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- Stensöta, Helena, 1965
(författare)
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Den empatiska staten: Jämställdhetens inverkan på daghem och polis 1950-2000
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract Stensöta, H. The empathetic State. The impact of equality between men and women on kindergarten and police 19502000. (Swedish Title: DEN EMPATISKA STATEN. Jämställdhetens inverkan på daghem och polis 1950─2000). Swedish text. English summary. Göteborg Studies in Politics 85. 256 sidor. ISBN-nr 91-89246-10-1, ISSN-nr 0346-5942. The dissertation departs from the growing tendency of men and women to engage in care taking of their children while simultaneously being successfully employed. The main empirical question penetrated is if this growing tendency results in an increased care-orientation in societal norms in the society as a whole. This question is framed as a question of how the character of the state changes with changed power conditions between societal groups, in this case between men and women. Departuring from previous feminist research, such as Carol Gilligan, a theoretical model is developed to account for how experiences of physical care-for dependants among women and men results in changes in personal moral convictions. It is presented as a possible way to deal with questions of care-norms without connecting them more to women than to men. On the societal level it is assumed that a normative change in this direction can be manifested as an increased of care-orientation of how public sector employees in general are supposed to encounter with the public. The thesis is investigated through a case-oriented analysis focusing on central steering documents for Kindergarten and the Police. The findings show that there is reason to talk about a change of state-character regarding Kindergarten and the emergence of an empathetic state. Concerning the Police there has been an increased care-orientation in policy intentions, but not all questions lifted forward in the analysis could be answered positively. This leads to the conclusion that the development cannot be connected to changes in living patterns between men and women, such as in the Kindergarten case.
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- Bendz, Anna, 1967
(författare)
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I välfärdsstatens hägn: Autonomi inom arbetslöshetsförsäkringen : Under the Welfare State Umbrella. Autonomy within the Unem-ployment Insurance
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The point of departure of this dissertation is the general question of how to combine normative political philosophy with empirical analysis, the argument being that concepts from the political philosophy can and shall be used for the construction of theoretically and empirically relevant research questions. The core concept in the dissertation, which is also the object of the empirical analysis, is autonomy. The empirical analysis answers the question of what consequences for individual autonomy follows from the design of unemployment insurance institutions. The empirical study focuses on policy choices taken in Sweden and Norway concerning the reformation of the unemployment insurances between the 1930s and 1990s. The design of the study is a comparative case study, the point of departure being that Sweden and Norway are social-democratic welfare states which are similar in many ways but have chosen different kinds of unemployment insurance institutions. The theoretical model used in the dissertation is derived from institutional theory. The hypothesis is that the difference in unemployment insurance systems should mean that the political actors should face different situations when making decisions about the rules of the unemployment insurance, which in turn means that the outcome when it comes to individual autonomy should be different. Since the countries have had the same institutions since the 1930s, another hypothesis is that the policy decisions regarding the rules affecting autonomy should be relatively stable over time. This hypothesis is derived from the historical-institutionalist theory of path dependency. The result of the empirical study shows that there are some differences between the two cases when it comes to autonomy and that it is possible to argue that these differences can be attributed to the institutional systems. But the conclusion is not unanimous since there are also some similarities in the autonomy outcome, and a conclusion therefore also is that in some instances, the differences in unemployment insurance institutions are not significant for the political actors when they make policy decisions. The empirical study also shows that the path dependency hypothesis gains support in the Norwegian case, but not to the full in the Swedish case. The differences between the two cases decrease over time, mainly due to changes in the Swedish unemployment insurance. A general conclusion in the thesis is that the design of political institutions not only is of importance for political decision-making and public policy, but also for the normative character of the state.
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- Dahlström, Carl, 1972
(författare)
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Nästan välkomna: Invandrarpolitikens retorik och praktik : Almost Welcome. Rhetoric and Practice in Immigrant Policy
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation argues that Swedish immigrant policy that is, the conditions provided to resident immigrants has gained legitimacy when distanced from past immigrant policies. Legitimizing immigrant policy by contrasting it against an undesirable past is strange, considering the development of immigrant policy programmes. The findings in the dissertation show that all important immigrant policy programmes were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s and that there has been astonishing stability since then. At the same time, the rhetoric of immigrant policy has changed several times. This book is an attempt to explain this puzzling discrepancy between rhetoric and practice. The theoretical model suggests that the explanation can be found in differing evaluation processes: rhetoric is evaluated in public political debates whereas practice is evaluated through government audits. In these different contexts different questions are asked. The public debate focuses on questions of moral values, and the government audit system focuses on questions of efficiency. Rhetoric and practice therefore respond differently to criticism, which creates a decoupling between rhetoric and practice. The purpose of both rhetorical and practical changes is to increase policy legitimacy, but this is done in different ways and therefore with different consequences. The theoretical model is confirmed. This conclusion is based on four observations. The first concerns the conditions when rhetoric and practice were established. They were widely different. The rhetoric was introduced in a polarized public debate, whereas the practice started off to solve specific problems concerning information and training in the Swedish language. As a result of these different conditions of introduction, rhetoric and practice were but loosely knit together. This observation supports the notion of the importance of formative moments. The second observation is that stability is contained only when feedback mechanisms constantly confirm the policy formation. This has happened on the practical but not on the rhetorical level. The third observation concerns how the rhetorical level has changed. It has accommodated the opinions of critics in the public debate. As this criticism has been on matters of principles, the core values of the rhetoric have been changed. Finally, the fourth observation is about the lack of major change on the practical level. Here, too, the opinions of critics have been accommodated, but in this context the criticism has concerned the efficiency of existing policy programmes and not the principles behind them.
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