathetic 'entanglements. Independent of species, gender and the like, we exist as embodied beings. Sharing a position that originates in nonwestern cultures and philosophies, animal care ethicists' claim appears contrary to a sense of separateness and independence that seems fundamental to Western culture and modern life. Similarly, this claim also contradicts the common logic maintaining a moral distinction between the human and nonhuman.Recent scientific research in social neuroscience provides evidence resonant with the insight of a relational emotive interdependence. These works show how the content of our own mind-state is not determined by some separate cognitive process, but rather by those automatic psychophysiological responses our bodies have to our environment, such as those in distress. On these grounds, an interpretation of relevant brain research converges with the ontological claims made by relational approaches in animal ethics; I.e. that we are deeply and necessarily interconnected with others.Despite the evidence of a built-in empathy, humans fail to act with compassion vis-a-vis others' suffering.In addressing the question of how we empathetically fail to recognize the moral significance of animal suffering, most critical animal theorists employ a model of moral agency and consciousness that is at odds with the relational metaphysics that provides animals moral significance. Specifically, this model see our empathetic failure as an expression of internal qualities or processes of the person: volition, choice, lack of effort, lack of education and so on. This thesis shows how approaches inspired by this assumption fail to recognize how empathy itself presupposes a relationship between our conscious experiences, and the conditions that exist in the environment or intersubjective encounter.While this project remains situated within a feminist care perspective on animal ethics, it nevertheless represents an attempt to reconcile the tension between a relational ontology and the framework used for explaining how and why humans fail to recognize other’s moral standing. In this spirit, this research employs a relational approach to understanding empathetic failure. In doing so, it shows how and why empathetic failure is relationally constituted. By mapping the presence of certain conditions in the human-to-animal intersubjective encounter, this work reveals the affordances which direct us towards certain aversive mind-states. As we find ourselves enmeshed in the conditions of our relations, both as care giver and perpetrator of violence, this dissertation reveals a politics of emotion at work: focusing how 'epistemic authority', the embodied reaction to distress, and the intersections that our relationships have with broader structures of power, come to influence the kinds of intersubjective experiences we have with the nonhuman. By extension, this theoretical investigation ultimately unveils the ways in which social relations become represented, or excluded, in our political communities.
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| 21. |
- Broman, Matilda
(författare)
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Taking Advantage of Institutional Possibilities and Network Opportunities : Analyzing Swedish Strategic Action in EU Negotiations
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When core national interests are at stake, EU member states optimize their strategic activities on the European level in order to advance national preferences. Two cases are used in this study to shed light on such dynamics. The first case is Sweden’s strategic action within the transparency issue area, which in part defined the country’s Council Presidency in early 2001. The second case is the EU chemicals policy where Sweden, as in the transparency case, harbours strong interests. The two studies provide opportunities for in-depth studies of the complex institutional setting and related EU negotiations within the co-decision context. Armed with a theoretical framework based on what is labelled institutional possibilities and network opportunities, the author proceeds to analyze Swedish strategic activities in the studied cases. These activities are categorized as framing; the use of expertise; manipulation; procedural tactics; leadership; mediation and coalition-building. The framework developed to analyze Sweden’s strategies is additionally used to trace and analyze the activities of other member states (i.e., France, Italy, the UK and Finland), EU bodies, and non-governmental actors. This multi-actor approach significantly broadens the empirical and theoretical scope of analysis and understanding. The theoretical contribution consists of a synthesis of rational institutionalism and network theory – informed by the sizable literature about negotiations in international relations. The author concludes that within co-decision procedures, the European Parliament has become an important ally – or opponent – for member states advancing national interests. The role and influence of the Council Presidency is identified as a uniquely powerful when promoting national interests through the European system. The study also demonstrates that strategies vary greatly across stages of decision-making, and that tactical approaches are configured differently depending on the context.
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| 22. |
- Bäckstrand, Karin
(författare)
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What Can Nature Withstand? : Science, Politics and Discourses in Transboundary Air Pollution Diplomacy
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Long-range transboundary air pollution generates pressing environmental problems such as the acidification of lakes and soils, forest decline and loss of biodiversity as well as threats to human health across Europe. The overall aim of this study is to explore the role of scientific expertise in environmental diplomacy by analyzing recent international agreements in the transboundary air pollution (LRTAP) regime. The concept of critical loads, i.e. scientific assessment of ecosystem sensitivity, and the practice of integrated assessment modeling provide a decision framework in the diplomatic effort to counter air pollution. First, a discursive framework for understanding the science–policy interface in environmental policy–making is built by drawing on the post–positivist research agenda in constructivism, discourse analysis, international environmental politics and science studies. The theoretical contributions of the study are the development of a 1) a constructivist account of the science–policy interplay stressing the mutual construction of the scientific and policy agenda as a hybrid endeavor; 2) a discursive framework for analyzing the interplay between discourses, practices and actors as scientific knowledge is framed into policy instruments. Secondly, in applying the framework above this study covers new empirical ground in providing an in–depth analysis of the role of science in the evolution of critical–load–based regional air pollution agreements. The discursive and institutional shift toward an effect–oriented discourse relying on the critical loads approach in the LRTAP regime is traced. The study analyzes the employment of regulatory science in the negotiation of the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol, which incorporates a multipollutant–multieffect approach, has been appraised as the most complex science–policy endeavor hitherto undertaken. The various discourses surrounding the concept of critical loads as it was tailored into a multidisciplinary and multinational research agenda are explored. The competing discourses – effect–oriented, technology–oriened and cost–oriented – in the pre–negotiations and ‘political negotiations are examined. The study investigates role of modelers and scientific experts as knowledge brokers and knowledge translators and scientific practices such as modeling in synthesizing and framing scientific discourses into a comprehensible policy instrument. Thirdly, this study critically reflects upon the rise of regulatory science in transboundary air pollution diplomacy in the light of three green perspectives, namely ecofeminism, reflexive modernization and postmodern cultural critique, which all in different ways examine the link between modernity, science and the environmental crisis. From this perspectives, the effect–oriented discourse is embedded in a larger discourse on ecological modernization paving the way for the scientization of environmental politics.
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| 23. |
- Chaib, Josef
(författare)
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Evidence, Expertise and 'Other' Knowledge : Governing Welfare Collaboration
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I den här avhandlingen studeras styrning av välfärdssamverkan, med focus på betydelsen av kunskap i styrning. I offentlig verksamhet – och i välfärd i synnerhet – är samverkan mellan myndigheter, kommunala förvaltningar och välfärdsprofessionella ett återkommande sätt att hantera olika problem som de traditionella offentliga institutionerna anses oförmögna att lösa. Genom att studera ett specifikt fall av välfärdssamverkan, med fokus på barn och unga, är syftet med den här avhandlingen att utforska hur samverkan styrs. Med en explorativ ansats – baserad på etnografisk metodologi och en Foucauldiansk syn på styrning – fokuserar studien på styrningspraktiker bortom formella styrinstrument och relationer. Avhandlingen skildrar praktiker som styr genom olika typer av kunskap och för att beskriva den här formen av styrning används begreppet kunskapsregimer. Utifrån en fallstudie bestående av huvudsakligen observationer och intervjuer visas hur olika typer av kunskaper kommer till uttryck inom samverkan. Genom en regim baserad på expertkunskap involveras forskare – som utvärderare och föreläsare – för att delge sin vetenskapliga kunskap. Genom en regim baserad på standardiserad kunskap tillämpas icke-personbunden och universell kunskap, såsom evidensbaserade verktyg och managementmodeller. Genom en regim baserad på lokal kunskap så tillämpas icke-artikulerad kunskap som olika professionella grupper besitter – en kunskap som ofta framstår som avvikande gentemot mer etablerade kunskapstyper. Olika typer av kunskap styr välfärdssamverkan genom de praktiker där de gestaltas och kommer till uttryck. En viktig slutsats och argument i avhandlingen är att mångfalden av kunskap och relationerna mellan olika typer av kunskap behöver beaktas i studier av välfärdssamverkan och inom offentlig sektor mer generellt. Studien visar hur olika kunskapsregimer existerar samtidigt och att olika kunskapstyper förekommer sida vid sida inom en och samma organisation och även inom samma samverkansprojekt. Genom att beskriva och analysera betydelsen av kunskap i styrningen av välfärdssamverkan innebär studien ett bidrag till forskning om välfärd och hur välfärden organiseras och styrs. Avhandlingen är också ett bidrag till forskning om relationen mellan kunskap och politik och betydelsen av kunskap i offentlig förvaltning i bred bemärkelse.
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| 24. |
- Chaib, Josef
(författare)
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Evidence, Expertise and 'Other' Knowledge : Governing Welfare Collaboration
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation analyses how welfare collaboration is governed, focusing on the role of knowledge in government. In the public sector – and in welfare especially – collaboration between agencies, municipal departments and welfare professions is a recurring response to various problems where the traditional public-sector institutions are considered inapt to provide solutions. By studying a specific case of welfare collaboration focusing on children and youth, the purpose of this dissertation is to explore how collaboration is governed. With an explorative approach – drawing upon an ethnographic methodology coupled with a Foucauldian perspective on government – the study focuses on government practices, thus going beyond formal tools and relations of government. The dissertation features practices that govern by drawing upon different forms of knowledge, and the concept of knowledge regimes is used to describe this form of governing. Based on a case study, carried out mainly through observations and interviews, it is shown how different forms of knowledge are enacted within collaboration. In a regime of expert knowledge, researchers are involved to provide their scientific knowledge by participating as evaluators and lecturers. In a regime of standardised knowledge, impersonal and universal knowledge – such as evidence-based instruments and management models – is applied. In a regime of local knowledge, unarticulated knowledge held by different professionals is enacted – often appearing as the ‘other’ of more established knowledge forms. Different forms of knowledge all govern welfare collaboration through the practices in which they are enacted. A key conclusion and argument is that the diversity of knowledge and the relationship between different forms of knowledge must be taken into consideration in studies of welfare collaboration and within the public sector in general. The study shows a simultaneous presence of multiple knowledge regimes and that different forms of knowledge appear side by side in the same organisation and even within the same collaboration projects. By describing and analysing the role of knowledge in governing welfare collaboration, this study contributes to research on welfare and how welfare is organised and governed. It also contributes to research on the relationship between knowledge and politics and the role of knowledge within public administration more broadly.
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| 25. |
- Conrad, Maximilian
(författare)
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Between Communication and Community : EU Constitution Making, a European Public Sphere and the (Un-)Likelihood of Transnational Debate
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- What kind of public sphere is possible in the European Union? Against the backdrop of debates on the transformation of democracy beyond the nation-state, this study explores daily newspapers’ role in providing forums for transnational debate in the presumed absence of an overarching European collective identity. It uses empirical means to reconsider the question of the supposed co-constitutiveness of the public sphere and political community. In Habermasian discourse theory, the deliberative public sphere is thought to bridge gaps in social integration, while communitarians claim that normative debate can only draw on pre-existing communal values. But if the public sphere has a social integrative function, how can we then conceptualize the minimum level of social integration that allows individuals to initiate a deliberative search for solutions – in our case in the European Union? This study contends that efforts to conceptualize this minimum level of social integration as an “identity light” fail to distinguish clearly between the identity of the community (even in a thin form) and recognition of affected parties on a given issue. Drawing on social constructivism, constitutional patriotism and Deweyan pragmatism, the study argues that affectedness ultimately determines recognition of legitimate participants in any political debate. Yet affectedness is constructed in framing processes. On this basis, the study explores whether transnational debate hinges on daily newspapers' perspectives and preferences on European integration and EU democracy. Daily newspapers are here presented not only as important framers of public debate, but also as bearers of normative views regarding the level at which democratic opinion formation on European issues should take place. Do newspapers with a pronounced preference for more democracy beyond the nation-state play a more active role in providing forums for transnational debate? The empirical analysis of debates on EU constitution making indicates that newspaper framing and transnational engagement follow cross-national patterns linked to newspaper orientations. This empirical finding suggests that despite the presumed absence of a thick sense of European community, lively transnational debate is possible even in newspapers favoring intergovernmental integration. On the other hand, the empirical also indicates that the inclusion of non-domestic speakers as authors presents a challenge for a European public sphere understood as a shared communicative space.
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| 26. |
- Danjoux, Olivier
(författare)
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L'Etat, c'est pas moi : Reframing citizenship(s) in the Baltic republics
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This book speaks to readers with a particular interest in the Baltic states as well as to those with a broader interest in post-communist democratization and citizenship. The notion of citizenship has not been prominent in academic perspectives on post-communism. This study aims at bringing citizenship back into these perspectives. Starting from the idea that citizenship is both a condition of democracy and an indicator of the level of democracy in a given society, the author studies the extent to which theories of citizenship currently dominating political science account for the specific experience of people living in the Baltic countries. This study's theoretical bedrock is thus a critical overview of the republican, liberal and cultural conceptions of citizenship, done in relation to the historically specific nature of post-communism. The analytical instrument derived from this critical overview of theory is a two-dimensional model of citizenship called the Legacy and the Scruples. That model draws insights from, notably, linguistics and anthropology. It is applied to Baltic citizens' experiences of both communist and post-communist citizenships. Ruptures and continuities between these two kinds of citizenship are highlighted. This study argues that the current weakness of citizenship in the Baltic states is due not so much to difficulties in managing ethnic diversity (although such difficulties exist) than to more specifically political factors. These factors are linked to the ways citizenship and political power are conceived of and exercised in these countries.
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| 27. |
- Dannestam, Tove
(författare)
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Stadspolitik i Malmö : Politikens meningsskapande och materialitet
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In international research there is a near consensus that the importance of cities is growing. As the policymakers of contemporary cities redirect their policy orientations away from the goal of redistribution towards achieving economic competitiveness, and as they introduce new structures of governance, they are becoming more and more committed to entrepreneurial city politics. However, both the international and Nordic research communities have shown little interest in studying whether these trends are viable in a Nordic context. Thus, through a case study of the city of Malmö, this doctoral dissertation explores the introduction of entrepreneurial city politics in a Swedish setting. Malmö is a former flagship for the Social Democratic ‘welfare city’ and a city that now is undergoing a process of politico-economic transformation. Theoretically, the author develops a framework for the analysis of policy-making in general and how cities turn towards urban entrepreneurialism in particular. ‘The Lancaster School of Cultural Political Economy’ is applied and redeveloped through interpretative policy analysis, urban regime theory and the politics of scale approach. Taken together, these traditions represent the basis for the conceptualization of politics within the dissertation. The author proposes an understanding of politics as practiced through an interplay of discursive and material processes and beyond the processes traditionally associated with a narrow ‘government-based’ conceptualization of politics. A framework is constructed to analyze how discourses, such as the discourse on the necessity of cities being entrepreneurial, are translated into political practice through three different moments. The moments of ‘selection’, ‘actors mobilizing discourse-coalitions’ and ‘institutionalization’ structure the empirical analysis of city politics in Malmö. The author demonstrates how key actors create, mediate and translate the discourse on urban entrepreneurialism to fit the actual (previously welfare oriented) context of local government. Powerful coalitions of various actors are mobilized around three different ‘micro-discourses’ that materialize into institutional, organizational and political practice. As a result of the analysis, the author reveals six different technologies of institutionalization which actors employ and which are essential for the practice of entrepreneurial city politics in Malmö. The overall aim of the dissertation is to contribute to the on-going re-conceptualization of politics in general and local politics in particular. Political scientists tend to treat local politics as equal to ‘sub-national municipal politics’, i.e. as politics defined in relation to the central state, mainly concerned with service delivery and occurring within the formal decision-making processes of local government. In contrast, the author argues that we need to rethink local politics and that such a task of re-conceptualization is especially urgent in a Nordic context, where the idea of ‘municipal politics’ has functioned as “an iron-grip on political imagination”. In the final section the theoretical framework developed within the dissertation is proposed as one way of rethinking local politics. The author also discusses why the presence of entrepreneurial city politics challenges the traditional organization and orientation of local politics in Sweden. Conclusions are drawn regarding our understanding of politics in general and some remarks on a future research agenda centered on the cultural political economy of contemporary city politics are given.
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| 28. |
- Davidsson, Simon
(författare)
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The Development of Parliamentarism in Western Europe
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation describes and explains the development of parliamentarism in Western Europe. Defining parliamentarism as an institutional solution in which the government is politically responsible to parliament only, I use country historiography to map out a tug-of-war between parliament and the head of state over the ability to make governments resign or maintain them in office in 11 West European countries since the establishment of national parliaments. To describe the development of parliamentarism, I use a Bayesian learning model that estimates how expectations of who might make the government in office resign are updated, based on information on previous government-termination attempts at each point in time. I argue that parliamentarism is institutionalized when past experience suggests that there is good reason to believe that no actor other than parliament can make the government resign. In addition, I theorize that the emergence of party systems, and the development of party-system fragmentation and polarization, affect the ability and willingness of parliamentary party leaders and heads of state to enforce parliamentarism or its counter-factual, power sharing, in practice. Having described the development of parliamentarism in the countries included in this dissertation, I show that parliamentarism never developed before the emergence of party systems, and I find support for my theory in time-series cross-sectional regression. Party-system fragmentation affects parliamentarism negatively, and some party-system polarization affects parliamentarism positively while much party-system polarization affects parliamentarism negatively. I complement the regression analyses by analyzing the behavior of the relevant actors in four case studies: Denmark from the 1850s to the 1920s, Belgium from the 1830s to the 1950s, France from the 1940s to the 1960s, and Finland from the 1920s to the 1990s. These case studies substantiate my argument about the effect of party systems further. Thus, the dissertation illustrates how a Bayesian learning model can be used to estimate institutional change and contributes with substantive knowledge about the development of a very important political institution in Western Europe. The results have implications for knowledge about West European democratization, the role of parties to enforce political institutions, and understandings of how political conflict can have both positive and negative effects on politics.
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| 29. |
- Edenborg, Emil
(författare)
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Nothing more to see : Contestations of belonging and visibility in Russian media
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the role of visibility in the production and contestation of belonging to political communities. On the basis of an empirical enquiry of Russian media during the 2010s, a theoretical conceptualization of the relation between visibility and belonging is suggested, starting in the idea that what becomes visible to publics and how, and what is rendered invisible, are the objects of constant political regulation and contestation. The suggested theory seeks to move beyond both an exclusively speech-oriented approach to belonging, and a binary view on visibility as either emancipatory or repressive. In three case studies, the thesis explores aspects of the problem of belonging and visibility. In all cases – each of which focuses on a specific project of belonging as enacted in contemporary Russian media – gendered, sexualized and ethnicized conceptions of community are at the center of the contestations. First, by analyzing narratives in Russian media about the 2013 ban on “homosexual propaganda”, the thesis shows that as projects of belonging produce specific gendered and sexualized conceptions of community, they seek to regulate the visibility of undesired, non-normative subjectivities. However, those regulatory efforts contain tensions that may serve as starting points for contestation. Second, by studying media narratives about the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the thesis shows that spectacular media events may serve to depoliticize particular notions of community by making them hypervisible and producing them as natural and inevitable, but such events may also serve as sites of repoliticization. Third, by analyzing how the Russian state-promoted narrative on the war in Ukraine 2014-15 was challenged, by Russian internet satire and by the media exposure of how Russian soldiers who had died in Ukraine were secretly buried, the thesis shows that contestations of dominant projects of belonging draw on invisibility, and often have an ambivalent, inside/outside relation to dominant narratives. The central claim of the thesis is that projects of belonging, aimed at (re)constituting political communities and their boundaries, seek to produce particular arrangements of visibility regulating what can be seen and how it can be seen in the public sphere, and what cannot be seen. Moreover, as visibility cannot be fixed entirely, precisely those arrangements become the target of political contestation. On a more analytically useful level, it is suggested that politics of belonging involves efforts to contain, amplify and contest visibility.
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| 30. |
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| 31. |
- Engstrand, Sandra
(författare)
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State Learning and Role Playing : International environmental cooperation in the Arctic Council
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study investigates state interaction as a social learning process, where the ultimate aim is to enhance an understanding on how states learn of environmental norms. An entry into the domain on such learning processes is offered through a Constructivist approach and more specifically through the employment of a role theoretical perspective; a role here is signified as a state's repertory of behavior and its social position within a group. Attention has been devoted to states' ego- and alter expectations, which provide access to how states reflect and deliberate regarding their preferred behavior, when also taking into account those behavioral/normative prescriptions found in the social context, and in others' expectations. To enhance an understanding on how states learn of environmental norms, investigations and discussions are carried out on the links between: learning and expectations, environmental protection and fossil energy interests, and learning and role changes. Furthermore, such discussions are linked to the Arctic context, and more precisely to state interaction within the Arctic Council. This intergovernmental forum - dedicated to sustainable development and environmental protection - has eight Arctic states as founding members: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the U.S. In this study, each state's role is mapped through a text analysis, of foremost Senior Arctic Official's meeting minutes during the period 1999-2016. Two specific negotiation processes (2013-2015) are then investigated from a micro perspective, focusing on the question of how states learn. These negotiations are on oil spill prevention and the reduction of short-lived climate pollutants, respectively. Three theoretical conclusions are drawn: firstly; roles in international relations are stable but flexible, thus adaptive; secondly, the flexible dimension of roles is activated in relation to understanding - to which degree states understand their social context to contain behavioral prescriptions, and thirdly; states cannot learn in a speedier and more thorough manner than the role allows for flexing. For the progression of environmental protection, learning about such norms are thus suggested to be successive learning, connected to states' expectations of their (role) purpose within a social context. Moreover, it is suggested that conceptions of being a good cooperator is superior, why learning of environmental norms also is connected to understandings of what would constitute such an actor.
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| 32. |
- Ericson, Magnus
(författare)
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A Realist Stable Peace : Power, Threat and the Development of a Shared Norwegian-Swedish Democratic Security Identity 1905-1940
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study concerns the development of Stable Peace between states in the modern anarchical international system. As a starting point for the inquiry the author argues that the prevalence of this type of interstate relationships—characterized by the mutual expectations that neither military violence nor threats thereof will be employed—may be seen as a fundamental challenge to the validity of prevailing Realist perpectives on contemporary IR. In the course of the dissertation the author argues that Democratic Peace theory and its notion of shared security identities offers an avenue to investigate and account for the development of Stable Peace. As the Democratic Peace refers to the unit level as the source of explanation, and also suggests that normative considerations may override considerations of power, this compounds the challenge to Realist conceptions of IR. However, in objection to the proposition that democracy has contextually independent effects engendering Stable Peace, the author suggests that contemporary Stable Peace ought to be understood as a significant historical development and that explanation of this phenomenon can not be reduced to probabilistic generalizations, no matter how robust these may seem. Attention to historical context, moreover, shows that concerns of relative power distribution among egoistic actors in an anarchic environment may be important conditionalizing factors for the ability of also democratic states to enjoy a relationship of Stable Peace. Based on his study of Norwegian-Swedish relations 1905-1940, the author therefore concludes that Realism continues to be relevant also to an understanding of the nature of contemporary Stable and Democratic Peace.
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| 33. |
- Erlingsson, Gissur
(författare)
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Varför bildas nya partier? : Om kollektivt handlande och partientreprenörer
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since political parties are collective goods, groups of people that demand new political parties face a collective action problem. Therefore, we can speak of a ?paradox of party-emergence?. Hence, it is puzzling that new parties became increasingly common in representative bodies at the Swedish local level during 1973?2002. This development provides a unique circumstance on which to test hypotheses on how, when and why collective action problems are solved. Adhering to the principle of methodological individualism, and using rational choice as point of departure, I set out to answer two research-questions: (1) Why do people create parties in the first place? (2) Why did party-creation become an increasingly popular political strategy between 1973 and 2002 in Swedish municipalities? I begin this venture by reviewing the existing literature in the field. I criticize and reject unsatisfactory approaches of party-emergence, and conversely retain and develop valuable approaches. Ultimately, three (complementary) approaches are constructed in order to answer the research-questions: The Parametric Model, The Sequential Model and The Dynamic Model. (1) ?The Parametric Model? uses the standard economic methodology of rational choice. Actors are assumed to be motivated by money, power or prestige, and they are also assumed to possess complete information about the relevant parameters. I hypothesize that changes in the potential party-entrepreneurs? relevant environment have boosted the net-benefits of party-creation, thus explaining why party-creation became an increasingly popular strategy during 1973?2002. Empirical evidence, however, does not support this assertion. Worse still, some environmental changes point in the opposite direction, which deepens the paradox of party-emergence. Then, (2) ?The Sequential Model? is constructed in order to move the analysis closer to the individual party-entrepreneurs. By modeling the sequences preceding the entrepreneurs? decision, and using this model to process-trace six cases ? chosen through the ?method of difference? ? of party-emergence, I set out to identify mechanisms that trigger party-emergence. Results indicate that ?strong emotions? such as anger and psychological incentives such as lust for revenge, mobilize actors to overcome costs and engage in high-cost political activities. ?Strong emotions? only provide an answer to the first question, but do not explain the emergence of new parties between 1973 and 2002. Hence, (3) ?The Dynamic Model? is constructed, which sets out to answer why party-creation became an increasingly popular strategy during the period 1973?2002. I analytically construct a hypothesis built on the assumption that a mechanism called ?rational imitation? is responsible for the fact that new parties became common in Swedish municipalities. The core argument is as follows: the fact that an entrepreneur creates a political party at t ? 1 inspires potential entrepreneurs in neighboring municipalities to create parties at later points in time. Although results only reveal weak evidence to support this hypothesis, the correlations cannot be ignored. In fact, since previous attempts to explain the increasing number of new parties in Sweden have been unsuccessful, and since face-to-face contacts no longer are assumed to be significant, these results are judged as the most promising for answering the second research-question.
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| 34. |
- Fernández, Christian
(författare)
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Medborgarskap efter nationalstaten? : Ett konstruktivt förslag
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is an attempt to formulate a constructive proposal for the ongoing establishment of a post-national European citizenship in the European Union. To the extent that the proposal is post-national, the ambition is to re-conceptualise the idea and ideal of citizenship in a new historical setting. To the extent that the proposal is constructive, the ambition is to develop and employ a methodology which combines normative and empirical analysis. The aim of the thesis is to make a contribution in each of these fields?with particular emphasis on the first. To achieve this, the thesis is focused on two questions. First, what should post-national citizenship mean? Second, to what extent can the European Union provide the conditions for such a post-national citizenship? The answer to the first question is based on the elaboration of a neo-republican norm and the analysis of the changing empirical conditions and organization of citizenship. The result is a trans-national model of citizenship, which diverges from both the cosmopolitan and the multicultural models that have attracted substantial attention in academic debates. Trans-national citizenship is a citizenship inspired by the Habermasian idea of constitutional patriotism, yet recognizes the continuing predominance of national citizenship and the complementary status of post-national citizenship. The answer to the second question is rooted in an empirical analysis of European citizenship and the application of the trans-national citizenship model to the existing realities of European citizenship. The first part of the constructive proposal is based on a critique of European citizenship as it stands with respect to its functionalism, its continued exclusivity, and its statist bias. The second part of the proposal is an extrapolation and subsequent comparison of three future-oriented principles for the evolution of European citizenship: free movement, identity, and residence. For each of these principles a metaphorical scenario is outlined: the market-oriented vision which basically reduces European citizens to customers of a mall; the European pan-national vision which reduces citizenship to an instrument for cultural reproduction; and the place-oriented vision of a European neighbourhood where all permanent residents are treated as equal subjects and sovereigns of the European polity. Having considered the intrinsic advantages and disadvantages of each scenario, the eventual proposal will comprise a defence of the third principle.
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| 35. |
- Fred, Mats
(författare)
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Projectification : The Trojan horse of local government
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to conceptualize local government projectification by answering the questions of how projectification is manifested in practice, and what the consequences of the project logic are for local government organizations and their employees. An institutional ethnography is conducted in the Swedish municipality of Eslöv and its organizational and institutional surroundings. Through an institutional logic perspective informed by translation theory, local government projectification is conceptualized as a process of proliferation, transformation and adaptation, as well as organizational capacity building. Projectification as proliferation emphasizes the increasing use and diffusion of projects and project ideas. Projectification as transformation and adaptation highlights processes of transformation of “permanent” ordinary organizational activities to temporary projects, and adaptation in the surrounding organizations and structures. Projectification as organizational capacity building implies that the project logic diffuses in local government organizations, not primarily through specific projects, but through practices encouraging the project logic, which reinforces the organizational project capacity of local government. Three conclusions are drawn. First, projectification must be regarded as something more than many projects. Second, projects are not “just” vehicles carrying something forward, but techniques, tools and practices that produce specific effects of their own, independently of their stated objectives or aims ascribed to them.Third, the practical outcome of the project logic is more related to the rational and technical aspects of the project as a form than the innovative and flexible aspects of the project as a process. Hence, local government bureaucracy appears to be battle bureaucracy with more bureaucracy.
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| 36. |
- Fredén, Annika, 1981-
(författare)
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Strategic Voting under Coalition Governments
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- If a voter defects from preference under the consideration of policy outcomes and others' behavior, it is a "strategic vote". This thesis relates voters' strategic considerations to the government formation process: the chances for a party to gain seats, enter office, and affect overall policies. This implies that voters sometimes think like parties on the governmental consequences of the vote. From these goals, four different types of strategic voting are discussed: voting for a party that is more likely to get elected (not to "waste one's vote"), more likely to lead the government formation process ("strategic sequencing"), at risk of falling below an electoral threshold ("insurance-voting"), or to affect the overall policies of a coalition ("compensational voting"). The focus is strategic voting for smaller parties, which has been given less attention in previous studies and is more likely to take place in proportional representation (PR), where the government is usually a coalition. The argument being made is that the potentially strategic voter does not always cast (the same type of) strategic vote. Information found in polls, for example, varies from election to election. Indications from the parties regarding with whom they intend to cooperate should also affect consideration about parties' post-electoral behavior. The ideas concerning strategic voting under coalition governments in practice are tested in four empirical studies. Using different methods, from large scale real life election studies over time to small scale laboratory experiments, the findings support the idea that different types of coalition-oriented strategic voting occurs and that these different types are based on the election-specific context.
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| 37. |
- Gusic, Ivan
(författare)
-
War, peace & the city : Urban conflicts over peace(s) in the postwar cities of Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Postwar cities demonstrate the most persistent continuities of war in peace. This effectively forces people into divided and politicised lives, undermines city-wide urban dynamics, and hampers wider peace processes that these cities are part of. It, however, also goes against what can be and historically is expected of the city – namely to transcend divides, bridge communities, and foster co-existence. This thesis asks the question of how it is so that continuities of war in peace are reinforced rather than transcended in the postwar city. To this end it uses extensive fieldwork in the postwar cities Belfast (Northern Ireland), Mitrovica (Kosovo), and Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina) as well as engages in novel theorising on the postwar city and the urban conflicts over peace(s) that permeate it. The ensuing argument is that the continuities of war in peace in the postwar city are reinforced rather than transcended for two mutually enhancing reasons. On the one hand, because urban conflicts over peace(s) undermine the defining aspects of the city that give it transcending potential while reinforcing the defining aspects of the city with destructive potential. On the other hand, because the postwar city as a city reinforces the urban conflicts over peace(s) that in turn undermine its transcending and reinforce its destructive potential.
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| 38. |
- Gustafsson, Nils
(författare)
-
Leetocracy : Political participation, social network sites and inequality
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is about whether social network sites have the potential to bring about more equal participation. It deals with a phenomenon that has changed the underlying infrastructure of how millions of people communicate. It studies the way the use of social network sites affects communication within existing political organisations in addition to networked campaigns. And it goes beyond digital content analysis to use a broad range of methods in order to capture behaviour and attitudes offline as well as online in a contextual setting. Social network sites have not brought about any greater equality in political participation. Using social network sites does not in itself lower the thresholds for participation, as increased accessibility does not outweigh the underlying factors of participation and political interest. Political participation is changing, but what is changing is not related to equality of participation. Instead, the existing system is put under pressure by what is referred to in this dissertation as viral politics and the emergence of temporal elites. Rather than resulting in egalitarian democracy, what we actually have is a leetocracy of sorts, where existing hierarchies are supplemented with new ones. This is shown in six distinct articles, each with its own empirical focus, and an introductory essay summarising the articles and presenting the core argument of the dissertation. An additional goal of this dissertation is to show how the development of political participation in relation to social network sites can be better understood through the framework of competitive elitist democracy than through that of deliberative democratic theory. A methodological goal is to show how a combination of quantitative and several different qualitative methods applied on a set of different empirical cases can be used to yield a fuller illumination of the overarching research aim. This dissertation is an ambitious attempt to study the effects of social network site use on several different forms of political participation. It contains the first representative study of political participation in social media in Sweden and the first study of intra-party use of social network sites in parliamentary parties in the world.
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| 39. |
- Gustafsson, Rune
(författare)
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Syntes och design : Den intellektuelle politikern som konstnär
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A new theory on the intellectual politician, which has the ability to produce a designed type of problem-solving, has been developed from political science theory, cognitive theory as well as art theory. A cognitive concept, modified integrative complexity, consisting of four sub-concepts, frame reflection, differentiation, reframing and integration has been developed. The relation between politicians and the electorate is captured in the second new concept, political design, consisting of the sub-concepts, launch, connecting form, associatory ways and visualisation. In developing the theory, a case study comprising nine contextually chosen empirical illustrations from political speeches and writing by the Austrian Otto Bauer, the Englishman Stafford Cripps and the Swede Ernst Wigforss, has been used. Using a two-by-two matrix with integrative complexity and capacity for political design on the axes, four types of intellectual politician are presented; the critic, the pragmatist, the theorist and the artist. These types increase the understanding of politics on a general level. In a pluralistic, democratic system all four types of intellectual politician are generally represented and they can correct one another and balance each other out. The critic can call out warnings and tell the artist off, when needed. The theorist can instruct the artist that the choice of the solution is insufficiently considered. The pragmatist and the artist can illustrate the importance of artistry to the critic and the theorist. The artist and the theorist, on the other hand, can contribute to the pragmatist and the critic becoming aware of more aspects of different problems. In the final chapter a synthesis of the politician and the creative artist is developed in three steps, using the concepts artistic transference, political design and the heritage of forms.
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| 40. |
- GUSTAFSSON, SOFIE
(författare)
-
Medborgarskapande på olika villkor : Självbilder, skolkoder och syn på kunskap i den svenska gymnasieskolan
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Citizens are not born, they are made. Based on fieldwork in two upper-secondary school classes in Sweden – an Introductory Programme class and a Social Science Programme class – this dissertation focuses on how pupils form their identities as citizens in a democratic society. Citizens are made in interaction with the society they inhabit, an interaction where power is always present. Although Sweden is internationally seen as a comparatively equal society, citizens are still made in distinctly different ways. Three theoretical aspects inform the fieldwork: self-image, school codes, and learning. When the teenagers in my fieldwork started their first year at a new school, they met new teachers, new classmates and a new school climate. In this context, the teenagers asked themselves the question “Who am I?” and as they interacted with their teachers and classmates, they created a new self-image. The Introductory Programme pupils – not eligible for a national programme since they lacked a passing grade in the subjects of Swedish, English and Math – needed to deal with others’ expectations of them as stupid, dangerous and embarrassing. The teenagers asked themselves if they wanted to appear as “gangsters”, thus gaining awe and respect. The pupils in the Social Science Programme – at a prestigous municipal school – posed very different questions about themselves, wondering if they were studious “swotters” or not, and in fact questioning their own academic capabilities while thinking that everyone else in the class knew so much. The school codes, or social codes in the schools, were also distinctly different in the two classes. The pupils in the Introductory Program had a school code that emphasised rules and obedience, similar to the concept of “discipline”. The Social Science pupils, on the contrary, were expected to be self-governing and to take responsibility for their own learning. The school code thus resembled “governmentality”, a concept developed to describe the mode of governance in liberal democratic states. Learning is certainly a central activity in schools, but it can take various forms. In the Introductory Programme, the teachers and pupils tended to focus on remembering and understanding words and concepts, e.g. the meaning of words in Swedish or the procedure of multiplication in Math. In the Social Science class, however, the teachers and pupils had a wider understanding of the concept of learning, often stressing analytical skills, while also discussing concepts. The teenagers were, for instance, asked to look for causes, effects and criteria of democracy. On the whole, the study suggests that some teenagers learn that they are not good enough, that they are “Failed Citizens” and need to work hard to be accepted into the “Community of Values”. They learn that a good citizen is someone who obeys the laws and votes in general elections. Other teenagers find that they are already included in the “Community of Values” and learn that a good citizen is someone who is active in an ongoing normative discussion about what our society should be like.
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| 41. |
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| 42. |
- Hall, Martin
(författare)
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Constructing Historical Realism : International Relations as Comparative History
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this study the author seeks to develop Historical Realism as a new approach to International Relations. Drawing on recent theoretical developments in International Relations and Historical Sociology it is argued, first, that a distinction between constitutive and causal theory is necessary and, second, that this distinction makes comparisons at a high level of abstraction across time and space possible. The explanatory focus of Historical Realism is the political reproduction of states. States are seen as constantly facing a double security dilemma: it is being threatened, or potentially threatened, by two sets of rivals for revenue. At the level of abstraction of Historical Realism, states have two possible responses, short of collapse, to this double security dilemma. They can either pursue a fortifying mode of political reproduction, whereby the essence of their strategy is to prevent rivals from gaining strength. Alternatively, they can pursue an alliance-building mode of political reproduction, whereby they cooperate with or co-opt rivals, turning them into allies instead. Which response states’ choose depend on the constitutive context they exist in, and how this is changing. The constitutive context is conceptualised with four dichotomous dimensions. International systems, it is argued, can either be functionally differentiated or not, and political relations in these systems can either be embedded in economic relations or not. The societies from which states’ extract revenue can, further, either be competitive or not, and either logistically closed or open. The second part of the study develops this conceptual framework in the contexts of Japanese political reproduction towards the end of the nineteenth century, the political reproduction, and failure, of the Roman Republic, and political reproduction in early medieval western Europe.
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| 43. |
- Hedin, Astrid
(författare)
-
The Politics of Social Networks : Interpersonal Trust and Institutional Change in Post-Communist East Germany
- 2001
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- New institutionalist approaches are inherently weak at accounting for institutional change. In this book, social network analysis is proposed as a key to institutional change. The social network perspective focuses emergent patterns of interpersonal interaction and the resulting ties of interpersonal trust. As a complement and contrast to both March and Olsen’s influential new institutionalist "logic of appropriateness" and to economic models of organization, I propose a social network model of agency: the "logic of interpersonal trust". In my case study, I show how, during the 1989/1990 democratization of East Germany, pre-existing social network ties guided informal cooperation, recruitment and programmatic development in the reformation of the East German communist party SED into the PDS. With the help of interviews, auto-biographies and documents, I retrace the takeover of the SED as a process of social network entrepreneurship. I also show how feminist ideas and feminist candidates accessed the reforming PDS through bridges of interpersonal trust, resulting in a surprising programmatic turn to feminism and a quota for women. A separate chapter discusses the importance of social similarity for the formation of social network ties. A model of "the strength of similarity" is proposed, which helps explain the strengths as well as limited flexibility of informal structures, such as same-gender informal circles. The book also includes a brief critique of the feminist critique of democratic revolutions and of the determinist tendencies of feminist theory. Social network approaches should be relevant for example to rapid political transitions, such as the democratizations of former East Bloc countries, where old institutions succumbed to external pressures for reform. Where institutional structures are weaker, social network structures are likely to be more salient. Social network approaches may also be relevant to ongoing information age transformations, such as emerging forms of less hierarchical, more complex and informal inter-organizational networks.
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| 44. |
- Hedling, Elsa
(författare)
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Blending Politics and New Media : Mediatized Practices of EU Digital Diplomacy
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the relationship between politics and new media in the context of digital diplomacy at the European External Action Service (EEAS) 2011-2017. In contrast to dominant approaches to the mediatization of politics that consider political logic to be dominated or even replaced by media logic, it gives greater emphasis to the role of the political context, its actors and their practices. In effect, attention is directed to the ways in which a diplomatic organization internalizes media logic. This entails that the thesis develops a politics-centered approach to the mediatization of politics where mediatization is considered an inter-institutional process. It argues that this process can be studied through attention to everyday practices that signal varying degrees of blending logics. Using the case of the EU’s digital diplomacy, it studies how practices of digital diplomacy have developed and are talked about among their practitioners. The empirical material consists of 23 informant interviews conducted during a number of visits to the EEAS in Brussels, official documents, newsletters and social media observations (Twitter, Facebook and YouTube). The case study analyzes the development of digital diplomacy at the EEAS through three empirical snapshots that illustrate crisis management communication during the Ukraine crisis 2013-2014, responses to Russian disinformation 2015-2016 and the projection of the EU Global Strategy 2016-2017. The conclusion is that the mediatization of politics happens through an interaction of media logic (here new media) and the hosting political context, where expectations, threats, leadership, resources, skills, learning and individuals influence the practices where new media and diplomacy ultimately blend.
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| 45. |
- Hedlund, Maria
(författare)
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Demokratiska genvägar : Expertinflytande i den svenska lagstiftningsprocessen om medicinsk genteknik
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is about expert influence and democracy and focuses on how political decision-making about issues highly dependent on qualified scientific expertise should come about in order to be democratic. The primary purpose of the study is to evaluate, from a democratic perspective, the Swedish legislative process concerned with medical gene technology ? an archetypal case where the decision-making processes involve a marked level of expertise. It is argued that a democratic decision-making process should be characterized by openness and transparency and the possibility for a variety of standpoints to be visible and open to debate. This democratic norm is valid for all decision-making processes and the crucial question is whether a decision-making process highly dependent on qualified scientific expertise would have difficulties meeting such posed democratic criteria. The author makes a systematic empirical and normative analysis of the decision-making process in question, which is anatomised and evaluated against the democratic norm. The overall result of the study is that scientific experts have been able to define the problems on the political agenda and, thereby, had influenced the process as a whole. However, this has not constrained a variety of standpoints to be visible, but views expressed about the experts? problem definitions have prompted more frequent responses from the political decision-makers than other views, which only occasionally have been responded to. The Swedish legislative process concerned with medical gene technology has thereby partly deviated from democratic ideals.
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| 46. |
- Hegeland, Hans
(författare)
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Nationell EU-parlamentatism : Riksdagens arbete med EU-frågorna
- 2006
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The increasing internationalization puts new demands on national democracy and national parliamentarism. The questions posed in this dissertation are if the parliamentary model for domestic policy or the parliamentary model for foreign policy is the most relevant when describing the role of the Swedish Riksdag (parliament) in European Union (EU) matters, and whether there have been any changes during the first ten years of Swedish EU membership. The models can be described as ideal types. National parliaments are strong in domestic policy but weak in foreign policy. Seven dimensions are studied: constitutional regulation, information, participation, influence, accountability, consensus, and time rhythm. The work of the Riksdag on EU matters can be described as follows. The constitutional regulation gives the Riksdag a stronger role than in foreign policy, but the work in the Riksdag is not regulated in the same detail as in domestic policy. The Riksdag receives regular information, and plenty of material is published on the website of the Riksdag, although there are flaws in the information flow which are not part of the domestic policy model. Many sectoral committees deal with EU matters and the Committee on EU Affairs has consisted of a broad parliamentary elite. The Riksdag follows all EU matters mainly through the Committee on EU Affairs, resulting in conditions which give the Riksdag opportunities to exercise influence. However, the sectoral committees and the chamber do not cover all EU matters, and it is unusual that the Riksdag rejects the position of the government. The government is held accountable through scrutiny by the Committee on the Constitution, oral and written reports after the Council meetings, as well as by questions and interpellations. However, the government is the main source of the information used when it is held accountable. The level of conflict is not particularly high. The Riksdag can not influence the time rhythm of the EU but the Committee on EU Affairs, and to some extent the chamber, have adjusted their schedules to the EU rhythm. Empirically, the role of the Riksdag could have been closer to either model or ideal type than is actually the case. Since EU matters are neither dealt with as foreign nor domestic policy, we can say that we have a new kind of parliamentarism for EU matters, a national EU-parliamentarism. In general terms, this EU parliamentarism is characterized by a stronger role of the Riksdag than in traditional foreign policy but not as strong as in domestic policy. Over time, from 1995 to 2005, there has been a change in all seven dimensions. The Riksdag's work with EU matters has moved closer to the domestic model, i.e. it has strengthened its role. Comparisons with Finland and Denmark show that there are both similarities and differences between the three parliaments. Matters in the EU's second and third pillars are also covered in the study.
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| 47. |
- Hellström, Anders
(författare)
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Bringing Europe Down to Earth
- 2006
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Why is it considered more European to vote in the affirmative of the Euro than it is to vote against it? Why is not possible to be a populist and a ?Good European? at the same time? What makes an illegal immigrant different from a tourist? These questions all concern the limits of what it means to be, act and think as Europeans in Europe. In the political process of bringing the nations and peoples of Europe together, Europe is imagined as a distinct community. The aim of this study is to analyse contemporary articulations of what makes Europe ?Europe? in the context of the political project of the EU. Elaborating on the correlation between articulations of a certain European identity and the politics of European integration, this thesis combines theories and perspectives of identity construction with theories that, more explicitly, deal with mechanisms of power and repression as immanent in any societal formation (i.e. discourse theory). By bringing Europe down to earth, the author highlights contradictions and tensions that are inherent in our perceptions of what makes Europe ?Europe?. In a first step, the study emphasises how knowledge of what makes Europe ?Europe? is reproduced in a ?constitutive split? between the positions of ?Europe? and ?the nation?. The analysis suggests that this relationship of mutual dependency further constrains the possibility of articulating alternative positions. Bringing Europe down to earth, in this perspective, means to underline the continuity between past attempts to imagine nation-states and current endeavours to articulate a certain European identity that knit together Europeans with a distinct notion of a European community. In a second step, the author focuses on contemporary labelling processes that separate ?us? (the Europeans) from them ?them?, the ?not-Europeans?. This dissertation includes analyses of domestic referenda on EU-related issues, the transformation of the EU into an area of freedom, security and justice and finally also the relation between Brussels and populism. The identity-making enterprise that takes place in the name of Europe is not merely about the making of spatial demarcations of where Europe ends or who is to become a European citizen and who is not. The question of what makes Europe ?Europe? is expressed also inside the territorial borders of the enlarged Union as manifest in a series of constitutive splits that separate between ?Good Europeans? and ?Bad Europeans?; between ?Good strangers? and ?Bad strangers?; between friends and foes. In his analysis of EU-elite rhetoric, the author infers that the European integration process is attached with a certain logic of irrevocability that trigger the development further, despite a lack of popular support. The project of bringing Europe down to earth encourages us to remove the question of Europe from the realm of historic necessity to the sphere of politics.
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| 48. |
- Hellström, Lennart
(författare)
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Willy Brandt och Berlinfrågan : En studie i kontinuiteten i Brandts politiska tänkande
- 2004
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Willy Brandt is one of the most important charismatic leaders of the postwar era and his Ostpolitik is considered his great political achievement. The Berlin Question can be said to symbolize his political activities. Therefore, by concentrating on this issue I can explore and analyse his political thinking as a whole. My basic assumption in this dissertation is that a politician tends to stick to his beliefs and thus shows continuity in his thinking. If changes do occur they are usually slow and gradual. My first aim is to analyse Brandt’s arguing and reasoning in the Berlin Question in the 1948-1966 time frame. Employing a semantic method, I investigate how his evaluations i.e. his value judgements, and his analyses of various aspects of the Berlin Question are expressed. Next, I study his perceptions, i.e. the conclusions made from his evaluations. These manifest themselves as recommendations and requests to the different actors; the Western Powers, the Soviet Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR. After that I endeavour to analyse the entire semantic structure of Brand’s political thinking. My conclusion is that Brandt’s evaluations and prescriptions are logical and that his reasoning show no contradictions. I finally refer to Brandt’s operational code, attempting to capture his complete sphere of ideas in political matters, and examine whether his reasoning in the Berlin Question is consistent with his political arguing in general. It turns out that most of his arguments in the Berlin Question can also be found in his political expressions in general. My second aim is to investigate whether there is continuity in Brandt’s thinking in the Berlin Question during the years 1948-1974 on the international, national and local levels. I try to establish whether or not Brandt’s perceptions and beliefs change over time and if they do, for what reason. I demonstrate that to a great extent Brandt’s thinking shows continuity on all levels during the entire period. I have noted only three shifts of ideas or accents, and these can be explained by the overwhelming impact of the Berlin Wall on Brandt’s views. The Wall turned out to be a catalyst for a complete revision of foreign policy, and a realization of personal ideas, some of which he had harboured since World War Two. After the establishment of the Wall, Brandt tried to attain a modus vivendi in Berlin in order to ease the inhabitants’ difficult situation. This was partly accomplished by the Passierschein agreement in December 1963, which also pointed to his future Ostpolitik. My third aim is to explore whether Brandt’s experiences from the Berlin years (1948-1966) may have had an impact on his later activities as Foreign Minister (1966-1969) and Chancellor (1969-1974). My theoretical assumption is that a politician is influenced by his historical knowledge and his experiences. It is evident that many of Brandt’s experiences as a local politician in West Berlin influenced his future actions when he attained positions of power in Bonn. They formed his Ostpolitik and there is a clear connection between Brandt’s Berlin period and his Chancellorship in Bonn.
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| 49. |
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| 50. |
- Hultén, John
(författare)
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Ny väg till nya vägar och järnvägar : Finanseringspragmatism och planeringsrationalism vid beslut om infrastrukturinvesteringar
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Investment planning is a decision-making process with specific characteristics. It is often seen as a rational quest for solutions that are in the public interest, and the dominant discourse tends to be technical and economic. Public documents reproduce this picture of a decision-making process based on rationalist premises where analytical methods and objective facts form the basis for decisions. Behind this purely rationalist façade, however, planning is also a highly political process where various actors try to impose their will on others. This aspect of the planning process is characterised by a less rationalist and more pragmatic way of thinking. The overall aim of the dissertation is to explore the tension between rationalism and pragmatism in decision-making and to investigate the manifestations of these aspects in the instruments that govern planning processes. Special emphasis is placed on decision-making processes involving multiple tiers of government. The research presented in the dissertation has been carried out as a case study of the planning of road and railway investments in Sweden. One part of the empirical analysis focuses on the historical-institutional development of investment planning from its introduction in the 1950s to the present day, with a special focus on the planning instruments involved. A second part of the analysis focuses on the decision-making process that resulted in a major investment plan presented in March 2010, with special emphasis on local and regional co-financing as a new and highly pragmatic instrument used in the process. The dissertation shows that a shift towards more pragmatic views has taken place during the last couple of decades. New financial arrangements are an indication of such a dynamic change.
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