| 1. |
- Baxter, Megan K, et al.
(författare)
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The Paradox of Elites in Civil Society: A Comparative Study on Civil Society Leaders’ Satisfaction with Democracy in the UK and Sweden
- 2024
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Ingår i: VOLUNTAS - International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. - 0957-8765.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The presence of an elite group in civil society elicits a discursive friction between the long-standing normative understanding of civil society, acting as a check on government overreach and autocratic tendencies, and elite theories. Robert Michels’s iron law of oligarchy posits that as individuals rise in the ranks to become organizational leaders, they begin to take on elite attributes, and their priorities align with those of other elites and away from those of their constituents. Michels’s argument echoes with today’s populist anti-elitist rhetoric and the way populism rejects any intermediary bodies between the people and the political leaders, including interest organizations in civil society. As an attempt to empirically probe this theoretical tension, this paper explores satisfaction with the way democracy is working among the top-level leaders of the most well-resourced national-level civil society organizations in Sweden and in the UK, drawing on a survey study conducted in 2020–21.
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| 2. |
- Buchs, Milena, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainable Welfare: Decoupling Welfare from Growth and Prioritising Needs Satisfaction for All
- 2024
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Ingår i: De Gruyter Handbook of Degrowth. - Berlin; Boston : De Gruyter. - 9783110778359 - 9783110778038 ; , s. 89-104
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Welfare capitalism has developed in the context of rapidly expanding, fossil fuel-driven industrial economies. Faced with the urgent need for systematic changes of economic systems so that they stay within planetary limits, decoupling welfare from economic growth is an important task. This chapter introduces the concept of sustainable welfare, referring to welfare systems that prioritise the satisfaction of human needs within planetary boundaries. Rather than aligning with the growth imperative through income protection schemes for the socio-economically marginalised and investments in human capital equipped for globalised and competitive economies, sustainable welfare states would prioritise eco-social policies, aiming at basic needs satisfaction for all, limiting excessive consumption behaviours and restricting income and wealth inequalities that have been exacerbated in recent decades. The chapter discusses the ways in which the mutual dependency between welfare systems and economic growth can be decreased by addressing the work and welfare nexus, shifting funding sources for welfare systems, strengthening preventive functions of welfare and redefining the chief goal of welfare systems as sustainable needs satisfaction for all. The chapter further discusses how the governance of this transition process to sustainable welfare can be envisioned, where multi-level governance models and deliberative processes will play a crucial role.
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| 3. |
- Ennerberg, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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Parternas omställningsorganisationer i det nya arbetsmarknadspolitiska landskapet
- 2024
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Ingår i: Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv. - Karlstad : Karlstads universitet. - 1400-9692 .- 2002-343X. ; 30:1, s. 6-24
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genom reformeringen av arbetsrätten som trädde i kraft under 2022 har reglerna vid uppsägning blivit mer flexibla. Samtidigt stärktes individers möjligheterför att få omställningsstöd och kompetensutveckling via parternas förnyade omställningsavtal och omställningsorganisationer, samt genom det nya statliga omställningsstudiestödet. Omställningsorganisationerna har därmed fått ett utökat uppdrag inom arbetsmarknadspolitiken och deras roll har blivit synligare och mer institutionaliserad. Trots det finns det knappa kunskaper om vilka organisatoriska förutsättningar och konkreta arbetssätt de utgår ifrån.Genom en dokumentanalys kartlägger vi hur omställningsorganisationerna är organiserade och vilka typer av privata aktörer som anlitas av dem.
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| 4. |
- Ennerberg, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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Parternas omställningsorganisationer i det nya arbetsmarknadspolitiska landskapet: mot en kollektiv kompetensbildningsregim eller frammarsch av marknadsaktörer?
- 2024
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Ingår i: Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv. - 1400-9692. ; 30
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genom reformeringen av arbetsrätten som trädde i kraft under 2022 har reglerna vid uppsägning blivit mer flexibla. Samtidigt stärktes individers möjligheter för att få omställningsstöd och kompetensutveckling via parternas förnyade omställningsavtal och omställningsorganisationer, samt genom det nya statliga omställningsstudiestödet. Omställningsorganisationerna har därmed fått ett utökat uppdrag inom arbetsmarknadspolitiken och deras roll har blivit synligare och mer institutionaliserad. Trots det finns det knappa kunskaper om vilka organisatoriska förutsättningar och konkreta arbetssätt de utgår ifrån. Genom en dokumentanalys kartlägger vi hur omställningsorganisationerna är organiserade och vilka typer av privata aktörer som anlitas av dem.
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| 5. |
- Koch, Max, et al.
(författare)
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Structural barriers to sufficiency: the contribution of research on elites
- 2024
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Ingår i: Buildings and Cities. - 2632-6655. ; 5:1, s. 268-282
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- ‘Sufficiency’ has become a key term within sustainability science. The satisfaction of basic human needs for all and for multiple generations is only possible if coupled to the implementation of ecological ceilings that prevent wealthy groups from disproportionate production and consumption patterns and energy use. While much sufficiency research has focused on the poor and how to provide corresponding social floors (i.e. an adequate level of sufficiency), this conceptual paper theorises structural barriers to implementing ecological ceilings for production and consumption by considering research on elites. The argument is illustrated with examples from urban spaces that are increasingly structured to accommodate the preferences of economic elites. A better scholarly understanding of the structural barriers to sufficiency dissemination can be facilitated through a systematic account of the political, social and symbolic strategies deployed by elites to accumulate and legitimise power. Conversely, a consideration of sufficiency principles would also be beneficial for research on elites, which has so far focused on social inequality and sidelined the ecological crisis. The discussion highlights how research on sufficiency and elite consumption may interact to be mutually beneficial. A research agenda is proposed to understand economic elites as barriers to the dissemination of sufficiency principles.
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| 6. |
- Lee, Jayeon, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Civil society ethos? Attitude differences between civil society elites and the population in Sweden
- 2024
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Ingår i: Acta Sociologica. - 0001-6993 .- 1502-3869.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous studies have found that elites differ from the general population not only in terms of their demographic and social composition but also with respect to policy preferences and attitudes. When it comes to civil society organisations, the issue of representation and representativeness of top-level leadership is of particular relevance, since a small number of individuals are expected to act on behalf of groups and causes that are not well acknowledged or even suppressed by other societal actors. Using two survey studies, this study compares the demographic composition and attitudes of the top-level leaders of the most resourceful civil society organisations in Sweden with those of the general population. We find that civil society elites are not demographically representative of the general population and that they also differ in attitudes when it comes to levels of trust, political orientations, satisfaction with democracy, and acceptance of income inequality. What is more interesting, however, is that the differences in attitudes cannot be fully explained by the skewed demographic characteristics of the civil society leaders, indicating that there might be distinctive sets of values and attitudes underpinning a ‘civil society ethos’.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Lee, Jayeon, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Mirroring the Masses? A Cross-National Comparison of Civil Society Elite Composition
- 2024
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Ingår i: Civil Society Elites. Exploring the Composition, Reproduction, Integration, and Contestation of Civil Society Actors at the Top. - : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783031401503 - 9783031401497 ; , s. 51-73
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter explores the composition of civil society elites and to what extent this differs from the general population, what we call the ‘civil society elite-masses gap’. While the civil society elites are, from a normative point of view, expected to be representative of the general population in terms of their social composition and attitudes, professionalisation and elitisation of civil society might lead to exclusive patterns of social composition of the top-level leadership strata of civil society organisations. This chapter presents an analysis of novel comparative survey data targeting the top-level leaders of the most resource-rich civil society organisations in five European contexts. The results show that there are striking similarities in terms of attitudes among civil society elites across different civil society regimes that are distinct from general populations. The civil society elite-masses gap in terms of sociodemographic backgrounds is also evident, but the pattern varies across contexts.
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| 9. |
- Lee, Jayeon, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Networks of Interlocking Leaders Among Civil Society Organisations in Four European Countries: Exploring the Links and Identifying the Elites
- 2024
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Ingår i: Civil Society Elites. Exploring the Composition, Reproduction, Integration, and Contestation of Civil Society Actors at the Top. - : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783031401503 ; , s. 207-229
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter aims at analysing the inter-organisational networks emerging from interlocking leaders among the most resourceful, national-level Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in four European countries. By comparing four different country contexts, we analyse differences in the characteristics of networks, find different mechanisms that seem to structure organisational links across the cases, and identify who the most powerful actors are based on the CSOs’ network positions. While we find small components of tightly connected organisations in the Italian and Polish cases, mainly around similar policy areas, these contexts are characterised by overall fragmentation. In Sweden and in the UK, on the other hand, we find that there are a handful of key CSOs that link the majority of the resourceful organisations, thus occupying powerful network positions.
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| 10. |
- Lee, Jayeon, et al.
(författare)
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Networks of Interlocking Leaders: Exploring the Links and Identifying the Elites in four European countries
- 2024
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Ingår i: Civil Society Elites. - 9783031401497 - 9783031401503 ; , s. 207-229
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter aims at analysing the inter-organisational networks emerging from interlocking leaders among the most resourceful, national-level civil society organisations (CSOs) in four European countries. By comparing four different country contexts, we analyse differences in the characteristics of networks, find different mechanisms that seem to structure organisational links across the cases, and identify who the most powerful actors are based on the CSOs’ network positions. While we find small components of tightly connected organisations in the Italian and Polish cases, mainly around similar policy areas, these contexts are characterised by overall fragmentation. In Sweden and in the UK, on the other hand, we find that there are a handful of key CSOs that link the majority of the resourceful organisations, thus occupying powerful network positions.
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