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- Bartonek, Leo
(författare)
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Der Topos "Nähe" : Ernst Blochs Eintrittsstelle in die Sozialwissenschaften : ein Beitrag zur Ontologie der modernen Gesellschaft
- 1992
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present age is a time of major societal change in which the social sciences are again faced with three key problems: the relationship between the social science and societal reality, the elaboration of a meaningful concept of human agency, and the need to incorporate a temporal dimension into theories of the interaction between institutional structures and human agents.Against this background I discuss in the first part of the thesis the work of three theorists - Jiirgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, and Anthony Giddens - who all share the ambition to overcome traditional dichotomies In social and political thought: the social versus the individual, the static versus the dynamic, objectivism versus subjectivism, freedom versus determination. None of the three, I argue, succeeds in providing a satisfactory solution to these key problems. In particular, they fail to account adequately for the time factor.In the second part of the thesis I present an alternative point of departure for grasping reality, one based on Ernst Bloch’s ontology in which the notion of time holds a central position. This permits us to launch our conceptual strategy from a specific point in history, the present, which is the crucial point in the continual process of social becoming. Thus social reality, understood as a process, is constantly produced and reproduced through everyday human practice. Based on this ontological foundation, the concept of social context, the relation between structure and human agency, is an essentially open one and for this reason, it is possible to explain both social change and stability.
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- Ehn, Peter, 1954-
(författare)
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Maktens administratörer : ledande svenska statstjänstemäns och politikers syn på tjänstemannarollen i ett förändringsperspektiv
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall theme for this dissertation is the position of higher Swedish civil servants in the borderland between politics and administration and between flexibility, loyalty, impartiality, and autonomy. An important assumption is that the attitudes and beliefs are especially significant in a system such as the Swedish, where civil servants may act under conditions of substantial autonomy. The dissertation is based on interviews with higher civil servants and a sample of members of the Swedish parliament. Among the civil servants the study is limited to the higher echelons in the national public administration - undersecretaries of state, assistant undersecretaries of state, and director-generals of administrative agencies. The study is comparative - comparisons are made between 1971/73 and 1990. The central instruments of analysis consist of three role conceptions of civil servants. They are constructed from three fundamental coordinating principles and are designated the judicial, the political and the market-oriented civil servant roles. In a second step, the theoretical role typology is adapted to "the practice" which is manifested in the Swedish public administration's development in a longer perspective.How the role of the civil servants in the political system was perceived, as well as the political positions, was found to be dependent on the positions of the interviewees in the politico-administrative system. This meant that the undersecretaries, irrespective of role perception, found themselves farthest to the left among the studied groups, then followed by the assistant undersecretaries and farthest right the director-generals. An exception to this rule was the politically-oriented director-generals, who were left of all the assistant undersecretaries irrespective of role perception and even to the left of the judicially-oriented undersecretaries. An important observation was that the market-oriented role of civil servants had strengthened its position over time. It could also be observed in 1990 that the undersecretaries were clearly different from their colleagues in 1971 through applying more of a political perspective of the civil servant role. The analyses showed that among the non-political civil servants - the assistant undersecretaries - the political role model had a strong position at both interview occasions. Furthermore, both politicians and civil servants showed a more negative attitude to politics and the administration. The higher civil servants had begun to waiver somewhat in their belief in themselves and the capacity of the state. The analyses of the role perception of the MPs showed that their opinions were closely connected with their political affiliation. Among social democrats and members from the Left Party (the former Communist party), the political role conception was dominating at both times and among non-socialists the judicial. An important observation when dealing with the views of the members of parliament was how surprisingly unfamiliar politicians were with the work of the public administation.
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- Haldén, Eva
(författare)
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Den Föreställda Förvaltningen : En institutionell historia om central skolförvaltning
- 1997
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall issue addressed in this thesis is that of the problematic relation between politics and administration, and more precisely the misconstrued image of a neutral and solely instrumental administration cleanly seperated from politics, rather than an administration permeated by the political. The purpose of the study is to show how the intricate interplay between the politics of education and the politics of administrative reform in combination with the particular handling of the major political conflicts over national education, in the Swedish context, over time has created a continuous identity dilemma for the National Agency for Education. Politics is here viewed primarily as the construction of meaning, and as such creating the preconditions for political action. The creation of meaning, on the other hand, is viewed as a struggle for order against ambivalence. The study takes as its point of departure the radical reform undertaken in the field of education in the early 1990's, a reform that encompassed a major transferral of responsibility for schools from the central administrative level to the local political level, the introduction of a new system of governance (MBO), replacing the one based on national control of detailed rules, as well as the dramatic dismantling of the National Agency for Education with the subsequent dismissal of all personnel, and the founding of a new Agency to replace the old one. In the process the blame for massive failures on part of the compulsory school system was put on The National Agency for Education, thus turning it into a scapegoat.The thesis is divided into two parts of which the first traces the genealogy of the scapegoat, and the second the new Agency in its struggle to create an appropriate identity, thus avoiding the fate of its predecessor. The first part of this institutional history is conducted as a discourse analysis, comprising the discursive as well as the institutional level, and the second part as an analysis of identity construction. The application of discourse analysis makes it possible to discern the discursively created preconditions of identity construction, as vital elements in both parts of the institutional history. Two subsidiary analyses are performed in the concluding chapter in order to situate the problematics of the educational sector in the wider context of the public sector as a whole, and to discuss their wider implications for policy making.
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- Karlsson, Michael
(författare)
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Partistrategi och utrikespolitik : interna motiveringar och dagspressens agerande i Catalina-affären 1952 och EEC-frågan 1961/62
- 1995
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines the role of party strategy when political parties are confronted with matters of foreign policy. Is it possible to understand parties' actions as taken to maximize their electoral support, to maximize their parliamentary influence or to promote unity within the party? The role of party strategy is examined through two case studies: the Catalina-affair of 1952 concerning Sweden's reaction after the Soviet Union had shot down two Swedish aircraft over the Baltic.: and the EEC question of 1961/62 concerning the stand Sweden should take towards the EEC after Great Britain and Denmark had both decided to apply for membership.Six hypotheses are presented as to what the relationship between party strategy and party action can be expected to be. It is assumed that party strategy plays a very minor role in times of international tension and in matters which concern diplomatic security policy, whereas its role is assumed to be greater in matters of foreign trade since these do not directly concern national security. Furthermore, it is assumed that actions motivated by party strategy are more often taken by opposition parties than government parties. Finally, it is assumed that even when party strategy is given freest reign, as in election campaigns, debating activities, image-building and criticism, it is nevertheless restricted in matters of external relations.The role of party strategy is examined through the internal motives of the parties and the actions of the daily newspapers. Even though the press may not be directly controlled by the parties, previous studies have shown that there is close agreement between the positions of the press and the parties in Sweden.When the results of the two case studies are compared, only one of the expectations is upheld: the nature of the issue is important for party strategy plays a larger role in matters concerning foreign trade than concerning diplomatic security policy. The assumption that the opposition reacts more strategically than the government is supported by the EEC question but not the Catalina-affair. The remaining assumptions receive no support in either of the cases. Both cases also show that the parties attempted to draw advantage, as far as domestic policy was concerned, from matters of foreign policy even though the positions they held were adopted for reasons other than party strategy.
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