| 1. |
- Hasic, Tigran, 1969-
(författare)
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Reconstruction planning in post-conflict zones : Bosnia and Herzegovina and the international community
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The history of mankind has been plagued by an almost continuous chain of various armed conflicts - local, regional, national and global - that have caused horrendous damage to the social and physical fabric of cities. The tragedy of millions deprived by war still continues. This study sets out to understand the nature of reconstruction after war in the light of recent armed conflicts. It attempts to catalogue and discuss the tasks involved in the process of reconstruction planning by establishing a conceptual framework of the main issues in the reconstruction process. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina is examined in detail and on the whole acts as the leit-motif of the whole dissertation and positions reconstruction in the broader context of sustainable development. The study is organized into two parts that constitute the doctoral aggregate dissertation – a combining of papers with an introductory monograph. In this case the introductory monograph is an extended one and there are six papers that follow. Both sections can be read on their own merits but also constitute one entity.The rebuilding of war-devastated countries and communities can be seen as a series of nonintegrated activities carried out (and often imposed) by international agencies and governments, serving political and other agendas. The result is that calamities of war are often accompanied by the calamities of reconstruction without any regard to sustainable development. The body of knowledge related to post-conflict reconstruction lacks a strong and cohesive theory. In order to better understand the process of reconstruction we present a qualitative inquiry based on the Grounded Theory Method developed originally by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (1967). This approach utilizes a complex conceptualization with empirical evidence to produce theoretical structure. The results of process have evolved into the development of a conceptual model, called SCOPE (Sustainable Communities in Post-conflict Environments).This study proposes both a structure within which to examine post-conflict reconstruction and provides an implementation method. We propose to use the SCOPE model as a set of strategy, policy and program recommendations to assist the international community and all relevant decision-makers to ensure that the destruction and carnage of war does not have to be followed by a disaster of post-conflict reconstruction. We also offer to provide a new foundation and paradigm on post-conflict reconstruction, which incorporates and integrates a number of approaches into a multidisciplinary and systems thinking manner in order to better understand the complexity and dependencies of issues at hand. We believe that such a systems approach could better be able to incorporate the complexities involved and would offer much better results than the approaches currently in use.The final section of this study returns to the fact that although it is probably impossible to produce universal answers, we desperately need to find commonalities amongst different postconflict reconstruction settings in order to better deal with the reconstruction planning in a more dynamic, proactive, and sustainable manner.
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| 2. |
- Doeser, Fredrik
(författare)
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In Search of Security After the Collapse of the Soviet Union : Foreign Policy Change in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, 1988-1993
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to explain the evolution of foreign policy in Denmark, Finland and Sweden with regard to Western security cooperation between 1988 and 1993. The study sets out to test two theoretical perspectives on the security cooperation policies of these three small states. The external political perspective is based on the idea that foreign policy is determined by the challenges of a state’s external political environment. The domestic political perspective is based on the idea that phenomena at the domestic level of the state have an impact on how governments cope with external constraints. The primary theoretical ambition is to integrate the findings from these two analyses in order to further an understanding of the mechanisms of foreign policy change in small states.In order to study the relationship between the environment and foreign policy change, the author applies a perceptual approach, which means that his intention is to explain foreign policy action on the basis of the perceptions actors have of the environment.The author draws a number of conclusions with regard to the mechanisms of foreign policy change. First, a perceptual approach is needed in order to analyze a state’s specific responses to international political change. Second, domestic factors are not only important for foreign policy in general but also for the evolution of security cooperation policy in small states under conditions of fundamental shift in the international system. Third, it is possible to attribute some degree of relative explanatory power to external factors and to assign a range of different roles to domestic factors. Fourth, governments of Western democratic small states pay relatively equal attention to external and domestic considerations when making their foreign policies. However, depending on the situation, the relative potency of external and domestic factors can vary.
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| 3. |
- Jedenheim-Edling, Magnus, 1960-
(författare)
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The compatibility of effective self-ownership and joint world ownership
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The three main conclusions of this doctoral thesis are: first, that effective self-ownership is compatible with joint world ownership; second, that it is incompatible with private ownership as expressed in right-libertarianism; third, that it is incompatible with private ownership as expressed in left-libertarianism. Effective self-ownership is a technical way of expressing personal freedom, and joint world ownership means that the world is owned by everyone in common and that people, therefore, have an equal say as regards its use. Right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism both support private ownership. The difference between them is mainly their respective view on how private property legitimately can be formed. Crudely put, the right-libertarian believes that ownership may be formed through mixing one's labour with the external resources in question, whereas left-libertarianism recognises ownership only if it is initially equally distributed. Furthermore, it is argued that joint world ownership, right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism and the various versions of these exhaust the field, or that these are, at least, the most obvious alternatives to be reckoned with. It may, therefore, also be concluded that if one finds effective self-ownership valuable, one should also adopt joint world ownership. To be able to assess the arguments of this thesis, one obviously needs to know more about ownership. Therefore, this doctoral thesis will also include a thorough analysis of rights and ownership.This thesis takes part in and elaborates the traditional debate within political theory: whether personal freedom is compatible with material equality. It is by many believed that they are incompatible. The reason for this is that the measures taken to uphold material equality appear to reduce personal freedom. But if effective self-ownership is a reasonable expression of personal freedom and joint world ownership of material equality, then the thesis advocated here claims that the scepticism of their incompatibility is ill founded and that they, indeed, are compatible.
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| 4. |
- Nordström, Anders
(författare)
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The Interactive Dynamics of Regulation : Exploring the Council of Europe's Monitoring of Ukraine
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a time when a host of new and untested democracies seek membership in international organisations founded on liberal norms, the question of how to include new members without jeopardizing community values has become of growing concern, particularly as the regulation of practices in sovereign states often relies on soft moral or political commitment rather than on hard legal obligation. The Council of Europe’s (CoE) monitoring of new members after entry represents a soft method of socialising newcomers. In the case of Ukraine, this process has been unusually difficult, and full of strife and open confrontation. This experience runs contrary to the belief that soft regulation is either harmonic or impossible. The aim of the thesis is to explore how a regulated process of inclusion develops over time, and to discuss how such a process can safeguard community values.The study shows that an interactive dynamic developed between the European and the Ukrainian levels. The political struggle in Ukraine was, through the actions of the political opposition in Ukraine and the CoE’s monitors, transformed into a contest in the CoE over how to interpret Ukraine’s membership promises. European values were protected by the evolution of a mode of governance based on responsiveness to local concerns and on public discussion. In the process, the legal and political systems of the CoE and Ukraine were intertwined in ever more complex webs of dialogue. By being grounded in both the Ukrainian and European political discourses, the process was able to sustain a critical discussion on the terms of the agreement and maintain its relevance for the actors involved. The monitoring process displays how community values and autonomy of a member state can be combined in an unexpected way without resulting in a hierarchical order. This may not fulfil the requirements of the international rule of law, but it is clearly a case of soft and responsive transnational regulation of state practices.
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| 5. |
- Carbin, Maria, 1972-
(författare)
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Mellan tystnad och tal : Flickor och hedersvåld i svensk offentlig politik
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines the contestations around the question of how violence against young women from ethnic minorities was articulated in Swedish public policy debates from 1995-2008. One core question investigated in this study is how the “new” problem of co called honour killings is categorised and understood within gender equality policies against violence and policies of immigrant integration. The thesis explores how different discourses compete and negotiate to make sense of the violence and try to stabilise meaning. Another aim of the thesis concerns the construction of available subject positions for young women, and the potential effects in terms of possibilities and restrictions for subjects to speak politically. The research material consists of parliamentary debates, major government documents, official government inquiries into integration and gender equality, as well as documents from the Swedish Integration Board and the County Administrative Boards. The analysis draws upon discourse theory and feminist postcolonial theory to explore what positions are made available to young women in policy discourses. Four competing discourses are identified: a multicultural discourse, a discourse of value-clashes, a discourse of structural discrimination and finally a gender power-discourse. However, in policies against honour related violence the violence is primarily understood as originating in a cultural and value-based heritage of certain immigrant communities. This study furthermore illustrates how girls are required to speak and make testimonies on their situation. The ways the stories of the girls are used make them into boundary markers between Swedish and non-Swedish. It is argued that letting the girls speak and listen to them might make it possible to understand some of the potential problems they face. Nevertheless, it might not form an agenda for changing the bigger political picture.
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| 6. |
- Ullström, Anna, 1978-
(författare)
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Styrning bakom kulisserna : Regeringskansliets politiska staber och regeringens styrningskapacitet
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis analyses one of the less explored areas of Swedish politics: the political appointees in the ministerial staffs of the Swedish core executive. The study draws attention to the everyday life of the ministerial staff in order to give an idea of their function: What do the political appointees do? How is the work of the ministerial staffs organized? How is policy coordinated at the political level? The main empirical focus of this thesis is the 2002-2006 term of office. The study contributes to an understanding of the role of political advisers in steering and policy making, and, in the light of this, their potential influence on the policy capacity of the government is considered. Political advisers occupy an ambiguous place within the political system. They play a vital political role, but their presence also challenges the traditional relationship between ministers and public servants. The study shows that political advisers certainly have a leeway to participate in the steering of the ministry's civil servants: they can be said to have a number of steering functions. At the same time, it is made clear that this does not mean that the political advisers are in the position to influence government policy to any great extent. In conclusion, it is suggested that the ministerial staffs do have importance for the government's policy capacity in the sense that they reduce the work load of both the minister and the state secretary and thereby make space for them to govern. The research questions are answered by means of empirical material gathered through a combination of methods, providing data with a range as well as depth and context rarely found in studies of core executives: a survey, participatory observations, focus groups and a series of interviews. The dissertation demonstrates that the ethnographic method is a useful tool for anyone who seeks to highlight and explain the relationships within political organizations.
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| 7. |
- Andersson, Monica, 1948-
(författare)
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Politik och stadsbyggande : Modernismen och byggnadslagstiftningen
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to describe, understand and explain the role of modernism in Swedish urban planning, and analyze if modernist urban planning ideas influenced building legislation in ways that can explain the structural changes of our cities during post-war period. Earlier epochs were characterized by intense construction of working-class housing in garden cities and large courtyard housing blocks with double-sided lighting in residences. The dissertation has been carried out within the tradition of historical institutionalism with a counterfactual approach. It covers the time from 1928 to the present with a focus on the period 1928-1975. The object of study is the formal regulations in building legislation. The central analytical instruments are formative moments and path dependence. A formative moment should be characterized by uncertainty, significance and unpredictability. Path dependence is studied with the help of theories of experience-based learning and the power of bureaucracy. The dissertation shows that modernist ideas were written into the building code of 1931 in accordance with functional partitioning and a diagram by Walter Gropius from the 1920s calling for relative distances between houses, the longer the higher houses, and direct sunlight on facades, permitting one-sided lighting in residences. Instead of prevailing praxis, cities were built in conformity with principles of buildings-in-the-park with slab blocks. These regulations were gradually tightened over time and also guided redevelopment policy. In the sixties higher slab blocks and tower blocks began to be frequently built and functional partitioning assumed a unique guiding role in traffic policy and urban planning. Starting in the middle of the 1970s, modernist ideas gradually were dismissed in government policy. Leading modernist architects where driving forces in the formative moment, supported by the Association of Property Owners. Their colleagues could, in the path dependent process, augment the modernist ideas by virtue of their profession. They led state agencies, participated in commissions on building legislation and wrote referral comments on proposals, as well as sitting on building committees together with building contractors, entrepreneurs and construction workers.
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| 8. |
- Bedford, Sofie
(författare)
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Islamic Activism in Azerbaijan : Repression and Mobilization in a Post-Soviet Context
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Post-Soviet Azerbaijan is often portrayed as a very secular country. Thus the mobilization of mosque communities in the late 1990s and their conflictual relationship with the authorities came as a surprise. The main aim of the dissertation is to shed light on this mobilization, focusing on the Sunni Abu Bakr and the Shi’ite Juma mosque communities in Baku. On the premise that Islamic mobilization may be interpreted as a “social movement”, internal, contextual and interactional aspects of mobilization have been studied. The analysis is chiefly based on interviews conducted in Baku in 2004/2005 with Imams, worshippers, religious and secular authorities. The study finds that young people looking for new approaches to religion have been drawn to these communities, where they encounter an independent, educated, conscientious clergy and, indeed, a “new” religion. This “sovereign” Islam does not go down well with authorities who fear politicization of religion. The Soviet heritage has provided them with a view of religion as something that should not be publicly displayed and with the institutions to control religion. Another key feature whose impact on state policy towards religious organizations cannot be underestimated is the fear of imported radicalism. A look at Islamic mobilization in North Caucasus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan reveals many similarities, yet one momentous difference is the harsher repression in these contexts, which decreases the chances of a non-radical mobilization. The thesis concludes that the role of the state in mobilization processes in non-democratic contexts is crucial but counterintuitive, as the regimes’ efforts to stop the mobilization of movements actually leads to its intensification. In Azerbaijan, official pressure brings community members closer together and strengthens their resolve, rather than putting an end to mobilization. It also puts a spotlight on these communities which lights up the way for others in search of something new.
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| 9. |
- Behnke, Andreas, 1960-
(författare)
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Re-presenting the West : NATO’s Security Discourse after the End of the Cold War
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is a critical investigation into the discursive processes through which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has re-produced a geopolitical order, or nomos, after the end of the Cold War and the demise of its constitutive enemy, the Soviet Union. The thesis examines both the ontological as well as the epistemological aspects of these processes. It seeks to understand what new security relevant identities and spaces are defined in NATO’s discourse, as well as from what epistemic vantage point this new security political order is mapped and inscribed. More specifically, this thesis is based on the assumption that the continued existence and political relevance of the Alliance rests on its ability to re-produce ‘the West’ as a geo-cultural space that serves as its security referent object. The thesis concludes with a critical evaluation of NATO’s post-Cold War geopolitical order and the meta-theoretical commitments underlying its conception of security.
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| 10. |
- Birnbaum, Simon, 1977-
(författare)
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Just Distribution : Rawlsian Liberalism and the Politics of Basic Income
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Should liberal egalitarians endorse the idea of an unconditional basic income for all? This thesis defends a politics of unconditional universalism, offering a liberty-respecting and non-perfectionist basis for maximin-guided policies. The argument starts off from a Rawlsian justification of basic income in the context of institutional ideal theory. This view is based on the aim of maximising the prospects of the least advantaged in ways consistent with a robust protection of people’s effective freedom, the social bases of self-respect and access to meaningful activities at each stage of their lives.The thesis then moves on to specify such a position in response to objections based on ideas of fair cooperation and strong reciprocity. Linking John Rawls’ arguments on property-owning democracy to Philippe Van Parijs’ case for ‘gift-equalisation’, the study defends the view that a basic income is not inherently exploitative or beyond the scope of justice. To the extent that unconditional universalism is tied to the idea of sharing gift-like resources, it is just a matter of distributing wealth to which nobody has a justified prior claim, not an unfair redistribution of labour income.Introducing a problem of feasibility, however, the thesis also argues that unconditional wealth sharing may fail to meet liberal commitments and to counter structural exploitation unless constrained by other requirements of justice. The latter include a minimal autonomy constraint on maximin-objectives and the set of in kind transfers and social infrastructure needed to foster the activities and virtues on which the stability of this ideal relies. The thesis concludes with a study on the application of such standards to real-world conditions. It is argued that policy options combining a modest basic income with work-based social insurance and universal access to social services are more promising than strategies where a high basic income would replace core components of the welfare state.
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