| 1. |
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Carlsson, Vanja, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Automated decision-making in the public sector
- 2023
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Ingår i: Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence. - : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9781803928555 - 9781803928562 ; , s. 705-715
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The public sector and public administrations are important foundations in democratic states and an autonomous public sector that protects public principles is needed for a political system to be democratically legitimate. Here, efficiency, impartiality, equality, and transparency are central guiding principles and values. The introduction of automated decision-making (ADM) in the public sector affects traditional public principles and values in several ways. For example, transparency is a central challenge as the decisions are implemented by algorithms instead of humans and thus become more difficult to explain for the individual citizen. Also, equality has been put forward both as something that is gained through ADM, and as something that is at risk when ADM is implemented. This chapter provides an overview of the challenges that the implementation of ADM brings to the public sector, including transformations of public sector decisions, the discretion of civil servants, and democratic principles and values.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Gottfridsson, Hans Olof, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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Att gränspendla : samma fast olika
- 2012. - 1
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Ingår i: På gränsen. - Karlstad : Karlstad University Press. - 9789170634574 ; , s. 95-110
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Johansson, Jörgen, 1958, et al.
(författare)
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Democratic Institutions Without Democratic Content?-New Regionalism and Democratic Backsliding in Regional Reforms in Sweden
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Frontiers in Political Science. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2673-3145. ; 3
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this article is to examine trends of democratic backsliding associated with the long standing reform work on regional institutions and policies in Sweden. To this end, democratic backsliding is conceptualized in a different manner compared to conventional understandings. By doing so, the article highlights a missing aspect in the research on democratic backsliding that concerns how well-intended reforms designed to strengthen democratic institutions can also harbor non-democratic consequences. In Sweden, a new political arena was created when the former county councils were transformed into so-called called regions in 2019. As part of this, the regions have been assigned responsibility for both health care and regional development planning. The overall research problem to be analyzed in this article focuses on the relations between the policy objectives for democracy and regionalist ideas of economic growth that both were central concerns in the reform processes. The results highlight how the governing rationalities in the regional reform processes have changed during the period between 1990 and 2020. The original conception of creating a mini-version of a liberal and representative democracy have turned into a form of democratic backsliding privileging economic goals. The economic rationalities that permeate the political sphere today close the space for articulated different interests and opinions-a dimension that we argue is crucial for any democratic society. We draw two main conclusions: First that the neoliberal aspect of governing is missing in the analysis of democracy at the regional level, resulting in a descriptive discussion of democracy that tend to ignore the effects of the particularly strong emphasis on economic growth. Secondly, that there is a lack of a discussion on democracy that takes the regional level into account, i.e., that the sub-national level should be regarded and thus discussed as a distinctive level of democracy.
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| 8. |
- Mitander, Tomas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Competition and desire: : regional development, citizenship and the struggle for attention
- 2013
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores the discourse of regional competitiveness through the lens of citizenship and what can be understood as desired regional inhabitants. The concept of citizenship will be used as an analytical tool for studying power structures that is connected to processes of forming regional spaces and subjectivities. We investigate the notions of citizenship present in the highly influential theories concerning the ‘creative class’ first introduced by Richard Florida. Departing from a general framework of governmentaliy we understand the regional development as a regime practice with particular rationalities and technologies. We argue that the general rationality of globalization and regional competition produces certain representations of citizenship and that regions deploy different techniques in order to attract what they perceive as desired citizens.We then proceed by illustrating how the rationalities present in the theories of the creative class are manifested within regional development plans in the Nordic countries and how they get concrete effects in terms of citizenship. In a concluding section we turn to discussing the implications in terms of inclusion/exclusion, equality and democracy
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| 9. |
- Mitander, Tomas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Det urbana rummets in- och utsidor : Teoretiska utmaningar för forskning om urban politik
- 2017
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Ingår i: Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift. - Lund. - 0039-0747. ; 119:3, s. 389-412
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this article is to contribute to new thinking regarding research on urban politics in, and beyond, Sweden. We do this by arguing for a multi-disciplinary conversation on space, politics and governance, building on theoretical developments in disciplines such as geography, sociology and political theory. By developing a conceptual understanding of space as relational, the political in terms of contingency, and governance as governmentality we suggest that the concept of ‘the urban’ could be theorized and analyzed as a governmental assemblage. This approach opens up for new questions regarding where urban politics takes place, how it govern us and with what efects. One important implication of this proposed approach is that the urban produce both insides and outsides relationally and hence that the urban also can be studied out side cities and city regions.
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| 10. |
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| 11. |
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| 12. |
- Mitander, Tomas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Peace and Quiet : Domestic Science and the Rise of New Precarious Subjects
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- While peace remains a concept that is primarily invoked and utilized in relation to armed conflict this paper explores how contemporary regimes of government also calls for a specific form of domestic peace. Throughout Europe and beyond the last decades of market oriented reforms and austerity measures have called for nations and regions to rally behind processes and policies of innovation in order to be competitive. This race for competitiveness is often described in war-like metaphors which emphasizes the need to ‘develop spearheads’, ‘mobilize forces’, ‘foster commanders’, ‘build alliances’ and create ‘united frontiers’. As in moments of armed conflict, success in this war of competitiveness requires a kind of conformity or ‘peace and quiet’ within the own ranks. In short, the room for politics is severely constrained. Therefore, in this paper we explore what we identify as a global policy discourse concerning innovation as competitiveness as it unfolds in specific localized contexts. When doing so we investigate the modes of domestic silence that functions as a necessary requirement for regions and nations and theorize how this form of depoliticization becomes complicit in the production and stratification of precariousness for the subjects of rule (Lorey, 2015).
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| 13. |
- Mitander, Tomas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Tiden, makten, rummet
- 2013
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Ingår i: Det regionala samhällsbyggandets praktiker. - Göteborg : Daidalos. - 9789171734228 ; , s. 240-252
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
- Olsson, David, et al.
(författare)
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Building a Sustainable Society : Construction, Public Procurement Policy and 'Best Practice' in the European Union
- 2021
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 13:13
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sustainability and sustainable development are political and essentially contested social phenomena. Despite this ambiguity, they continue to hold a central position as apolitical concepts in much of social science and policy making. In Europe, public procurement is increasingly used as a tool to reach sustainability, a fact that actualizes an inherent tension between politically charged objectives on the one hand, and technological processes and market logics on the other. Therefore, in this article, we investigate this tension by studying policies relating to sustainable public procurement of the built environment in the EU. We argue that governing any policy domain entails the construction and representation of particular policy problems. Hence, we focus on how the 'problems' of sustainable public procurement are represented in EU policy guidance and best practice documents. Our analysis shows that these central policy documents are dominated by a problem representation where unsustainability is constructed as technical design flaws and market failure. This has the primary effect that it renders sustainable development as, primarily, a technical issue, and beyond politics. Therefore, we conclude that current policy reproduces 'weak' forms of sustainable development, where the practice is depoliticized and premised upon continued growth and innovation.
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| 16. |
- Olsson, David, et al.
(författare)
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Buying a sustainable society : the case of public procurement in Sweden
- 2020
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Ingår i: Local Environment. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1354-9839 .- 1469-6711. ; 25:9, s. 681-696
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, we conduct a governmentality analysis of Swedish public procurement in order to show how the notion of sustainability is constructed in this circumstance. We argue that the mainstream approach to sustainability policy in most countries lies within capitalist market rationalities, thus making it crucial to study how such rationalities shape and represent the problems of unsustainability and how these “problems” limit the possibilities for politics and policy in practice. Furthermore, public procurement is a central instrument through which these rationalities are realised and maintained. Thus, the purpose is to examine how problems of unsustainability are represented through public procurement policy and the effects they constitute for the politics of sustainability. To this end we mobilise the Foucauldian based “what’s the problem represented to be” approach. As data, we use policy documents published with respect to public procurement in Sweden. Our findings show that the dominant problem representation constructs unsustainability as a market failure, limiting the possibilities for politics and policies of sustainability in several ways. This includes premising sustainability upon the continued expansion of capitalism; constituting the agents of change as apolitical actors; making sustainability a voluntary ambition for the procuring organisations; and constructing the legitimate claim to earth’s resources and sinks as a matter of purchasing power, with important implications for environmental justice. However, our analysis also shows a tension in the material creating openings for a politicisation of the representations of sustainability.
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| 17. |
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| 18. |
- Padden, Michaela, et al.
(författare)
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Protected how? : Problem representations of risk in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- 2021
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Ingår i: Critical Policy Studies. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 1946-0171 .- 1946-018X. ; 15:4, s. 486-503
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How we choose to utilize digital technology has the potential to undermine the healthy functioning of democratic systems. Surveillance practices such as the tracking, collection and profiling of our online and real-world behavior pose a direct challenge to privacy rights and democratic freedoms such as fairness and anti-discrimination. This paper aims to understand how the GDPR represents risk and, in turn, how that representation shapes protection. Using Carol Bacchi's 'What's the Problem Represented to Be?' (WPR) approach to policy analysis, we illustrate how the GDPR's dual aims of protecting both people and the free flow of personal data exist in a state of tension and that the GDPR's framing of 'public interest' privileges economic growth over individual rights. Also problematic is the assumption that people are sufficiently informed to exercise control over their data, yet are being asked to agree to practices which may undermine that very autonomy.
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| 19. |
- Rönnblom, Malin, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Gender equality in Swedish AI policies. What's the problem represented to be?
- 2023
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Ingår i: Review of Policy Research. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1541-132X .- 1541-1338. ; 40:5, s. 688-704
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the past few decades, Sweden has established itself as a "world leader" in gender equality. Alongside this development, Swedish politicians have also initiated ambitious plans that aim to establish the country as "world class" in terms of digitalization. International research shows that women and racialized groups are in a minority in the design processes, that AI facial recognition systems are built with white male faces as the norm, and that digital tools replicate racial injustices. In this paper, we are interested in if, and if so how, gender equality is articulated and thus filled with meaning in national policies on AI and digitalization. The overall aim is to discuss the potential of gender (equality) mainstreaming to challenge systems of privilege in the implementation of AI systems in the public sector. The paper analyses how gender equality is filled with meaning in national policy documents on AI and gender equality. The main findings show that gender equality is turned into a question of lack of knowledge and information, which in turn blocks out an understanding of gender equality as something that is related to gendered power relations.
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| 20. |
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| 21. |
- Scott, David, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Assemblage thinking and Political Science : An exploration of the contribution of assemblage thinking to political analysis
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Under det senaste decenniet har ”arrangemangstänkande” (assemblage thinking) vunnit mark i antropologiska och kulturgeografiska studier av hur politikområden och policyer blir till genom processer av sammansättning (Larner & Higgins, 2017; Clarke et al. 2015). Med ursprung i filosofen Gilles Deleuzes och psykoanalytikern Félix Guattaris (1985) arbeten, har begreppet assemblage, i betydelsen sammansättning eller arrangemang, tagits upp av policyforskare för att studera hur policyer i en mängd olika politikområden kan sägas vara resultat av komplexa processer av att föra samman fysiska artefakter, praktiker, diskurser och mänskliga aktiviteter till instabila helheter. Ett bidrag som arrangemangstänkande gör till studiet av policyers uppkomst är att undersöka processen att sätta ihop och föra samman, vilket i många fall innefattar tolkning och översättning, mäkleri mellan olika intressen, inkorporering av globala ”best practices”, och utnyttjandet av konsultexpertis (McCann, 2011). Arrangemangstänkandet såsom det har använts för att analysera så disparata områden som utbildning (Savage & Lewis, 2018), hemlöshet (Baker & McGuirk, 2017) och gemensam användning av naturresurser (Murray Li, 2007), har uppstått som en reaktion mot den mer vanliga traditionen ”policy transfer” som utvecklats inom statsvetenskapen och inom vilken policyskapandets dynamiska och komplexa process åsidosätts (Peck & Theodore, 2015). I detta paper diskuteras hur arrangemangstänkande kan användas inom ramen för policyanalys och i kombination med statsvetenskapens intresse för analys av maktrelationer i policy-skapandet. Vi menar att arrangemangstänkande bidrar till att berika policyanalysen teoretiskt och metodologiskt och att även den statsvetenskapliga maktanalysen kan utvecklas med hjälp av detta tänkande. Vårt resonemang illustreras genom två olika sätt att mobilisera arrangemangstänkande empiriskt, dels genom en pågående studie om hur biståndsprojekt kan ses som produkter av sammansättning samt en tidigare studie av hur regionalpolitik kan förstås som ett arrangemang i betydelsen objekt för styrning.
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| 22. |
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| 23. |
- Säll, Line, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
-
Competitive Desires : The Creative Class and Regional Governance in Sweden
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout Europe and beyond the powerful discourse of the creative class seems to be firmly nested in the governance of cities and regions as well as entire nations. Indeed, googling terms such as “creative city” or “creative region” yields millions of hits indicating the spread of the theories put forward by Richard Florida in a series of influential books and articles during the first decade of the twenty first century. Moreover, the discursive notion of creativity is not only disseminated widely around the globe, it is also introduced in a variety of different spaces making it just as likely to find metropolis regions such as London, Paris or Berlin to claim the title of being a “creative region” as it is finding peripheral territories and provincial towns articulating their creative, innovative and entrepreneurial spirit. In this paper we investigate empirically how the creative class discourse is expressed in the governance of Swedish regions by focusing on so called Regional Development Strategies (RDS) for all Swedish regions. Territorial governance in Sweden has been the object of ongoing debates, political proposals, government reports and expert opinions since at least the 1960’s, however the last two decades have been marked by more intensive discussions and indeed also a series of territorial transformations. In the midst of these reconfigurations new political spaces arise and new political rationalities emerge. In short, what used to be a guiding rationality of redistribution between rich and poor regions can now better be described as a rationality of (global) competition. Correspondingly, notions of (global) competitiveness are articulated as more or less the inevitable goal for the practice of governing Swedish regions and we show how one of the primary responses to such a competition is the quest for creativity. By critically examining the RDS documents we show how in this process of territorial transformation in Sweden certain subjects and practices are deemed more important than others. Thus, we underline the political aspects of the ongoing transformations and the empirical analysis facilitates the grounds for a critical discussions concerning the onlological claims, the theoretical claims and the policy recommendations of the creative class theory that we find inherently linked to processes of exclusion and hierarchy.
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| 24. |
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| 25. |
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| 26. |
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| 27. |
- Öjehag, Andreas, et al.
(författare)
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Polititical Studies of Automated Governing: A Bird’s Eye (re)view
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Public Policy Association (IPPA).
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper we analyze the increasingly important strand of research that deals with automated systems of governing. Such systems are designed to utilize the rapid advancement in computer technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and big data with the purpose of governing something or someone. Drawing on a sample of 1667 articles from the Scopus data base we find that the vast majority of social scientific research in this area is focused on harvesting the potential of the technological development in terms of methodology and new forms of analysis. While this may be important, we argue that automated systems of governing, contrary to common conceptions, are not objective tools that are easily deployed throughout the public sector to perform neutral tasks. Rather, they are inherently political and therefore it is vital for researchers, particularly for scholars interested in politics and public policy, to treat them as such. Thus, we move to analyze the 254 articles in our sample that activate politics or power as central analytical concepts in their study of algorithms, big data or AI. We show that these articles are structured around seven major themes in terms of research focus and that they are generally published in some of the highest-ranking journals in social science, particularly communication studies and sociology. Conversely, we also find that political science and public administration is remarkably absent from this body of research. Moreover, our analysis shows that the research is dominated by theoretical and conceptual discussions rather than empirical studies. Therefore, we conclude that it seems vital for scholars of political science and public administration to get more involved in the discussion and that future research should move to include more tangible, hands on empirical work.
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| 28. |
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| 29. |
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| 30. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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In the Midst of the Global Sub-national : Rationalities, Technologies and Subjects In Swedish Regional Governance
- 2014
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ’global’ is often articulated as a particular level of space situated at the highest tier of a hierarchical order that has its other extreme point in the local. In such models globalization becomes a process, or indeed a force, that shapes and reconfigures other levels of space such as the national. What is more, integrated with the conceptualization of the ‘global’ as a level of space is often a view of globalization as a phenomenon primarily constituted by a range of different flows of for instance immigrants, capital and information (Castells, 1999; Holton, 2005, Held & McGrew, 2007).This paper departs from a different understanding as it investigates how globalization is (re)produced in a particular form of space. Here, space is understood to be relational (Massey, 1994; 2005), meaning that I do not consider the ‘global’ to be a level on its own, rather I theorize the global, like all other forms of spaces, as produced through a myriad of social practices and relations.Given such an understanding of globalization an interesting development the last decades has been a resurgence of sub-national regions. In the literature this newfound focus on regions within national polities is often articulated as means for competitiveness (Säll, 2012; Keating, 2003). All around the world regions are engaged in a large number of practices that aims to foster competitiveness and growth in order to deal with the perceived challenges of globalization. Hence, so-called clusters, innovation systems and programs for variegated forms of creativity are now everyday features of sub-national regional governance (Florida, 2012; Porter, 1998).Therefore, rather than studying national space, in this paper I show how sub-national regional governance is an important site for discursive production of globalization. Instead of focusing on how different flows affects individual regions, the priority here is on the regime of practice that is sub-national regional governance in a wider sense. Utilizing a governmentality approach (Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010) the paper investigates a corpus of documents pertaining to Swedish regional governance using a mixed set of techniques from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Post-Structuralist Discourse Theory (PDT). The results highlight how the ‘global’ rationality is (re)produced in the Swedish case and how this together with a number of governmental technologies produces desired and undesired regional subjects.
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| 31. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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In the Midst of the Global Sub-national : Rationalities, Technologies and Subjects in Swedish Regional Governance
- 2014
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper studies the discursive construction of globalization as a particular form of rationale in sub-national regional development. As such it departs from an understanding of space as relational and holds that globalization can be theorized as a reconfiguration of the spatial aspects of our social relations (Massey, 1994, 2005). Therefore, it is argued here, to investigate globalization is to investigate aspects of the multiplicity of social relations that (re)produces the phenomenon. Using a governmentality framework (Dean, 2010) I trace how globalization is discursively (re)produced within a particular regime of practice, namely regional development in Sweden. Adopting such a framework and relating it to this instance of space enables novel interpretations of how globalization not only legitimizes certain practices but also how this in turn (re)articulates the concept, giving it specific meanings and features. At the same time it is shown here how this articulation produces and delimits social actors within the regions, illustrating concrete effects of globalization.
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| 32. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Local Government and Public Procurement: Organizational Trends and the Rise of New Bureaucrats in Sweden
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Swedish local government play a central role in welfare production and in handling environmental issues at large. In addition, they also plan the physical use of land and water areas within its territory. Accordingly, Swedish local government are crucial actors in driving sustainable development. During the last decades reform of local government has been taking place under the umbrella of New Public Management (NPM) following a pattern seen in most parts of the world entailing market inspired logics and values that subsumes political and democratic ambitions and tasks. The political rationalities underpinning NPM continues to exist and are well researched. There are, however, significant gaps. In particular, of studies concerning the politics of public procurement. In this paper we present an analysis where public procurement is understood more broadly, as a governmental technology, an instrument of governing associated with the rationalities of marketization and competition that continues to be more or less unquestioned as virtues in contemporary society. We assume that as such a technology it is not a neutral tool, but rather designed to realize particular understandings of how to govern and with what effects. The case we present is based on interviews with civil servants, consultants and politicians working with public procurement in Swedish local government. With the perceptions of our respondents as a base, we construct a narrative where three themes emerge as important: public procurement expansion; organizational change and centralization, and: the procurer as bureaucrat. We conclude that the importance and scope of public procurement within the larger local government organization has rapidly expanded, public procurement has been centralized and, perhaps most importantly, we witness the emergence of a new bureaucrat representing values not compatible with traditional Weberian understandings.
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| 33. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Making space for competition : The rationalities of contemporary regional development
- 2024
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Ingår i: Environment and Planning C. - : Sage Publications. - 2399-6544 .- 2399-6552. ; 42:2, s. 198-214
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Taking as its starting premise that we have a politics of space because space is political at the level of ontology, this article investigates how the governing of regional development is guided by a set of prominent political rationalities that revolve around the notions of competition and competitiveness. To this end, I mobilise the Foucauldian framework of governmentality to provide empirical illustrations drawn from a 5-year long research project concerning globalisation in Swedish sub-national regions. These illustrations show how regions are governed through rationalities that stress adaptability, attraction, environment and sustainability as well as leadership in order to prevail in their inevitable competition for vital resources. I argue that as these chains of rationale are put into motion in the contemporary politics of space, they not only promote specific and particular ways of developing regions, but also displace certain practices and objects from the realm of the political to the realm of a natural order. I therefore conclude that current expressions of the politics of space have strong tendencies to deny its own political foundations. Instead, competition and competitiveness are inscribed as naturally occurring features in social relations, thereby elevating their importance in the creation of new sub-national spaces.
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| 34. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Measuring Innovation Space : Numerical Devices as Governmental Technologies
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout Europe sub-national regions are restructured and reformed in line with the EU2020 policy program which dictates a clear focus on growth through the fostering of innovation and entrepreneurship. While this process is articulated differently in separate contexts it has a range of common features. One of these is the wide spread adoption of calculative devices and measurement tools that are installed as transparent means for governing and monitoring the ongoing strive for growth and innovation. In this paper it is argued that the contemporary practices and discourses tied to regional development in Europe and beyond can be described as the production of new innovation spaces. Intrinsic to this production is a vast register of indices, rankings and award ceremonies directed at finding and monitoring the most innovative regions, projects and policies which in turn facilitates the grounds for notions of policy learning and so called best practice. By mobilizing the growing literature on the sociological functions of numbers as well as the scholarship on the politics and power of calculative practices in governance, the paper critically examines important aspects of the installment of innovation spaces. More specifically, by following the manufacturing and installment of an index designed to measure innovative capacity of Swedish regions, the paper shows how such governmental technologies helps to legitimize and depoliticize the production of innovation spaces. The index has been released in three iterations since 2011 with an explicit focus on ranking for the sake of policy learning. It is produced by RegLab, an organization comprised of the 21 regions in Sweden as well as a number of important state agencies, and its deployment and influence on regional policy is traced here by focusing on the documentation and detailed description of the numerical calculations and data sources that are assembled together in order to produce the composite measures used to asses the innovative capacity of all regions. Moreover the influence of the index and its manifest expressions in regional policy is illustrated by examining some of the Regional Development Strategies (RDS).
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| 35. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Measuring innovation space : Numerical devices as governmental technologies
- 2019
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Ingår i: Territory, Politics, Governance. - : Routledge. - 2162-2671 .- 2162-268X. ; , s. 1-18
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The context of sub-national regions in Sweden is used to illustrate how rankings and indices operate as part of contemporary governing of space and territory. An empirical study of an index designed to measure the innovative capacity of these regions is presented to illustrate how such numerical devices are invoked as part of policy by providing policy-makers with a means to define reality, guide strategy and legitimize certain actions. Drawing on both the literatures of governmentality and the sociology of quantification, the construction of the index and its deployment into politics are examined with a focus on the performative aspects of mobilizing such technologies in governing. The analysis shows how an instrument intended as a learning tool for regions and regional policy-makers turns into a device through which power operates in the processes of marking, grading and commensuration, in turn reinforcing established orders among the regions. Following from this, it is found that such numerical devices are important governmental technologies that help relay and institute political rationalities. Therefore, they should be considered more carefully in any analysis of discourses of regional development, which is a field permeated by rationalities of innovation and competitiveness.
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| 36. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Political studies of automated governing : A bird's eye (re)view
- 2023
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Ingår i: Regulation and Governance. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1748-5983 .- 1748-5991.
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we develop an approach for analyzing the increasingly important strand of research that deals with automated systems of governing. Such systems, which figure prominently in public policy and regulation, are designed to utilize the rapid advancement in computer technology, like artificial intelligence, with the purpose of governing something or someone. Drawing on a large sample of articles we present a comprehensive analysis of scholarly works where these systems are studied as political, rather than neutral, instruments of governing. We find that the current state of the art articulates the politics of automated systems of governing in three ways. Namely, as part of ontological, epistemological and ideological questions. We conclude that future research should investigate the complex forms of marketization nested in these systems, that it should move from theoretical examples to detailed empirical studies and that political science should get more involved with the issue.
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| 37. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Producing Globalization: : Legitimizing Regional Governance Regimes
- 2014
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Ingår i: Diverse Regions. - : Regional Studies Association. - 9781897721476 ; , s. 103-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores the discursive construction of globalization as a particular form of rationale in sub-national regional development. As such it departs from an understanding of space as relational and holds that globalization can be theorized as a reconfiguration of the spatial aspects of our social relations (Massey, 1994, 2005). Therefore, it is argued here, to investigate globalization is to investigate aspects of the multiplicity of social relations that (re)produces the phenomenon.Here I depart from an instance of space that has not often been used as a basis for understanding articulations of globalization, namely the sub-national region. Using a governmentality framework (Dean, 2010) I trace how globalization is discursively (re)produced within regional governance in Sweden, focusing on the practices, technologies and rationalities that constitutes this regime.More specifically, in terms of empiric material, I analyze a broad corpus of Regional Governance Documents (RGD) as well as the wide production of reports that was the outcome of Sweden’s so called Globalization Council. Methodologically the analysis is situated within the aforementioned framework of governmentality studies (Dean, 2010; Miller & Rose, 2008). This framework is then used as a point of departure for a form of discourse analysis that combines concepts from both Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Post-structuralist Discourse Theory (PDT). This alignment of theory, methodology and empiric material enables me to produce three main areas of findings. First, by illustrating how globalization is framed in the regional governance documents as intertwined with notions of competition, growth and competitiveness I am able to demonstrate how this discursively legitimizes and fosters a certain range of practices. A particularly salient finding is how the documents contain articulations of a perspective of globalization that renders the phenomenon as more or less a natural force that is unavoidable and unchangeable. Second, in terms of relational space the discursive legitimization also contributes to the production of globalization in other forms of space, hence reinforcing general neo-liberal traits of the phenomenon that extends to regions, nations and continents around the world. Third, the paper also shows how the methodological framework that is used proved particularly fruitful in this case. Therefore, some time is spent reflecting on the possible benefits of combining CDA, PDT and governmentality and I argue that such multi-perspectival approaches are needed to illustrate the complex relay system of practices that produces globalization and regional governance.
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| 38. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Public Procurement as Marketisation : Impacts on Civil Servants and Public Administration in Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration. - : Göteborgs universitet. - 2001-7405 .- 2001-7413. ; 23:3-4, s. 43-59
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Swedish local government plays a central role in welfare production, providing some of the most crucial services to citizens. However, over the last decades there have been significant changes in how local governments are governed and how services are implemented. In many cases, these changes entail the promotion of rationalities and technologies associated with market-oriented principles and values as the primary means to providing welfare services. A central feature in this is public procurement. This phenomenon has been surprisingly absent from scholarly work that focuses on marketisation and the politics of public sector reform in Sweden. In this article, we present a case study based on interviews with actors involved in public procurement in Swedish local government. We provide insights into how public procurement sustains and expands the rationalities of marketisation. We conclude that the importance of public procurement has expanded, producing organisational changes and, perhaps most importantly, we are witnessing changes in the role of civil servants in Swedish public administration.
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| 39. |
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| 40. |
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| 41. |
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| 42. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Space Craft : Globalization and Governmentality in Regional Development
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores two related purposes. First, it theoretically investigates how the broad literature on globalization is nested in debates concerning the nature of concepts such as space and territory. When doing so, it suggests that studies of globalization can be advanced by escaping territorialist understandings where the nation state is reproduced as a natural arena appropriate for studying all aspects of ‘the social’.The theoretical part of the thesis is used as a basis for articulating a framework for empirical studies that rest upon a conceptual grammar fashioned through a combination of so called assemblage thinking and governmentality analysis. This framework is then put to work as the second, empirical, purpose of the thesis is pursued. More precisely this means that the governance of Swedish regional development is analyzed as an assemblage of discourses, practices and subjects where (re)production of globalization occurs.The (re)production of globalization is studied in three interrelated case studies, all based on a corpus of 81 documents pertaining to the governance of Swedish regional development. By paying attention to how power operates in terms of political rationalities, governmental technologies and the production of social actors, the thesis shows how notions of a perpetual and omnipresent global competition marks the assemblage with particularly salient modes of rationale. Specifically, entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity are represented as the primary means for becoming competitive in the age of globalization, and it is shown here how this have inclusionary and exclusionary effects in terms of desired social actors throughout Swedish regions. The thesis then ends with a concluding chapter where the current regimes of regional development are identified as complex forms of neoliberal rule with far reaching effects for democratic principles and practices.
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| 43. |
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| 44. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Traveling Expertise and Regional Development
- 2020
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Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- This book analyses an increasingly important phenomenon in contemporary regional development, namely ‘traveling expertise' and policy ideas.Drawing on the fields of urban and regional development, and informed by the emerging school of governmentality studies, it offers a theoretically and empirically original exploration of this subject, and of the linkages between local and global contexts and their interplay more broadly. Symbolically denoting the traveling expertise as ‘hired guns’, the book explores different segments of the political sphere, from policy consultants and the creative class, to the polity apparatuses in which policies are recalibrated. The book presents a unique assessment of how this external expertise impacts on regional development in terms of power, politics and governance.Traveling Expertise and Regional Development will be a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers and advanced students interested in regional development, public management and public policy.
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| 45. |
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| 46. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Upphandlingens byråkrater
- 2018
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Ingår i: Klokare upphandling. - Karlstad : Karlstad University Press. - 9789170639784 ; , s. 5-6
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 47. |
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| 48. |
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| 49. |
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| 50. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Working for Change : Projectified Politics and Gender Equality
- 2017
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Ingår i: NORA. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0803-8740 .- 1502-394X. ; 25:3, s. 163-178
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article I argue that the project, a governmental technology that is now widespread and accepted throughout the public sector, is not a neutral tool for implementing policy and conducting politics. Rather, my argument is that this form is intrinsically political in so far as it produces disruptions and sets boundaries for how any given task is to be performed. By mobilizing a set of optical metaphors from feminist theory of difference, I examine organizations that work for gender equality in Swedish regional development and illustrate how the governmental technology of the project reflects, refracts, and diffracts the practices associated with this work. Thus, I argue that if one wishes to understand contemporary gender-equality work, it is reasonable to consider the specific effects that are produced as it passes through the project form. The short empirical illustrations given here indicate, among other things, how the project form functions in some respects as a mirror, and reflects aspects of gender-equality work that are commonly experienced regardless of form or setting, such as encountering resistance. In other respects, the project form refracts gender-equality work, bending it into new directions so that, for instance, securing funds and coming up with new innovative project plans takes precedence over the actual work that respondents feel they should be doing. Finally, the intersection of gender-equality work and the project form also produces diffraction effects, such as the emergence of hybrid consultants. These multi-faceted figures function as evaluators, controllers, activists, and disseminators of knowledge, which makes them simultaneously important to and disdained by the respondents in this study. Thus, it is concluded that the disruptive effects of the project form should be recognized as political and studied more extensively in the future.
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