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| 2. |
- Mitander, Tomas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Det urbana rummets in- och utsidor : Teoretiska utmaningar för forskning om urban politik
- 2017
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Ingår i: Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift. - Lund. - 0039-0747. ; 119:3, s. 389-412
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this article is to contribute to new thinking regarding research on urban politics in, and beyond, Sweden. We do this by arguing for a multi-disciplinary conversation on space, politics and governance, building on theoretical developments in disciplines such as geography, sociology and political theory. By developing a conceptual understanding of space as relational, the political in terms of contingency, and governance as governmentality we suggest that the concept of ‘the urban’ could be theorized and analyzed as a governmental assemblage. This approach opens up for new questions regarding where urban politics takes place, how it govern us and with what efects. One important implication of this proposed approach is that the urban produce both insides and outsides relationally and hence that the urban also can be studied out side cities and city regions.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Mitander, Tomas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Peace and Quiet : Domestic Science and the Rise of New Precarious Subjects
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- While peace remains a concept that is primarily invoked and utilized in relation to armed conflict this paper explores how contemporary regimes of government also calls for a specific form of domestic peace. Throughout Europe and beyond the last decades of market oriented reforms and austerity measures have called for nations and regions to rally behind processes and policies of innovation in order to be competitive. This race for competitiveness is often described in war-like metaphors which emphasizes the need to ‘develop spearheads’, ‘mobilize forces’, ‘foster commanders’, ‘build alliances’ and create ‘united frontiers’. As in moments of armed conflict, success in this war of competitiveness requires a kind of conformity or ‘peace and quiet’ within the own ranks. In short, the room for politics is severely constrained. Therefore, in this paper we explore what we identify as a global policy discourse concerning innovation as competitiveness as it unfolds in specific localized contexts. When doing so we investigate the modes of domestic silence that functions as a necessary requirement for regions and nations and theorize how this form of depoliticization becomes complicit in the production and stratification of precariousness for the subjects of rule (Lorey, 2015).
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| 6. |
- Scott, David, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Assemblage thinking and Political Science : An exploration of the contribution of assemblage thinking to political analysis
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Under det senaste decenniet har ”arrangemangstänkande” (assemblage thinking) vunnit mark i antropologiska och kulturgeografiska studier av hur politikområden och policyer blir till genom processer av sammansättning (Larner & Higgins, 2017; Clarke et al. 2015). Med ursprung i filosofen Gilles Deleuzes och psykoanalytikern Félix Guattaris (1985) arbeten, har begreppet assemblage, i betydelsen sammansättning eller arrangemang, tagits upp av policyforskare för att studera hur policyer i en mängd olika politikområden kan sägas vara resultat av komplexa processer av att föra samman fysiska artefakter, praktiker, diskurser och mänskliga aktiviteter till instabila helheter. Ett bidrag som arrangemangstänkande gör till studiet av policyers uppkomst är att undersöka processen att sätta ihop och föra samman, vilket i många fall innefattar tolkning och översättning, mäkleri mellan olika intressen, inkorporering av globala ”best practices”, och utnyttjandet av konsultexpertis (McCann, 2011). Arrangemangstänkandet såsom det har använts för att analysera så disparata områden som utbildning (Savage & Lewis, 2018), hemlöshet (Baker & McGuirk, 2017) och gemensam användning av naturresurser (Murray Li, 2007), har uppstått som en reaktion mot den mer vanliga traditionen ”policy transfer” som utvecklats inom statsvetenskapen och inom vilken policyskapandets dynamiska och komplexa process åsidosätts (Peck & Theodore, 2015). I detta paper diskuteras hur arrangemangstänkande kan användas inom ramen för policyanalys och i kombination med statsvetenskapens intresse för analys av maktrelationer i policy-skapandet. Vi menar att arrangemangstänkande bidrar till att berika policyanalysen teoretiskt och metodologiskt och att även den statsvetenskapliga maktanalysen kan utvecklas med hjälp av detta tänkande. Vårt resonemang illustreras genom två olika sätt att mobilisera arrangemangstänkande empiriskt, dels genom en pågående studie om hur biståndsprojekt kan ses som produkter av sammansättning samt en tidigare studie av hur regionalpolitik kan förstås som ett arrangemang i betydelsen objekt för styrning.
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| 7. |
- Säll, Line, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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Competitive Desires : The Creative Class and Regional Governance in Sweden
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout Europe and beyond the powerful discourse of the creative class seems to be firmly nested in the governance of cities and regions as well as entire nations. Indeed, googling terms such as “creative city” or “creative region” yields millions of hits indicating the spread of the theories put forward by Richard Florida in a series of influential books and articles during the first decade of the twenty first century. Moreover, the discursive notion of creativity is not only disseminated widely around the globe, it is also introduced in a variety of different spaces making it just as likely to find metropolis regions such as London, Paris or Berlin to claim the title of being a “creative region” as it is finding peripheral territories and provincial towns articulating their creative, innovative and entrepreneurial spirit. In this paper we investigate empirically how the creative class discourse is expressed in the governance of Swedish regions by focusing on so called Regional Development Strategies (RDS) for all Swedish regions. Territorial governance in Sweden has been the object of ongoing debates, political proposals, government reports and expert opinions since at least the 1960’s, however the last two decades have been marked by more intensive discussions and indeed also a series of territorial transformations. In the midst of these reconfigurations new political spaces arise and new political rationalities emerge. In short, what used to be a guiding rationality of redistribution between rich and poor regions can now better be described as a rationality of (global) competition. Correspondingly, notions of (global) competitiveness are articulated as more or less the inevitable goal for the practice of governing Swedish regions and we show how one of the primary responses to such a competition is the quest for creativity. By critically examining the RDS documents we show how in this process of territorial transformation in Sweden certain subjects and practices are deemed more important than others. Thus, we underline the political aspects of the ongoing transformations and the empirical analysis facilitates the grounds for a critical discussions concerning the onlological claims, the theoretical claims and the policy recommendations of the creative class theory that we find inherently linked to processes of exclusion and hierarchy.
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| 10. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Local Government and Public Procurement: Organizational Trends and the Rise of New Bureaucrats in Sweden
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Swedish local government play a central role in welfare production and in handling environmental issues at large. In addition, they also plan the physical use of land and water areas within its territory. Accordingly, Swedish local government are crucial actors in driving sustainable development. During the last decades reform of local government has been taking place under the umbrella of New Public Management (NPM) following a pattern seen in most parts of the world entailing market inspired logics and values that subsumes political and democratic ambitions and tasks. The political rationalities underpinning NPM continues to exist and are well researched. There are, however, significant gaps. In particular, of studies concerning the politics of public procurement. In this paper we present an analysis where public procurement is understood more broadly, as a governmental technology, an instrument of governing associated with the rationalities of marketization and competition that continues to be more or less unquestioned as virtues in contemporary society. We assume that as such a technology it is not a neutral tool, but rather designed to realize particular understandings of how to govern and with what effects. The case we present is based on interviews with civil servants, consultants and politicians working with public procurement in Swedish local government. With the perceptions of our respondents as a base, we construct a narrative where three themes emerge as important: public procurement expansion; organizational change and centralization, and: the procurer as bureaucrat. We conclude that the importance and scope of public procurement within the larger local government organization has rapidly expanded, public procurement has been centralized and, perhaps most importantly, we witness the emergence of a new bureaucrat representing values not compatible with traditional Weberian understandings.
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| 11. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Measuring Innovation Space : Numerical Devices as Governmental Technologies
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout Europe sub-national regions are restructured and reformed in line with the EU2020 policy program which dictates a clear focus on growth through the fostering of innovation and entrepreneurship. While this process is articulated differently in separate contexts it has a range of common features. One of these is the wide spread adoption of calculative devices and measurement tools that are installed as transparent means for governing and monitoring the ongoing strive for growth and innovation. In this paper it is argued that the contemporary practices and discourses tied to regional development in Europe and beyond can be described as the production of new innovation spaces. Intrinsic to this production is a vast register of indices, rankings and award ceremonies directed at finding and monitoring the most innovative regions, projects and policies which in turn facilitates the grounds for notions of policy learning and so called best practice. By mobilizing the growing literature on the sociological functions of numbers as well as the scholarship on the politics and power of calculative practices in governance, the paper critically examines important aspects of the installment of innovation spaces. More specifically, by following the manufacturing and installment of an index designed to measure innovative capacity of Swedish regions, the paper shows how such governmental technologies helps to legitimize and depoliticize the production of innovation spaces. The index has been released in three iterations since 2011 with an explicit focus on ranking for the sake of policy learning. It is produced by RegLab, an organization comprised of the 21 regions in Sweden as well as a number of important state agencies, and its deployment and influence on regional policy is traced here by focusing on the documentation and detailed description of the numerical calculations and data sources that are assembled together in order to produce the composite measures used to asses the innovative capacity of all regions. Moreover the influence of the index and its manifest expressions in regional policy is illustrated by examining some of the Regional Development Strategies (RDS).
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| 12. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Public Procurement as Marketisation : Impacts on Civil Servants and Public Administration in Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration. - : Göteborgs universitet. - 2001-7405 .- 2001-7413. ; 23:3-4, s. 43-59
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Swedish local government plays a central role in welfare production, providing some of the most crucial services to citizens. However, over the last decades there have been significant changes in how local governments are governed and how services are implemented. In many cases, these changes entail the promotion of rationalities and technologies associated with market-oriented principles and values as the primary means to providing welfare services. A central feature in this is public procurement. This phenomenon has been surprisingly absent from scholarly work that focuses on marketisation and the politics of public sector reform in Sweden. In this article, we present a case study based on interviews with actors involved in public procurement in Swedish local government. We provide insights into how public procurement sustains and expands the rationalities of marketisation. We conclude that the importance of public procurement has expanded, producing organisational changes and, perhaps most importantly, we are witnessing changes in the role of civil servants in Swedish public administration.
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| 13. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Space Craft : Globalization and Governmentality in Regional Development
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores two related purposes. First, it theoretically investigates how the broad literature on globalization is nested in debates concerning the nature of concepts such as space and territory. When doing so, it suggests that studies of globalization can be advanced by escaping territorialist understandings where the nation state is reproduced as a natural arena appropriate for studying all aspects of ‘the social’.The theoretical part of the thesis is used as a basis for articulating a framework for empirical studies that rest upon a conceptual grammar fashioned through a combination of so called assemblage thinking and governmentality analysis. This framework is then put to work as the second, empirical, purpose of the thesis is pursued. More precisely this means that the governance of Swedish regional development is analyzed as an assemblage of discourses, practices and subjects where (re)production of globalization occurs.The (re)production of globalization is studied in three interrelated case studies, all based on a corpus of 81 documents pertaining to the governance of Swedish regional development. By paying attention to how power operates in terms of political rationalities, governmental technologies and the production of social actors, the thesis shows how notions of a perpetual and omnipresent global competition marks the assemblage with particularly salient modes of rationale. Specifically, entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity are represented as the primary means for becoming competitive in the age of globalization, and it is shown here how this have inclusionary and exclusionary effects in terms of desired social actors throughout Swedish regions. The thesis then ends with a concluding chapter where the current regimes of regional development are identified as complex forms of neoliberal rule with far reaching effects for democratic principles and practices.
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| 14. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Upphandlingens byråkrater
- 2018
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Ingår i: Klokare upphandling. - Karlstad : Karlstad University Press. - 9789170639784 ; , s. 5-6
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 15. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Working for Change : Projectified Politics and Gender Equality
- 2017
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Ingår i: NORA. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0803-8740 .- 1502-394X. ; 25:3, s. 163-178
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article I argue that the project, a governmental technology that is now widespread and accepted throughout the public sector, is not a neutral tool for implementing policy and conducting politics. Rather, my argument is that this form is intrinsically political in so far as it produces disruptions and sets boundaries for how any given task is to be performed. By mobilizing a set of optical metaphors from feminist theory of difference, I examine organizations that work for gender equality in Swedish regional development and illustrate how the governmental technology of the project reflects, refracts, and diffracts the practices associated with this work. Thus, I argue that if one wishes to understand contemporary gender-equality work, it is reasonable to consider the specific effects that are produced as it passes through the project form. The short empirical illustrations given here indicate, among other things, how the project form functions in some respects as a mirror, and reflects aspects of gender-equality work that are commonly experienced regardless of form or setting, such as encountering resistance. In other respects, the project form refracts gender-equality work, bending it into new directions so that, for instance, securing funds and coming up with new innovative project plans takes precedence over the actual work that respondents feel they should be doing. Finally, the intersection of gender-equality work and the project form also produces diffraction effects, such as the emergence of hybrid consultants. These multi-faceted figures function as evaluators, controllers, activists, and disseminators of knowledge, which makes them simultaneously important to and disdained by the respondents in this study. Thus, it is concluded that the disruptive effects of the project form should be recognized as political and studied more extensively in the future.
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| 16. |
- Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Working for Change : Projectified Politics and Gender Equality in Swedish Regional Development
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this article is to show how the organisational form “the project” functions as a governmental technology that disrupts the ongoing work for gender equality in Swedish regional development. Rather than assuming that projects are neutral forms for organizing public sector practices, I argue that they are imbued with politics and power in the first place and therefore should be studied critically. In particular, I suggest that as the project form intersects with the practice of gender equality work it will function as a lens that influences the trajectories of this work. Inspired be feminist theories of difference I therefore articulate a set of optical metaphors, namely reflection, refraction and diffraction, in order to make this intersection more visible. By mobilizing these metaphors and by drawing on data generated during empirical fieldwork in five Swedish regions the critical potential of this approach is illustrated. In terms of reflection, I mean to designate aspects common to most gender equality work, regardless of organizational form. Here, this is demonstrated by showing how activists and civil servants feel that they are subjected to various forms of resistance from established structures. As for refractions, I use the concept to exemplify how the project form produces new directions in the way gender equality work is carried out. For instance, securing new funding and to survive economically becomes central concerns under projectified politics. Finally, I also illustrate the emergence of hybrid forms, what is here called diffraction effects, as gender equality work passes through the governmental technology of “the project”. In our case this is exemplified by how private consultants fill central roles in gender equality work. I conclude that taken together the illustrations calls for a recognition of the project form as political as well as for more detailed research regarding its expressions.
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