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- Bucken-Knapp, Gregg, et al.
(author)
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Comrades, Push The Red Button! Prohibiting the Purchase of Sexual Services in Sweden But Not in Finland
- 2014
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In: Showden C. R. / Majic S. (Eds) Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism. - Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press. - 9780816689590 ; , s. 195-217
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- For scholars of sex work, Sweden’s decision to criminalize the purchase, albeit not the sale, of sexual services in 1999 represents a legislative development that has been the subject of considerable analysis. However, scholars have directed comparatively less effort towards analyzing similar reform processes in neighboring Nordic countries, where prostitution policy reform has also been a subject of great public debate in recent years. Alongside the Swedish experience, Finland’s 2006 revision of its prostitution policies stands out as particularly intriguing. On the face of it, the Finnish reform represented an expanded use of criminalization as a policy tool, with the ban on purchasing sex from trafficked individuals joining existing legislation prohibiting buying or selling sexual services in public places. Yet, what makes the Finnish case analytically tantalizing is that Finnish legislators rejected the Swedish prostitution model. Such an outcome was far from a given, particularly given strong support for CPSS among Finnish policymakers in the early 2000s. Against this backdrop, this chapter examines the paths leading to divergent prostitution policy reform in Sweden and Finland in the 1990s and 2000s. Why did Sweden wind up with a CPSS ban, but not Finland? In keeping with the ideational literature in comparative politics, we focus attention on both the ideas that were relevant in each setting, and the extent to which actors were able to draw upon these ideas in pushing for policy reform, or the extent to which competing ideas blocked legislative success. Our argument is as follows: In the case of Sweden, feminist actors across the political spectrum who supported the ban successfully deployed gender equality ideas as well as causal stories characterizing female prostitutes as having abusive life histories in a number of crucial settings, including party congresses, parliamentary debates, official documents, and statements to the press. Pro-ban actors benefited from the degree to which gender equality ideas were more broadly embedded in Swedish political institutions by the early and mid-1990s, the result of long-term efforts by Swedish feminists. No such pervasive discourse involving gender equality ideas existed in Finnish society or its political institutions. While some feminists there pushed for CPSS from the 1990s onwards, they were confronted with interest groups, epistemic actors and policymakers who successfully mobilized ideas concerning the rights of individuals to make decisions regarding their own body and sphere of economic activity without state interference. Of equal importance, the Finnish reform process took place against the backdrop of specific concerns that trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes to Finland was growing rapidly and required a firm policy response. As such, the legislative outcome became centered on the need to ensure Finnish compliance with the 2000 UN Palermo Protocol on trafficking in human beings.
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- Friberg-Fernros, Henrik, 1972, et al.
(author)
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An epistemic alternative to the public justification requirement
- 2024
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In: Philosophy & Social Criticism. - : SAGE Publications. - 0191-4537 .- 1461-734X. ; 50:6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- How should the state justify its coercive rules? Public reason liberalism endorses a public justification requirement: Justifications offered for authoritative regulations must be acceptable to all members of the relevant public. However, as a criterion of legitimacy, the public justification requirement is epistemically unreliable: It prioritizes neither the exclusion of false beliefs nor the inclusion of true beliefs in justifications of political rules. This article presents an epistemic alternative to the public justification requirement. Employing epistemological theories of argumentation, we demonstrate how this approach enables assessing the epistemic quality of justifications of political rules, even when the truth is difficult to establish.
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- Friberg-Fernros, Henrik, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Assessing the Epistemic Quality of Democratic Decision-Making in Terms of Adequate Support for Conclusions
- 2017
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In: Social Epistemology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0269-1728 .- 1464-5297. ; 31:3, s. 251-265
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- How can we assess the epistemic quality of democratic decision-making? Sceptics doubt such assessments are possible, as they must rely on controversial substantive standards of truth and rightness. Challenging that scepticism, this paper suggests a procedure-independent standard for assessing the epistemic quality of democratic decision-making by evaluating whether it is adequately supported by reasons. Adequate support for conclusion is a necessary (but insufficient on its own) aspect of epistemic quality for any epistemic justification of democracy, though particularly relevant to theories that emphasise public deliberation. Finding existing methods for measuring the quality of public discourse to fall short, we draw on an epistemological theory of argumentation to provide a more sophisticated approach to evaluating the epistemic quality of democratic decision-making, illustrate how the approach can be used, and demonstrate its relevance for the epistemic turn in democratic theory.
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- Friberg-Fernros, Henrik, 1972, et al.
(author)
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The Consensus Paradox: Does Deliberative Agreement Impede Rational Discourse?
- 2014
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In: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 62:S1 (suppl.), s. 99-116
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article explores a tension in deliberative democratic theory. The tension consists in that deliberative opinion formation ideally aims to reach consensus, while a consensus, once established, will likely impede the conditions for further rational public discourse. Hence, over time, deliberative democracy might risk undermining itself. While the tension is demonstrable in theory, we also suggest three cognitive and socio-psychological mechanisms by which consensus might hamper the rationality of public discourse: after an agreement, participants cease to develop new arguments, they tend to forget existing arguments and their fear of deviating from the social norm promotes conformism. Existing research has largely neglected to study how consensus in decision making affects future public deliberation. Our article thus serves three purposes: to elaborate the consensus paradox in deliberative democratic theory; to open up a research agenda for examining the paradox empirically; and to assess the theoretical implications of the paradox.
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- Höglund, Carl-Magnus, et al.
(author)
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Defending Journalism Against State Repression: Legal Mobilization for Media Freedom in Uganda
- 2021
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In: Journalism Studies. - 1461-670X. ; 22:4, s. 516-534
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- How can journalist groups and media organizations use legal strategies to defend media freedom in semi-authoritarian contexts? Whereas a sizeable social science literature has explored the structural determinants of media freedom, this paper studies how social movement actors can mobilize to protect media freedoms. Through a case study of recent struggles for media freedom in Uganda, we analyse how journalist groups and media organizations have used legal strategies to defend their freedom to report against a semi-authoritarian regime that increasingly clamps down on independent media. Drawing on numerous interviews with key actors, our analysis suggests that Uganda’s so-called media fraternity has sometimes been able to push back state repression or advance the institutional framework for media freedom. Specifically, legal mobilization has been successful when the media fraternity has been able to mobilize broad and rapid support and organize sustained public advocacy, and when the journalist or media outlet in question has public credibility. By providing a better account of when and why the media freedom movement has been able to successfully challenge government repression, this paper also contributes a better understanding of legal mobilization by journalist and media organizations that should be relevant beyond the case of Uganda.
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- Johansson, Peter, 1967, et al.
(author)
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Cultural expertise in Sami land rights litigation: Epistemic strategies in the Girjas and Fosen cases
- 2023
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In: Jindal Global Law Review. - : Springer Nature. - 0975-2498 .- 2364-4869. ; 14:2, s. 217-240
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- How do parties mobilise cultural expertise in Indigenous rights litigation in Scandinavia? Recently, Sami groups have litigated to claim Indigenous rights to land and natural resources, winning some remarkable victories in the Supreme Courts of Norway and Sweden. In this paper, we draw on socio-legal mobilisation theory to analyse the epistemic strategies of Sami litigants and their adversaries in two recent landmark Supreme Court cases on Indigenous rights to usage of land: the 2020 Girjas case in Sweden and the 2021 Fosen case in Norway. Conceptualising cultural expertise as a strategic framing contest, we analyse how the parties struggled over the epistemic basis of the respective case by legitimating their claims to cultural knowledge, drawing on academic research, and discrediting their opponents’ epistemic claims. Our findings suggest that in both cases, Sami claimants successfully established an epistemic basis where their traditional, experiential knowledge combined with independent academic expertise effectively challenged the knowledge claims of their adversaries. Yet, both cases also demonstrate how the linkage between Sami Indigeneity and reindeer husbandry in the national law of both countries excludes non-reindeer herding Sami persons from the Indigenous rights affirmed by the courts.
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