| 1. |
- Andræ, Carl Göran
(författare)
-
Popular movements in Sweden : Report on a mass-data research project
- 1969
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 8:1, s. 65-75
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A research project on popular movements in class society was initiated by the Department of History (Historiska Institutionen) of the University of Uppsala in 1965. Its aim was to study the role of popular movements in the process of democratization in Sweden.
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
- Bildtgård, Torbjörn, 1970-
(författare)
-
Trust in food in modern and late-modern societies
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 47:1, s. 99-128
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article investigates how mainstream social theories of trust can help us understand how trust in food is produced and maintained in modern and late or postmodern societies. In the first part of the article three theoretical bases for trust in food are identified and discussed – emotional, habitual and reflexive trust. Special focus is given to habitual trust and four different bases for habitual trust – community, rational organisation, policy and systems of knowledge – are explored and their importance for trust in food is discussed. In the second part of the article the author discusses how these bases come together in producing trust in food in traditional, modern and late or postmodern societies respectively. Finally he argues that certification schemes can be perceived of as a technique for producing trust in food particularly well suited for late modern or postmodern societies.
|
|
| 5. |
- Bildtgård, Torbjörn
(författare)
-
Where is food 'good to think'? : Rationalities of food and place in Sweden and France
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 52:1, s. 159-178
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Where is food 'good to think'? This comparative study describes the mental foodscapes of Swedish and French people by asking them to say where, in time and space, they would go to in order to eat well. Both the Swedish and French respondents say they would avoid the US and fast-food establishments in order to eat well, but while the French in general point inward, toward the countryside of their region a couple of decades ago, the Swedes, in their choices, want to go far away, to the Mediterranean region, South-east Asia or an abstract wilderness. The article argues that the reason for these differences is that consumers in these two countries use different dominant rationalities to judge the food of different places - a nutritional rationality in Sweden and a rationality of origin in France - and it proceeds to identify the politico-historical roots of these rationalities. Finally, it argues that while each rationality makes a certain set of food and place qualities cognizable and judgeable, others, such as exotic foods in France and conviviality in Sweden, are left non-cognizable and difficult to judge.
|
|
| 6. |
- Brighenti, Andrea Mubi, et al.
(författare)
-
Morphogenesis and animistic moments : On social formation and territorial production
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 57:2, s. 249-272
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores the issue of morphogenesis and metamorphosis in socio-spatial formations. The specific key is what we propose to call the ‘animistic moment’ in form-taking processes. We believe that a conceptualisation of animistic moments might help us to focus better not simply on the coming about of new forms, but also on the power forms are endowed with. The general social-theoretical horizon for the essay is an approach to social collectives as forms of territorialisation and territorial stabilisation. We suggest that an inquiry into the genesis and the transformation of forms through animistic moments might also be employed in the study of an array of processes of social territorialisation. In this article, we look in particular at two examples of the materialisation and animation of social-territorial boundaries: the first relates to the architectural construction of brick arches and walls, while the second relates to urban warfare and the demolition of urban walls.
|
|
| 7. |
- Bursell, Moa
(författare)
-
The scope and limits of implicit bias training : An experimental study with Swedish social workers
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Implicit bias reduction has become an increasingly popular feature of so-called 'diversity training' in both public and private organizations. It remains popular, despite a lack of robust evidence suggesting that it is possible to accomplish lasting changes to individual implicit bias. In addition, previous research relies almost entirely on laboratory experiments; almost nothing is known about the scope of these findings. The present study aims to engage theoretically and empirically in this debate. An implicit bias reduction intervention developed by psychologist Patricia Devine will be tested and approached from a sociological perspective. The study is based on an experiment setting with social workers at 13 Swedish social assistance units. Beyond testing the scope of this particular intervention, the study highlights some of the methodological problems that come with the unrealistic standards of exact replication within the social sciences. The results show that the intervention increased the participants' awareness of prejudice and implicit bias, but it did not reduce the participants' implicit biases. The scientific and social policy consequences of these findings are discussed.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Elzinga, Aant
(författare)
-
The science-society contract in historical transformation : with special reference to "Epistemic drift"
- 1997
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 36:3, s. 411-445
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper locates the discussion around the finalization thesis in a broader science policy context, linking it to the recent discourse on a changing science-society contract. It is argued that the broadening of the Kuhnian concept of the paradigm, making it amenable to science policy studies, was an important move. Further development of this notion, however, standed on the prongs of critique coming from both the worlds of politics and science. At the same time, advances in the cognitive sociology of science undermined the internalist/externalist distinction. Today, with certain changes in the conditions of research due to the introduction of the concept of “strategic research”, politicians are more apt to accept certain points of the thesis; scientific communities, on the other hand, perceive new threats to their autonomy. This paper tries to make sense of this new situation by translating the question of interplay between internal and external dynamics of research into one involving boundary management and epistemic criteria. The notion of “epistemic drift” is introduced and the internalist/externalist distinction refurbished in neo-institutionalist terms, making use of the concept of interfoliating credibility cycles.
|
|
| 10. |
- Engwall, Lars, 1942-, et al.
(författare)
-
Who is to blame? : Evaluations in Academia Spreading through Relationships among Multiple Actor Types
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : Sage Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 61:4, s. 439-456
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We draw on a general model of the governance of organizations to analyze the dynamics among various actor types given the present ubiquity of evaluations in and around universities. Regulators demand evaluations to assess the return on taxpayers’ money. Market actors, particularly publishers of academic journals, promote different metrics, including citation scores and impact factors. Scrutinizers, such as media companies, professions, auditors, and nongovernmental organizations, create further evaluations by developing university rankings, accounting systems, and investigative reports. There are also initiatives for evaluations inside universities: vice chancellors, department heads, and other academic leaders launch voluntary internal assessments, and researchers assist regulators, market actors, and scrutinizers throughout their evaluations. We conclude that multiple actors are responsible for the current evaluation regime in academia, and that none of them is responsible alone. Rather, it is in the dynamic relationships among actors at different levels that we find the strongest processes driving a seemingly ever-increasing number of evaluations in contemporary academia.
|
|
| 11. |
- Fornäs, Johan
(författare)
-
“Play it yourself”: Swedish music in movement
- 1993
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 32:1, s. 39-65
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In Sweden, rock music has in many different ways and phases moved young people into action. Listening to music, and making rock, induces new thoughts that can inspire social and political activity, as is well known in the general mythology of rock-as-rebellion. In the 1970s, an “alternative”, “non-commercial” or “progressive” music movement was born, and it is informative to study how and why it formed, developed and (at least in some ways) faded away. It can be studied as an interesting historical example of a new, youthful social and cultural movement, and its history mirrors the general changes of late modern society and culture. This history also contains clues to the understanding of music’s moving potentials, in opposition to dominant norms of society, to outdated traditional authorities, to adult institutions and to power interests based on market, state, class, gender, ethnicity or geography. This text will deal with these issues. In what way has the Swedish music movement experimented with organizing alternatives to dominant market and state mechanisms, with resisting external pressures and with formulating progressivity and emancipation in terms of cultural policy? How does it illuminate the mobilizing potentials of music?
|
|
| 12. |
- Hallonsten, Olof, 1979
(författare)
-
How scientists may ‘benefit from the mess’: A resource dependence perspective on individual organizing in contemporary science.
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 53:3, s. 341-362
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is general consensus in the study of science, and especially research policy studies, that a wave of profound change has struck academic science in the past decades. Central parts of this change are increased competition, growing demands of relevance and excellence, and managerialism reforms in institutions and policy systems. The underpinning thesis of this article is that, if seen from the perspective of individual scientists, these changes are exogenous and lead to greater environmental complexity and uncertainty, which in turn induces or forces individuals towards strategic planning and organizing in order to maintain control over their own research programs. Recent empirical studies have made various worthy contributions to the understanding of the macro-level (institutions, policy and funding systems, and broader epistemic developments) and the micro-level (individual and group behavior) developments of the social system of science, but there is a lack of comprehensive conceptual tools for analysis of change and its effect on individual scientists. This article takes the first steps towards developing a conceptual scheme for use in empirical studies of the (strategic) response of individual scientists to exogenous change, based on an adaptation of Resource Dependence Theory (RDT). The intended theoretical contribution builds on conceptualization of the individual researcher as crucially able to act rationally and strategically in the face of potentially conflicting demands from a growingly unpredictable environment. Defining a basic framework for a broad future research program, the article adds to the knowledge about the recent changes to the academic research system and calls for renewed interest in organizing in science and an analysis of the complex social system of science from the perspective of its smallest performing units: individuals.
|
|
| 13. |
- Hallonsten, Olof
(författare)
-
Introduction to special section : Causes and consequences of the current evaluation regime in (academic) science
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 61:4, s. 407-413
-
Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Evaluation is ubiquitous in current (academic) science, to the extent that it is relevant to talk about an evaluation regime. How did it become this way? And what does it mean for scientists, groups, organizations, and fields? Picking up on the inspiring debate in a previous issue of this journal, four articles in this special section go deeper in studying the causes and consequences of the current evaluation regime in (academic) science, contributing with new insight as well as opening important new routes for further investigation. This introductory essay provides a background and framework to the special section and points out some key takeaways from the articles included.
|
|
| 14. |
- Hallonsten, Olof
(författare)
-
Keep discussing evaluation – A personal and appreciative reflection
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 60:3, s. 384-394
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In an attempt to summarize and draw preliminary conclusions from the many fine responses to my article ‘Stop evaluating science’, this short piece brings some additional reflections on the topic with the primary intent not to close the debate but to keep it open. Discussing, in turn, three main topics of the responses and an additional topic that arguably is of particular interest, the article’s intent is to celebrate the great insights and contributions that surfaced in the debate so far by adding some notes on how to take the issue further in future scholarly inquiry and discussion.
|
|
| 15. |
- Hallonsten, Olof
(författare)
-
Stop evaluating science: A historical-sociological argument
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 60:1, s. 7-26
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although science has been a formidably successful force of social and technological development in the modern era, and a main reason for the wealth and well-being of current societies compared to previous times, a fundamental distrust characterizes its current status in society. According to prevalent discourse, science is insufficiently productive and in need of stricter governance and bureaucratic management, with performance evaluation by the means of quantitative metrics as a key tool to increase efficiency. The basis of this notion appears to be a belief that the key or only purpose of science is to drive economic growth, or sustainable development in combination with economic growth. In this article, these beliefs are analyzed and deconstructed with the help of a theoretical toolbox from the classic sociology of science and recent conceptualizations of economization, democratization, and commodification of scientific knowledge and the institution of science, connecting these beliefs to broader themes of market fundamentalism and to the metric fixation of current society. With the help of a historical-sociological analysis, this article shows that the current ubiquity of performance evaluation in science for the most part is pointless and counterproductive, and that this state of science policy is in dire need of reevaluation in order to secure science’s continued productivity and contribution to social and technological innovation.
|
|
| 16. |
- Hammarfelt, Björn, et al.
(författare)
-
Are evaluative bibliometrics neoliberal? A historical and theoretical problematization
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : Sage Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, we problematize the notion that the continuously growing use of bibliometric evaluation can be effectively explained by ‘neoliberal’ ideology. A prerequisite for our analysis is an understanding of neoliberalism as both denoting a more limited set of concrete principles for the organization of society (the narrow interpretation) or as a hegemonic ideology (the broad interpretation). This conceptual framework, as well as brief history of evaluative bibliometrics, provides an analytical framing for our approach, in which four national research evaluation systems are compared: Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. On basis of an analysis of the rationales for implementing these systems, as well as their specific design, we discuss the existence or non-existence of neoliberal motivations and rationales. Overall, we find that a relatively homogeneous academic landscape, with a high degree of centralization and government steering, appears to be a common feature for countries implementing national evaluation systems relying on bibliometrics. Such characteristics, we argue, may not be inductively understood as neoliberal but as indications of national states displaying strong political steering of its research system. Consequently, if used without further clarification, ‘neoliberalism’ is a concept too broad and diluted to be useful when analyzing the development of research evaluation and bibliometric measures in the past half a century.
|
|
| 17. |
- Jacob, Merle
(författare)
-
Utilization of social science knowledge in science policy: Systems of innovation, triple helix and VINNOVA
- 2006
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 45:3, s. 431-462
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The objective of this article is. to analyse the utilization of two academic narratives about innovation policy in policy discourse by examining the policy statements issued by one Swedish agency that was specifically set up to promote innovation policy, the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems, VINNOVA. The main findings of this analysis show that the deployment of the examined academic narratives in policy discourse is not accidental nor is it only limited to a role of legitimating policy decisions. The article shows that although the linear model of knowledge transfer has long been discredited, the notion of knowledge utilization is still useful to policy analysis and may he successfully deployed to understand what lies behind the assertions of mutual interplay between science and policy that characterize contemporary attempts to depict this relation.
|
|
| 18. |
- Kupferberg, Feiwel
(författare)
-
Transformative agency as social construction : Overcoming knowledge constraints in science, art and technology
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : Sage Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 56:3, s. 454-476
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A core problem of social constructivist theories of knowledge is the lack of theoretical clarity about the role of knowledge constraints and how they are overcome in practice, by what type of social agency. Knowledge constraints are both special - rules constituting and/or regulating such distinct intellectual fields as science, art and technology - and general - laws working across the nature/culture divide. In order to sort out this complexity of knowledge constraints in science, we need to start by recognizing the existence of knowledge constraints in the first place. Advance of knowledge is not contingent, as claimed by the Strong Program inaugurated by David Bloor. The latter reduces the problem of knowledge constraints to reputational work. But reputational work is what all humans engage in; this is one reason why networking is so crucial for the human species. Moreover, it requires the special form of communicative competence, talk, which only humans possess. It is also because humans can talk that they have managed to invent the coherent argument, the core of the special constraint that constitutes science, giving it a law-like character. Arguments are both competitive and cooperative at the same time, reputational work contains both elements. This strongly social element of science is missing in Latour's concept of the social. Latour reduces the social (both networking and agency) to naked competition. But the model for this thinking is not sociology, it is literature. As a social construction it possibly reflects the psychological effect of the French system of elite education.
|
|
| 19. |
- Larsson, A, et al.
(författare)
-
Structuring a research infrastructure: A study of the rise and fall of a large-scale distributed biobank facility
- 2018
-
Ingår i: SOCIAL SCIENCE INFORMATION SUR LES SCIENCES SOCIALES. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184. ; 57:2, s. 196-222
-
Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study analyses the perceived key interests, importance, influences and participation of different actors in harmonizing the processes and mechanisms of a distributed research infrastructure. It investigates the EU-funded initiative, BioBanking and Molecular Resource Infrastructure in Sweden (BBMRI.se), which seeks to harmonize the biobanking standards. The study interviews multiple actors involved throughout the development process. Their responses are analysed via a framework based on the IIED Stakeholder Power Analysis Tool. The BBMRI.se formation was facilitated by two parallel processes, with domestic and European/foreign origin, with leading scientists becoming ‘National Champions’. The respondents joined the organization under the premise that it would be a collaborative endeavour, but they were disappointed to learn the deliberative elements were more prevalent. In conclusion, the resulting autonomous structure caused disarray, while also fuelling interpersonal differences, ultimately leading to the closure of the infrastructure. Hence, it is necessary to clearly identify potential collaborative and deliberative elements already at the outset while also securing wider forms of communication between the participating actors, when establishing distributed research infrastructures. Moreover, while prior literature suggests that research infrastructures counteracts fragmentation, these results illustrate that this is not the case for this distributed research infrastructure.
|
|
| 20. |
- Manzo, Gianluca
(författare)
-
Is rational choice theory still a rational choice of theory? : A response to Opp
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : Sage Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 52:3, s. 361-382
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Authoritative rational choice theorists continue to argue that wide variants of rational choice theory should be regarded as the best starting-point to formulate theoretical hypotheses on the micro foundations of complex macro-level social dynamics. Building on recent writings on neo-classical rational choice theory, on behavioral economics and on cognitive psychology, the present article challenges this view and argues that: (1) neo-classical rational choice theory is an astonishingly malleable and powerful analytical device whose descriptive accuracy is nevertheless limited to a very specific class of choice settings; (2) the ‘wide’ sociological rational choice theory does not add anything original to the neo-classical framework on a conceptual level and it is also methodologically weaker; (3) at least four alternative action-oriented approaches that reject portrayal of actors as computational devices operating over probability distributions can be used to design sociological explanations that are descriptively accurate at the micro level.
|
|
| 21. |
- Roumbanis, Lambros
(författare)
-
The oracles of science : On grant peer review and competitive funding
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 60:3, s. 356-362
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- From a purely epistemological point of view, evaluating and predicting the future success of new research projects is often considered very difficult. Is it possible to forecast important findings and breakthrough in science, and if not, then what is the point trying to do it anyway? Still, that is what funding agencies all over the world expect their reviewers to do, but a number of previous studies has shown that this form of evaluation of innovation, promise and future impact are a fundamentally uncertain and arbitrary practice. This is the context that I will discuss in the present essay, and I will claim that there is a deeply irrational element embedded in today's heavy reliance on experts to screen, rank and select among the increasing numbers of good research projects, because they can, in principal, never discern the true potential behind the written proposals. Hence, I think it is motivated to see grant peer review as an 'oracle of science'. My overall focus will be on the limits of competitive funding and also that the writing and reviewing of proposals is a waste of researchers' precious time. And I will propose that we really need to develop new ways of thinking about how we organize research and distribute opportunities within academia.
|
|
| 22. |
- Steiber, Annika, 1968, et al.
(författare)
-
The formation and growth of Google: A firm-level triple helix perspective
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 52:4, s. 575-604
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Triple Helix model of innovation systems is widely diffused. The fundamental idea of the model is that ‘university’ can play an enhanced role in innovation in knowledge-based societies and that the three helices – ‘university’, ‘industry’ and ‘government’ – interact in order to produce innovation and therefore regional and national economic growth. This is, however, only one model among several different systemic approaches for explaining regional differences in innovativeness. While the triple helix model emphasizes the role of the university for regional innovativeness, the other systemic approaches call attention to either industry or government as having the lead role in innovation. Further, the triple helix model is developed and primarily explored from a macro-level perspective and not from a firm-level perspective. Finally, while the theoretical value of triple helix interactions are reasonably confirmed, there are still gaps in the triple helix concept, and the practical value is only just beginning to realize its potential. From a firm-level perspective, the purpose of this article is therefore to test the applicability and practical value of the triple helix model when exploring the formation and growth of firms using the case of Google Inc. Useful when exploring a firm’s formation and growth, the triple helix model forces the exploration to start even before the entrepreneur enters the scene, which provides a more holistic picture of firm formation. The three helices were all found to play important but changing roles in the different phases of firm formation and growth. The Google case contributes further understanding of the nature and historical evolution of interactions between the three helices, thereby filling some gaps in the triple helix concept. The Google case also identifies a number of mechanisms for interaction and the important role of the bridging organizations that connect the helices and contribute to the development of interactions. Finally, the concept of ‘spaces’ proved relevant and useful, although in the perspective of a firm, the concept has a broader meaning and exists on different levels.
|
|
| 23. |
- Ylikoski, Petri, 1969-
(författare)
-
The (hopefully) last stand of the covering-law theory : A reply to Opp
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : Sage Publications. - 0539-0184 .- 1461-7412. ; 52:3, s. 383-393
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In his paper Karl-Dieter Opp heroically sets out to defend both the adequacy and sociological fruitfulness of the covering-law account of explanation (the HO scheme). The attempt is bold, as he is not only defending the HO scheme as a theory of explanation but also as a scheme for finding and establishing causal relationships. In this reply I argue that the defense is not successful; quite the contrary, it clearly demonstrates why mechanism-based reasoning is important in the social sciences. I also argue that this change in metatheoretical perspective has implications for thinking about the role of rational choice theory in sociology, which should not be seen as a foundational theory but rather as a version of commonsense psychology that can be used for modeling purposes.
|
|
| 24. |
- Kruzela, Pavla
(författare)
-
Effective ways of handling events in Central and Eastern Europe
- 2000
-
Ingår i: Social Science Information. - : SAGE Publications. - 0539-0184.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Five hundred and sixty-one managers in Central and Eastern Europe were asked how much they relied on each of eight sources of quidance in handling eight relatively routine work events. A previous study indicated particularly strong reliance on one's own experience and training in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Managers from Poland and Slovakia relied more on superiors, while in Romania and Bulgaria proportionally greater account was taken of "belief that are widespread in my country as to what is right". These analyses are extended by examining respondents' rating of how well each work event was handled. Overall, most events were seens as best handled on the basis of one's own experience and training. However, substantial divergence between the more northerly and more sourtherly nations were again found, and these are discussed in terms of locally differing circumstances.
|
|
