| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Ahrne, Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Flawed Globalization : Why Traditional Political Organizations Have Problems Forming Transnational Meta- Organizations
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Departing from an organizational perspective and using the cases of Socialist International and four European trade unions, this paper illustrates why political parties and trade unions have difficulty acting globally. The analysis shows that international or transnational organizations for national parties or trade unions are established as meta-organizations, and herein lies the key to explaining their problems in becoming global actors. The national embeddedness of their members results in broad agendas and quests for national solutions, which divides and weakens leadership. Comparing these meta-organizations to a more successful global political organization, Amnesty International, reveals that its organization is quite the opposite: a centralized leadership, a narrow agenda, not working for the immediate interests of its members or finding solutions to the issues it raises. The paper concludes that if this form of organization is necessary in global politics then there is little room for political parties and unions on a global arena.
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| 3. |
- Edberg, Karin, 1984-
(författare)
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Energilandskap i förändring : Inramningar av kontroversiella lokaliseringar på norra Gotland
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Energisystemet omstruktureras. Nya energikällor tillkommer och andra fasas ut samtidigt som efterfrågan på energi kvarstår ur ett globalt perspektiv. Lokaliseringen av de fysiska strukturer som genererar och distribuerar energi innebär en högst praktisk påverkan i den fysiska omgivningen liksom i det sociala landskapet innan, under och efter en etablering, vilket gör det relevant att undersöka hur nya lokaliseringar av energiinfrastruktur tas emot. Det övergripande syftet med den här avhandlingen i sociologi är därför att bidra till en ökad förståelse av lokal hantering av globala energidilemman.I avhandlingen analyseras lokaliseringar av kontroversiella energiprojekt, eller mer specifikt hur två sådana fall förstås och tolkas av berörda aktörer. Det görs genom ett teoretiskt ramverk baserat på inramningsteori (frame analysis) och sociala praktiker. Studien erbjuder en sociologiskt grundad förståelse av plats och förståelsens betydelse för inställningen till lokaliseringar av energiinfrastruktur.Avhandlingens empiriska fall utgörs av lokaliseringen av logistiskt arbete kring byggandet av en storskalig naturgasledning och av en planerad men inte realiserad etablering av en vindkraftspark till nordöstra Gotland. Dessa studeras genom intervjuer, observationer och textanalyser.Studien visar hur olika aktörer kombinerar och väger olika aspekter mot varandra i sina inramningskonstruktioner. Resultaten visar att även komponenter bortom det lokala ingår i inramningarna och att de inkluderar relationer mellan olika aktörer liksom förändring över tid. Denna förståelse presenteras genom en analys av fyra centrala aspekter – platsrelaterade, platsöverskridande, position och process – vilka tillsammans fångar den multidimensionalitet och komplexitet som kännetecknar kontroversiella lokaliseringar. Ett resultat är att den mest framgångsrika inramningsstrategin visade sig vara att särkoppla olika aspekter, det vill säga att uppmärksamma flera olika aspekter men på olika sätt hålla dem isär. En av studiens styrkor är att den inkluderar såväl strategiska inramningar som görs av olika aktörer i syfte att exempelvis få en lokalisering till stånd eller förhindra densamma, som inramningar som görs av dem som inte tar aktiv del i den formella lokaliseringsprocessen. Det ger en komplex bild som sträcker sig bortom policynivån och som visar att det inte finns en enstämmig förståelse i ”lokalsamhället”. Avhandlingen bidrar därmed till att bredda förståelsen av inramningar av kontroversiella lokaliseringar.
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| 4. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Discretionary Governance : Selection, Secrecy, and Status within the World Economic Forum
- 2021
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Ingår i: Global Governance. - : Brill. - 1075-2846 .- 1942-6720. ; 27:4, s. 540-560
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Built on the exclusive funding of 1,000 large transnational corporations, the World Economic Forum is a not-for-profit Swiss foundation, aiming to shape the direction of globalization. Its events are characterized by low degrees of formality and transparency. Research on what this organization does is scarce. This article suggests the term discretionary governance to capture the precarious, yet existing, social order that the organization shapes. By discretionary governance, we mean a set of discreet practices based on the organization’s judgement in ways that escape established democratic controls. Drawing on ethnographic data the paper demonstrates how selection, secrecy, and status form key components of this tenuous ordering. Selection processes and secrecy contribute to status elevation of the individuals and organizations chosen to participate. Upon them and the organization itself is bestowed a symbolic capital that is practical and possibly profitable in the world of global governance.
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| 5. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Future by Design : Seductive Technologies of Anticipation within the Future Industry
- 2021
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Ingår i: Futures. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - 9780198806820 - 9780191898358 ; , s. 501-513
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter critiques the anticipatory practices of contemporary organizations, such as think tanks and management consultancies, which offer methods and forecasts about possible and desirable futures. These organizations, the chapter argues, contribute to creating a sense of urgency with respect to the future, capitalizing on the perceived need among decision makers to grasp contemporary events, and provide tools and content by which the future can be designed. It argues that future forecast scenarios assist in the creation of a particular type of authority: one geared to the contemporary global situation and to an increasingly complex system of global governance. The chapter interrogates this particular type of authority to argue it is not singular and dominant, but instead comprises the varying interests of many different actors and is underscored by rational process, which offers the possibility of a wider shared understanding
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| 6. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Magical formulae for market futures : Tales from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos
- 2016
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Ingår i: Anthropology Today. - : Wiley. - 0268-540X .- 1467-8322. ; 32:6, s. 18-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Markets are often portrayed as being organized by way of rationalized knowledge, objective reasoning, and the fluctuations of demand and supply. In parallel, and often mixed with this modality of knowledge, magical beliefs and practices are prevalent. Business leaders, management consultants, and financial advisors are often savvy in the art of creatively blending the ‘objective facts’ of markets with magical formulae, rites, and imaginaries of the future. This article looks at the World Economic Forum's yearly Davos meeting as a large-scale ritual that engages senior executives of global corporations, top-level politicians, and civil society leaders to contribute to the overall aim of ‘improving the world’. The Davos gathering has become a vital part of the business calendar, just as much for the intensity of its networking as for the declarations of action from the speakers’ podiums. The presentations and performances in Davos work as ‘technologies of enchantment’ in Gell's (1992) sense, instilling a sense of agency onto participants. The ritual also contributes towards securing the acquiescence of individuals and organizations in a transnational network of politico-economic intentionalities. By invoking global and regional challenges and risks, discussing possible scenarios and solutions, presenters invoke a sense of urgency and contribute to the articulation of global ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’. It is proposed that the magic of Davos resides to a large extent in the ritualized form of interaction and the technologies of enchantment through which it is set up.
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| 7. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Secret Societies, Opaque Routes: Advancing Corporate Politics through the World Economic Forum
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- LAEMOS 2014Subtheme 8The Corporatization of Politics and the Politicization of Corporations The Politicization of Corporations: The Case of the World Economic ForumChristina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom Abstract This paper departs from an interest in the involvement of business leaders in the sphere of politics, in the broad sense. At a general level, we are seeing a proliferation of usages of non-market corporate strategies, such as testimony, lobbying, interlocking of positions and other means to influence policymakers at all levels of government and international institutions as an adjunct to the firm’s market strategies. This paper brings to the fore the role of corporations in the World Economic Forum (WEF), and how firms act through the WEF to advance their interests, financial as well as political. What is the role of business in the WEF, and how do business corporations advance their interests through the WEF? Inspired by Stephen Barley's (2010) work on how corporations have systematically built an institutional field to exert greater influence on the US Federal government, we aim to enhance knowledge on how the WEF and the 1,000 corporations that are active within it influence the larger socio-cultural context in which they are embedded. Empirically we depart from ethnographic field studies of the World Economic Forum, drawing on observations from WEF-events and interviews with participants and organizers. Theoretically we will employ an organizational perspective, using the concept of "partial organization" as introduced by Göran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson (2011). The results show that corporations find a strategically positioned amplifier for their non-market interests in the WEF. The WEF functions to enhance and gain leverage for their ideas and priorities in a highly selective and resourceful environment. In the long run, both the market priorities and the political interests of business may be served by engagement in the WEF. However, the WEF cannot only be conceived as the extended voice of corporations. The WEF also makes strategic use of the corporations to organize and expand their own agency, which not necessarily coincides with the interests of multinational corporations. By way of corporate financial resources, the tapping of knowledge and expertise, and access to vast networks of business relations, the WEF is also able to amplify its own voice. The organized network, in the format of partial organization, which is the preferred form of organization of the WEF, comes with weakened power in the form of oversight and sanctions for the member corporations, but may allow for a concentration of resources at the center. The periphery has little sanctioned insight into the core of the organization, and a weak voice in influencing the operations of the organization. Actors in the partially organized environment thus have to rely on the goodwill of the leadership.
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| 8. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Small places, big stakes : "Meetings" as moments of ethnographic momentum
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The World Economic Forum is essentially a world of meetings: staged, circumvented, formal, organized meetings to which access is tightly restricted. The annual Davos meeting, the WEF show case meeting, is also a microcosm of the organization, set up in a small place but speaking to bigger issues. Ethnographic fieldwork in organizations such as the WEF – and more broadly incorporations, state agencies, and international organizations – often involves doing fieldwork in workshops, at ceremonies, and at other staged, formal events. In addition, such fieldwork tends to be multilocal, mobile, and discontinuous. What, if anything, can we learn from doing ethnography in such small, temporary meeting places, where we may not even have full access?The paper shows that researching an organization such as the WEF is as methodologically and theoretical challenging as it is rewarding. It is argued that to understand the practices constituting meetings we need to broaden the perspective of the meeting as a phenomenon. The meeting as research locus should not be seen as a given entity, but as a contingent and continually constructed social arena. In the WEF case the meeting is both a continuous organizing effort, and a social arena, temporarily bounded in time and space.
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| 9. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
-
Small places, big stakes : "Meetings’" as moments of ethnographic momentum
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Davos summit is surrounded by air of seriousness and hype, but it is also something like a huge cocktail party. The Davos meeting is, in essence, a kind of human beehive, attracting and organizing a multitude of actors around its core, each contributing to the existence of the beehive community, and each disseminating its ideas and perspectives to the world at large. The WEF is essentially a social world of meetings – staged, circumvented, formal, organized meetings – and meetings to which access is tightly restricted. The annual Davos meeting, which is the showcase meeting of the WEF, is also a microcosm of the organization, set up in a small place and speaking to bigger issues: market regulations, financial crises, environmental risks, armed conflicts, and the like. The kinds of questions that arise out offieldwork in organizations such as this, but also more broadly, are to do with access, representation, validity, and the predicaments of doing ethnography in organized settings.At a more general level, ethnographic fieldwork in organizations – such as corporations, state agencies, and international organizations – often entails that the ethnographer has to rely on meetings as the primary point of access. Oftentimes, this involves doing fieldwork in workshops, at ceremonies, and at other staged, formal events. In addition, such fieldwork tends to be multilocal, mobile, and discontinuous. It may not provide as much of a flavour of the different local sites and a sense of ‘being there’ as one would wish for. The tendency in anthropology to favour the informal, the ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ as well as the spontaneous, may leave one with a lingering feeling of having to make do with second- rate material, i.e. the formal, the superficial, and the organized. Fieldwork in meetings, and in meetings to which one may not get full access, may, from that angle, be problematic.What, if anything, can we learn from doing ethnography in such a small, temporary meeting place, where we don not even have access to much of what goes on?
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| 10. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
-
The Politicization of Corporations: The Case of the World Economic Forum
- 2014
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Politicization of Corporations: The Case of the World Economic ForumChristina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom Abstract This paper departs from an interest in the involvement of business leaders in the sphere of politics, in the broad sense. At a general level, we are seeing a proliferation of usages of non-market corporate strategies, such as testimony, lobbying, interlocking of positions and other means to influence policymakers at all levels of government and international institutions as an adjunct to the firm’s market strategies. This paper brings to the fore the role of corporations in the World Economic Forum (WEF), and how firms act through the WEF to advance their interests, financial as well as political. What is the role of business in the WEF, and how do business corporations advance their interests through the WEF? Empirically we depart from ethnographic field studies of the World Economic Forum, drawing on observations from WEF-events and interviews with participants and organizers. We propose that corporations find a strategically positioned amplifier for their non-market interests in the WEF. The WEF functions to enhance and gain leverage for their ideas and priorities in a highly selective and resourceful environment. In the long run, both the market priorities and the political interests of business may be served by engagement in the WEF. By way of corporate financial resources, the tapping of knowledge and expertise, and access to vast networks of business relations, the WEF is also able to amplify its own voice and agency in the field of global governance.
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| 11. |
- Garsten, Christina, et al.
(författare)
-
Think tanks as policy brokers in partially organized fields: The case of World Economic Forum
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As has been noted in research on think tanks it is difficult to describe what a think tank is, and to pinpoint what it is in think tank activities that generates powerful relationships towards other actors. This is even more the case when talking of transnational think tanks. In this report we give a theoretical account of how relationships organized by transnational think tanks may be analyzed.In the report we are drawing on empirical findings from the World Economic Forum (WEF), seen as a transnational think tank addressing a non-national audience. We are suggesting that think-tank experts are engaged in the brokerage of ideas and knowledge, implying anintermediary activity, wherein ideas are translated, shaped and formatted. Operating at the interfaces of various actors, think-tank experts formulate and negotiate ideas with and among actors, encouraging them to adopt and use those ideas.The main argument in the report is that this brokerage can be seen to generate ‘partially organized fields’. The think tank organizes other actors not by constructing a complete organization, but by establishing and maintaining a decided network, drawing upon such organizational elements as membership, monitoring and sanctions. This allows think tanks to maintain a degree of flexibility, whilst gaining control of valuable resources.In the case of the WEF the report show that the combination of a small core of completeorganization with a larger environment of only partial organizing essentially allows the WEF to be bigger than they actually are. The decided networks, i.e. the partnerships, the working groups, and the communities, significantly extends the reach of the WEF, allowing it to reach across organizational boundaries.We suggest that this form of organizing is the prime way for transnational think tanks toorganize outside themselves, thereby exerting political influence. The potential influence it may exert resides in its influence over the shaping of agendas in other organizations, the formulation of pressing political issues, and by mobilizing actors in their decided networks to carry the issues further, on other organizational platforms and with other organizational mandates.
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| 12. |
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| 13. |
- Jacobsson, Kerstin, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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After a Cycle of Contention: Post-Gothenburg Strategies of Left-Libertarian Activists in Sweden
- 2015
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Ingår i: Social Movement Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1474-2837 .- 1474-2829. ; 14:6, s. 713-732
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article considers the strategic choices that radical activists face when a cycle of contention ends. It investigates the reorientation of the autonomous anarchists or left-libertarian activist milieu in Sweden after the riots at the Gothenburg summit in 2001, which ended a cycle of anti-globalization protests in Sweden. The article identifies five strategies by which this activist milieu attempted to reconstruct collective agency, build a new alliance structure, and renew the repertoire of contention: (1) rescaling and targeting of micro-politics; (2) moving from secluded to open communities; (3) rethinking collective agency with the help of a new movement theory; (4) reversing dominant discourses and opening up discursive space; and (5) redefining militancy and shelving of violent confrontation. The study builds on activist interviews and ethnographic research in Stockholm and Malmo.
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| 14. |
- Jennische, Ulrik, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Governing anticipation : UNESCO making humankind futures literate
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Organizational Ethnography. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 2046-6749 .- 2046-6757. ; 12:1, s. 105-119
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose - This paper explores practices of foresight within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) program Futures Literacy, as a form of transnational governmentality–founded on the interests of “using the future” by “emancipating” the minds of humanity.Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on ethnographic material gathered over five years within the industry of futures consultancy, including UNESCO and its network of self-recognized futurists. The material consists of written sources, participant observation in on-site and digital events and workshops, and interviews.Findings - Building on Foucault's (1991) concept of governmentality, which refers to the governing of governing and how subjects politically come into being, this paper critically examines the UNESCO Futures Literacy program by answering questions on ontology, deontology, technology and utopia. It shows how the underlying rationale of the Futures Literacy program departs from an ontological premise of anticipation as a fundamental capacity of biological life, constituting an ethical substance that can be worked on and self-controlled. This rationale speaks to the mandate of UNESCO, to foster peace in our minds, but also to the governing of governing at the individual level.Originality/value - In the intersection between the growing literature on anticipation and research concerning governmentality the paper adds ethnographically based knowledge to the field of transnational governance. Earlier ethnographic studies of UNESCO have mostly focused upon its role for cultural heritage, or more broadly neoliberal forms of governing.
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| 15. |
- Jezierska, Katarzyna, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Proximity and distance : Think tanks handling the independence paradox
- 2021
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Ingår i: Governance. An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0952-1895 .- 1468-0491. ; 34:2, s. 395-411
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The credibility of think tanks is grounded in their image as independent experts. In order to gain authority to act, think tanks must be seen as independent, but in order to exert influence and gain funding, think tanks are forced to compromise this independent image. We focus on how think tanks handle this independence paradox. How do think tanks use different resources to construct an independent image? The aim of the article is conceptual, as we develop a theoretical model of the independence paradox. This conceptual work is based on empirical analysis of attempts by think tanks in Poland and Sweden to create independence while maintaining influence. The two desirables central for think tanks, independence and influence, force them to make strategic choices about their relations with various actors. We conclude that the processes of keeping distance and arranging proximity are at the core of the independence paradox.
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| 16. |
- Jezierska, Katarzyna, et al.
(författare)
-
Think Tanks In De-Democratizing Contexts : A Framework For Analysis
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Workshop on Policy Advice in De-democratizing and Undemocratic Contexts.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The last decade is marked by tendencies of de-democratization and autocratization (Lührmann & Lindberg 2019), often characterized by polarization of politics and society, by undermining facts- and expertise-based policymaking, and by decreasing transparency and accountability of political and policy processes. As part of these democratic erosion processes, civil society has also been increasingly under attack, particularly if critical of the incumbent government.Think tanks stand at the crossroads ofseveral ofthese tendencies, for several reasons. First, think tanks are members of civil society, and actors in this increasingly polarized political arena. Second, they are organizations that commonly contribute to policy processes with policy knowledge and expertise, which in de-democratizing and polarizing contexts appears to be increasingly troublesome. Third, think tanks are actors that traditionally claim independence beyond party and political lines in their activities. This position may be difficult to uphold in a context where governmental and specific party allegiance is of accelerating importance.Our research aims to bring together scholarship on de-democratization and polarization seen from the vantage point of think tanks, in an attempt to improve our understanding of the specificities of political knowledge production in the context of democratic backsliding. The context for the paper is a research project funded by the Baltic Sea Foundation on policy advice in electoral regimes. In the project we are focusing on how think tanks as knowledge producers, providers of policy advice and advocacy are relating to the broader processes of de- democratization We propose to do this through a comparison of two extreme cases of de- democratizing countries in Europe: Poland (classified by https://www.v-dem.net/en/ as electoral democracy) and Hungary (classified as electoral autocracy), both of which were downgraded from relatively high and solid democracy prior to 2010 and 2015 respectively.
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| 17. |
- Jämte, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Why Did It Not Happen Here? : The Gradual Radicalization of the Anarchist Movement in Sweden 1980–90
- 2016
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Ingår i: A European Youth Revolt. - Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9781137565693 ; , s. 97-111
-
Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter examines the development and role of the anarchist movement in Sweden during the 1980s. In relation to many other parts of Northern Europe – which had seen an upsurge in radical left-libertarian activism, squatting and urban unrest at the turn of the 1980s – such social movements and confrontations remained a marginal phenomenon in Sweden, at least until the end of the decade. However, by the late 1980s a new generation of younger activists, often with roots in the anarchist milieu, formed the basis for a radical squatter and autonomist movement, which proved very similar to the movements that had developed throughout Europe almost a decade earlier.
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| 18. |
- Karlberg, Eva
(författare)
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Organizing the Voice of Women : A study of the Polish and Swedish women's movements' adaptation to international structures
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The European Union has become an important arena for international politics. Various actors try to influence the European-level executive and legislative authorities. Lobbyists in Brussels are not the only type of actors promoting the interests of others. Today, national-level social movement actors too are present at the European level, pushing the interests of various citizen groups and social issues. To do so, however, they need to adapt to the European Union’s multilevel governance system by speaking with one voice. As this thesis demonstrates, at the national level this adaptation may entail a number of organizational challenges for movements.Organizing the Voice of Women regards national-level social movements adapting to international structures. Taking the cases of the Swedish and the Polish women’s movements and their relation to the European Union as examples, the analysis follows two separate, yet similar, processes of forming and maintaining nationwide meta-organizations – that is, organizations of organizations – that can speak for the two respective movements. Through the cases of the two women’s movements’ adaptation to international structures, the study explores the challenges involved when a new layer of organization is added to a social movement.The results show that organizing the voice of the Swedish and the Polish women’s movements has been particularly challenging when conditions such as a tradition of umbrella organizing and stable financial resources are absent at national level. The results also show that competition and conflicts are apparent in both cases and inherent in meta-organizations, and that they have been possible to deal with differently depending on the two movements’ national settings. With an organizational perspective on social movement coalitions, this study contributes to the classic question of institutionalization, formalization and bureaucratization of social movements. It ultimately asks what it means to organize a field of social movement actors and what happens at the junction of organization and social movement, at the intersection of national and international interests. A wider implication of the study is that the issues it highlights are to be expected whenever the internationalization of national movement activities takes the form of meta-organization.
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| 19. |
- Mellquist, Joanna, et al.
(författare)
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Policy professionals in civil society organizations : Organizational hypocrisy and the myth of member centrality
- 2022
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - : Sveriges Sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; 59:4, s. 363-386
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Drawing on 24 interviews with policy professionals in 10 Swedish member-based civil society organizations (CSOs), and observations of policy professionals in three of these, we investigate CSOs from the perspective of their policy teams. This paper theoretically addresses how policy professionals relate to the members in whose name they work. This article extends the literature on civil society professionalization by conceptualizing the conflicts pertaining to policy professionals’ work in CSOs and ways of managing these conflicts. We argue that, ordinarily, CSO policy professionals working to influence public policy respond to conflicting logics and myth-like institutional demands for strong and direct influence of member interests by maintaining face and investing in the myth of member centrality. Based on how policy professionals address these issues, we suggest that organizations respond to conflicting institutional pressures and myths via decoupling strategies, discreetly avoiding member concerns while investing in the membership myth, ultimately fostering organizational hypocrisy. Conceptually, the paper contributes by connecting the literatures of civil society professionalization and new institutional theory to the burgeoning literature on policy professionals.
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| 20. |
- Mellquist, Joanna
(författare)
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Policy professionals in civil society organizations : Struggling for influence
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The professionalization of civil society organizations coupled with an elite-driven policy process has fostered the rise of policy professionals in civil society organizations (CSOs). This dissertation explores the role and functioning of policy professionals in CSOs, describing and analyzing how CSOs’ hiring of such expertise contributes to processes of professionalization within civil society, including what that entails from a normative perspective. It does so by analyzing interviews with and observations of policy professionals in Sweden, Latvia, and the Netherlands. The main research question guiding the thesis concerns how we can conceptualize and understand the group of policy professionals in civil society and the role it plays in the professionalization of civil society. The analysis is based on field theory in combination with new institutional theory.The study provides new insights into the role of policy professionals and professionalization of CSOs through four empirical studies. First, it conceptualizes the field of policy advocacy in civil society as a struggle to gain influence over internal and public policymaking. In this struggle, policy professionals’ daily activities concern practices of influencing policy application and constructing several types of field-specific capital. Types of capital important for this subfield are, over and above social and academic capital, organizational capital and policy-political capital. While organizational capital restores the organization by fostering legitimacy, trust, and loyalty, policy-political capital, acquired from the political sphere, enhances the political professionalization of the field.Second, a contribution of this thesis is to conceptualize policy professionals’ different role orientations as policy scholars, policy lobbyists, policy communicators, and policy activists. These role orientations of individual policy professionals are in turn connected to strategies embedded in the logics of and relationships with actors outside civil society.Third, by identifying how these policy professionals handle the sometimes-clashing logics of membership and influence, gaps between ideals and practices are found in policy professionals’ day-to-day policy work. Policy professionals try to overcome these gaps by the means of decoupling, myth creation, and organizational hypocrisy, creating a discrepancy in that the organizations say one thing but do another.Lastly, this thesis argues that the mediatization of civil society creates conflicts within organizations, in turn pushing CSOs to advance their work via branding, framing, and strategic communication that elevate the positions of communicators within policy teams.One of this study’s main contributions is made in relation to the professsionalization of CSOs, demonstrating how their roles are connected to organizational strategies. A second contribution is that of nuancing and extending the literature on and conceptualization of policy professionals by conceptualizing the subfield of policy professionals in civil society. This thesis reveals how the policy professsionalizationof CSOs creates a new political landscape where competence relating to these areas is in demand, fostering the emergence of policy professionals as a cadre in civil society. A significant danger of this policy professionalization of CSOs is that decision making is placed more in the hands of these employees, rather than in the hands of the members the organization is supposed to represent.
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| 21. |
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Power, Policy and Profit : Corporate Engagement in Politics and Governance
- 2017
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- Power, Policy and Profit: Corporate Engagement in Politics and Governance investigates the manifold ways in which corporate actors attempt to influence political activities in the broad sense. Historically, the scope of corporate influence in politics as well as the ways in which corporations have attempted to influence political structures have varied greatly. With intensified globalization of markets, the restructuring of provisions of welfare services, and the accumulation of private capital, opportunities for corporate influence in politics affairs have multiplied. Influencing policy is for instance undertaking by the funding of analyses and research, by creating or adopting standards for social responsibility, and by shaping transparency guidelines. Power, Policy and Profit: Corporate Engagement in Politics and Governance brings together scholars from different fields in the study of global governance, to address the rising influence and power of corporate actors on the political scene, at national and transnational levels.
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| 22. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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A Matter of ‘Extremism’? : Ideas about democracy and political change within Anarchist and Autonomist activists in Sweden
- 2013
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this paper is to identify the relationship towards democracy amongst anarchist and autonomist movement activists. Using the case of activists in Sweden, we scrutinize the relationship to the idea and practice of democracy found in contemporary radical left. How is democracy framed in groups such as these? By so doing we wish to add to and develop the research field on left movements and parties that sometimes are labeled “extreme”. We believe that the “extremism” concept is troublesome in several ways, mainly since it is an ‘asymmetrical concept’ in Koselleck’s sense. In spite of this acknowledgement, we will tentatively use it, in order to mirror and thereby capture how “democracy”, as an idea and practice, is framed by anarchist and autonomous activists.In the paper we compare the notion of extremism with the ideas of autonomous and anarchist activist activists in Sweden. The five common elements attributed to the concept of extremism could not be found in the interviews. To the contrary, using the concept in order to find extremism showed a pattern of values usually attributed to the concept of ”deliberative democracy”.
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| 23. |
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| 24. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-
(författare)
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Arbetarrörelsen och globaliseringen : Bortom nationen som ram?
- 2017
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Ingår i: Civilsamhället i det transnationella rummet. - Stockholm : European Civil Society Press. - 9789186641085
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I många organisationer i det civila samhället finns det starka inslag av en oreflekterad, banal nationalism, utan att vare sig de historiska rötterna eller organisationens grundläggande uppdrag explicit bär på ett sådant perspektiv. Kopplingen till nationen framträder tydligt och det är lätt att konstruktionen av ett ”vi” (svenskarna) och ett ”de” (icke-svenskarna) slår igenom i såväl diskurs som verksamhet. Med dessa analytiska glasögon, och empiri från intervjuer på lokal nivå (två socialdemokratiska arbetarkommuner) respektive Europa-nivå (fackliga paraplyorganisationer), mejslas i kapitlet gränserna fram för vad man inom den socialdemokratiska arbetarrörelsen anser vara politiskt möjligt när det gäller det transnationella engagemanget.
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| 25. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Begreppet extremism - en kritisk introduktion
- 2016
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Ingår i: ARKIV. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys. - : Arkiv Forlag & Tidskrift. - 2000-6225 .- 2000-6217. ; :5, s. 15-37
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Termen ”extremism” har blivit vanligare inom både svensk offentlig debatt och myndighetsprosa. I sådana sammanhang är det dock sällan klart exakt vad som avses med denna term. Inte heller inom samhällsvetenskapen är begreppet extre mism oomstritt och inom olika forskningsfält används begreppet på olika sätt. Syftet med Adrienne Sörbom och Magnus Wennerhags artikel är att belysa extremismbegrep pets uppkomst och förändrade betydelse under moderniteten, samt att diskutera några av de problem som begreppet är behäftat med. Med hjälp av bland annat vetenskaps sociologen Thomas F. Gieryns begrepp ”gränsdragningsarbete” (boundary-work) visar Sörbom och Wennerhag hur begreppet extremism används i fältet mellan vetenskap, politik och samhällsdebatt. Författarnas huvudsakliga poäng är att begreppets utgångs punkt i en tydligt normativ föreställning om politiska avvikelser gör det mindre använd bart i vetenskapliga sammanhang, eftersom det enbart tar dessa avvikelser för givna och inte erbjuder några förklaringar om varför de uppkommer eller vilken roll de spelar i moderna samhällen.
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| 26. |
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| 27. |
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| 28. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Bridging or Bonding? : Think Tanks in a Polarized Context
- 2021
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Ingår i: Swedish Political Science Association Annual Conference.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Social capital is still often presumed as having positive consequences for societies and communities, less benign aspects are frequently overlooked. Nevertheless, scholarship distinguishes between bridging and bonding social capital to mark that social ties might have very different effects. In this paper, we study the “darker sides” of social capital, arguing that to understand the mechanisms that may propel benign and less benign formations of social capital we need to analyze these variations in context. We focus on think tanks, i.e., policy advice institutions, who are often described as organizations bridging various social fields and brokering contacts between various individuals. We argue, however, that a sharply polarized context turns think tanks to bonding, rather than bridging institutions. Our data consists of 40 interviews with representatives from Polish think tanks, collected in two waves (in 2013 and in 2020/2021), which allows us to trace changes over time. Since the radical right wing Law and Justice came to power in 2015, Polish politics and society are deeply polarized along the axis of the socio-cultural dimension (for or against liberal democracy). The analysis indicates that the networks Polish think tanks use for their activities have transformed from bridging between various groups of organizations, to bonding between similar types of organizations.
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| 29. |
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| 30. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Discreet Diplomacy : Practices of Secrecy in Transnational Think Tanks
- 2021
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper studies secrecy practices within transnational think tanks. Drawing on ethnographic data from three such organisations, we explore how everyday practices undertaken in secrecy amount to discreet diplomatic efforts. We suggest that transnational think tanks should be understood as “shutter boxes” that engage in three types of secrecy practices: shadowed, hidden, and conspicuously shown. Although outwardly striving for transparency, secrecy practices are vital for transnational think tanks as they strive to establish themselves as actors of consequence in foreign relations and diplomatic circles. Practices of secrecy are part and parcel of the power game played by think tanks, in which all participants learn and master what to discuss and what not to display.
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| 31. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Discreet Diplomacy : Practices of Secrecy in Transnational Think Tanks
- 2023
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Ingår i: The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology. - : Berghahn Books. - 2047-7716 .- 0305-7674. ; 42:1, s. 98-117
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article aims to expand both the analytical gaze of diplomacy studies and anthropological interests in the field of transnational think tanks, advocacy and policy advice. Drawing on ethnographic data from three such organisations, itinvestigates secrecy practices within transnational think tanks, focusing on how everyday practices undertaken in secrecy amount to discreet diplomatic efforts. In a variety of ways, secrecy is utilised as a resource in foreign relations and diplomacy, thereby aiming to leverage status and influence. Although outwardly striving for transparency, secrecy practices are thus vital in the striving of transnational think tanks to establish themselves as actors of consequence in foreign relations and diplomatic circles. It is argued that practices of secrecy are part and parcel of the power games played, in which all participants learn and master what to discuss and what not to display. These practices, however, also imply a challenge in terms of accountability and transparency.
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| 32. |
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| 33. |
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| 34. |
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| 35. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-
(författare)
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Från snack till organiserade nätverk : Om tankesmedjors arbete för att värva andra för sina idéer
- 2018
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - : Sveriges Sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; 55:2-3, s. 365-387
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- From chatter to organized networks. How think tanks work to enrol othersThink tanks, both inside and outside the Swedish context, appear as something of a conundrum. Definitions and conceptual understandings of what think tanks actually do have not been adequately developed. One of the most urgent and unanswered questions regards how we understand the ability of think tanks to get other actors in the political landscape to use their ideas? Drawing on insights from 13 think thanks in Stockholm, the intention of this paper is to provide an empirically based and theoretically informed answer to this question. The results show that the activities colloquially termed ”networking” and ”agenda setting”, can be understood from an organisational perspective. These activities come across as intangible with uncertain outcomes but cannot be seen as random attempts to bridge think tankers and policy actors, but as decided actions designed to make other actors use their ideas in the future. At the same time, the organized relationships to other actors are ambiguous, as too close relationships may risk the think tank’s appearance of independency.
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| 36. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Future Fears : Anticipation and the Politics of Emotion in the Future Industry
- 2021
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Ingår i: Culture Unbound. - : Linkoping University Electronic Press. - 2000-1525. ; 13:3, s. 1-25
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is based on ethnographic work in organizations that form part of what we term the Future Industry – e.g. think tanks, consultancies and governmental bodies – involved in the charting, description and analysis of future scenarios. That is to say, an industry explicitly aiming for organizing the future. In the paper we analyze this industry, which we see as serving and feeding into, the emotional streams of contemporary politics and economics. In the interest of selling beliefs of the future, we suggest that it attempts to make its customers sense the pros and cons of the particular future it puts forth. The paper argues that the mapping and selling of futures to a large extent involves the voicing of “problems” and the presentation of “desirable futures”, the cultivation, articulation and management of fear, anxiety, and hope, as well as a reliance on metrics, reason, and evidence, are central components.
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| 37. |
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| 38. |
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| 39. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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His Master’s Voice? The Role of Business in the World Economic Forum
- 2013
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper departs from an interest in the involvement of business leaders in the sphere of politics, in the broad sense. Many global business leaders today do much more than engage narrowly in their own corporation and its search for profit. At a general level, we are seeing a proliferation of usages of non-market corporate strategies, such as testimony, lobbying, interlocking of positions and other means to influence policymakers at all levels of government and international institutions as an adjunct to the firm’s market strategies. Conversely, there is an enhanced interest on the part of policymakers to influence firm behaviour through multi-stakeholder involvement, public – private agreements and networks forms of governance. The paper brings to the fore the role of corporations in the World Economic Forum, and how firms act through the WEF to advance their interests, financial as well as political. What is the role of business in the World Economic Forum, and how do business corporations advance their interests through the WEF?The results show that corporations find a strategically positioned amplifier for their non-market interests in the WEF. The WEF functions to enhance and gain leverage for their ideas and priorities in a highly selective and resourceful environment. In the long run, both the market priorities and the political interests of business may be served by engagement in the WEF.However, the WEF cannot only be conceived as the extended voice of corporations. The WEF also makes use of the corporations to organize and expand their own agency, which not necessarily coincides with the interests of multinational corporations. By way of corporate financial resources, the tapping of knowledge and expertise, and access to vast networks of business relations, the WEF is also able to amplify its own voice.
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| 40. |
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| 41. |
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| 42. |
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| 43. |
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| 44. |
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| 45. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Organizational innovation and political impact in the Swedish movement context: : The case of the Anarchist and Autonomist movement
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- ADRIENNE SÖRBOM Associate professor, Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research, Stockholm University and Stockholm School of Economics adrienne.sorbom@score.su.se MAGNUS WENNERHAG PhD, Södertörn University magnus.wennerhag@sh.se Organizational innovation and political impact in the Swedish movement context: The case of the Anarchist and Autonomist movement From the 1960s until the contemporary protests of the global justice movement, one can claim that the broader leftist movement milieu of many Western countries increasingly have been inspired by the general legacy of Anarchism and the libertarian Marxism of ’autonomia’, and their critique of capitalism, the state and modern social organization. As have been discussed by various scholars, parts of the libertarian and anti-hierarchical critique have also led to changes in both the public debate and society as such. For instance, new questions have entered the political agenda, political parties changed their mode of organizing, new models of work organization entered industry, cultural production, and ‘post-material values’ broadly impacted society (cf. Boltanski and Chiapello 2005; Inglehart 1990; Kitschelt 1993). However, despite this impact on values, forms of critique and modes of organization, some scholars (cf. Day 2005; Graeber 2007; Epstein 2001) note that the political claims and utopias of the traditional Anarchist legacy have not attracted the same degree of attention. Analyzing the case of the contemporary Swedish Anarchist and Autonomist movement, using interviews and survey data, this paper scrutinizes the role of this movement context in Sweden during the last 20 years, regarding its impact on politics, the general debate, and the broader leftist movement milieu of the country. Despite Sweden’s traditions of consensus politics and integration of movements in the decision-making of the state, as well as the quite short history of the Anarchist/Autonomist movement in the country, it is argued that this movement context have had an impact on both intra-movement innovation and organizational values, and general debates and decision-making in society. Furthermore, it is discussed whether this ‘radical flank’ (eg. Haines) of the broader left milieu through this impact, and the reaction of the state and other actors, have left the original Anarchist legacy and adapted to the mode of traditional civil society politics, or rather introduced a new kind of contentiousness in Swedish politics. References: Boltanski, Luc and Ève Chiapello (2005) The New Spirit of Capitalism. London: Verso. Day, Richard J. F. (2005) Gramsci is dead: Anarchist currents in the newest social movements. London: Pluto. Epstein, Barbara (2001) ’Anarchism and the Anti-Globalisation Movement’, Monthly Review 53(4): 1–14. Graeber, David (2007) Direct action: An ethnography. Edinburgh: AK Press. Haines, Herbert H. (1988). Black radicals and the civil rights mainstream, 1954–1970. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Inglehart, Ronald (1990) Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Kitschelt, Herbert (1993) ‘Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democratic Theory’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 528(1): 13–29.
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| 46. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-
(författare)
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Organizing Agendas : Understanding think tanks’ agenda setting as partial organization
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Ingår i: Acta Sociologica. - 0001-6993 .- 1502-3869.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Think tanks offer an organizational innovation that can seamlessly merge research, publicity and advocacy. The pronounced increase in their sheer numbers, coupled with their intensified advocacy and more articulate ideological positions, has contributed to growing academic interest. Conceptualizations, descriptions and categorizations of national and transnational think tanks have been put forth, with good results. Scholar definitions and conceptual understandings of what think tanks do have, however, not been sufficiently developed. In particular, the question of how the ability of think tanks to get others to use their ideas is left un-answered. Employing the concept of ‘partial organizing’ the aim of this paper is to analyse how think tanks work in order to be able to set policy agendas contrary to the interest of other actors. The paper is conceptual in its scope, but it draws on interviews at four think tanks in Washington DC, USA, for explaining and exemplifying the argument. It concludes that think tanks set policy agendas by partially organizing its environment.
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| 47. |
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| 48. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Policy brokers in partially organized fields : the case of World Economic Forum
- 2013
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Ingår i: 8th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis 2013 in Vienna from July 3rd- to July 5th, 2013.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As has been noted in research on think tanks it is difficult to describe what a think tank is, and to pinpoint what it is in think tank activities that generates powerful relationships towards other actors (Ricci 1993). This is even more the case when talking of international think tanks. In this paper we give a theoretical account of how these relationships organized by international think tanks may be analyzed.Think tanks are often established as non-profit organizations, and hence part of civil society. But because corporations and private foundations often fund them they operate across organizations and organizational spheres, as ‘boundary-spanning organizations’ (cf. Medvetz 2012). In the cross-boundary environment established by think tanks, ideas are disseminated to other actors: governments, authorities, the media and the public.Drawing on empirical findings from the World Economic Forum (WEF), seen as a think tank like organization, we suggest that think-tank experts are engaged in the brokerage of ideas and knowledge, implying an intermediary activity, wherein ideas are translated, shaped and formatted (c.f. Smith 1991; Ingold & Varone 2012). Operating at the interfaces of various actors, think-tank experts formulate and negotiate ideas with and among actors, encouraging them to adopt and use those ideas (cf. Mosse 1985; Wedel 2009).This brokerage can be seen to generate ‘partially organized fields’ (cf. Ahrne & Brunsson 2011). It organizes other actors not by constructing a complete organization, but by establishing and maintaining a decided network and drawing upon such organizational elements as membership, monitoring and resources. This allows the think tanks to maintain a degree of flexibility, whilst gaining control of valuable resources.The WEF is a not-for profit organization, based in Geneva Switzerland. It was founded in 1971 by Professor Klaus Schwab. Today the organization has approximately 500 employees, financed by the organization’s 1000 members, coming from the largest corporations in the world. WEF is most known for its annual meeting in Davos, but it hosts a vast number of private meetings around the world, and has built a world wide network of people and organizations coming from many parts of society, such as corporations, churches, NGOs as well as national and international authorities.
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| 49. |
- Sörbom, Adrienne, 1967-
(författare)
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Politikens globalisering i Emmaboda
- 2005
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Ingår i: Den tömda demokratin. - Stockholm : Agora. - 9189483405
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 50. |
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