Today, men hold more than 81 percent of all seats in national parliaments. Political parties monopolize candidate selection in almost all countries and they thus have a direct impact on the gendered composition of parliament. Exactly how political parties select their candidates and what types of apertures different selection procedures open for female aspirants is, however, to a large extent, still shrouded in mystery. This project analyzes the role of political parties for women?s political representation, and in particular how the level of insitutionalization in candidate selection affects women?s possibilities to be selected to legislative office.
Even though the concept of institutionalization has been highlighted as one of the most important factors for women?s possibilities to be selected as candidates, the concept itself has neither been sufficiently conceptually concretized and operationalized nor systematically compared. The project will thus start with a theoretical and empirical exploration of the concept of institutionalization in selection procedures. Secondly, an empirical examination of its relationship to women?s representation will be carried out, and finally we will bring in the political context to be able to examine whether the role of institutionalization in candidate selection is contingent on the different preferences parties are likely to have in different political climates.
The theoretical exploration of the concept will be based on previous research on political parties in developing countries, as well as literature on candidate selection processes. The empirical analysis is conducted using a new and unique data set produced by International IDEA. The data includes 176 parties in 64 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. Especially relevant to the project is to survey contains questions about both the external regulations (i.e. national law) as well as the party's internal rules, formal as informal. This makes it possible to compare the importance of the parties' own formal regulations and what the respondents really think is important to have an opportunity to be selected as a candidate. We argue that an identification and comparison of this is critical to our understanding and use of the concept of institutionalization.
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This research project analyzes the role of political parties for women?s political representation. Political parties have been described as being responsible for the male political overrepresentation almost everywhere in the world, and thus as the most important gatekeepers for women?s political representation. Our knowledge of the mechanisms behind political parties selections of candidates is however still fairly limited, and there is a particular lack of knowledge regarding non-western political parties. This project aims at assessing this research lacuna, and in particular a factor pointed out by previous research as crucial for women?s possibilities to get selected as candidates; namely the level of bureaucratization (sometimes also referred to ?institutionalization? or ?formalization?) in selection procedures.
Moreover, the project questions the argument that a large number of women in parliament by itself increases peace or generates decreased levels of corruption, and so forth. Rather, we see the need to change perspectives and to investigate the opposite causal direction: that different types of contexts and political climates give rise to different types of political priorities, which also is true for the political parties. We suggest that different types of political climates generate demands for different types of candidates and that this demand has (often unintended) gendered consequences.
To examine the role that the level of bureaucratization - as well as the impact of the surrounding political climate - could have for political parties? internal selection procedures, we will carry out four comparative case studies. The base of the material will be collected during shorter field trips to four different countries where a range of party officials will be interviewed, in order to get a broad comparative view. The countries preliminary selected are Bolivia, Kenya, Georgia and Bangladesh. Here, we explicitly examine whether and how the overall political context shapes the relationship between bureaucratization and women?s political representation.
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A legitimate democracy rests heavily on the participation in effective deliberation by those affected by the political decisions. The main question in this project is to find out what particular roles civil society plays in connecting citizens, the scientific society and the political sphere with respect to knowledge and dialogue. We want to investigate how collective actors in civil society incorporate, learn and produce knowledge, in what way they impart that knowledge to other participants, and if they reflect about or seriously consider others contributions in the conversation. Does civil society contribute to the public discourse in a deliberative manner or does it only work as a platform for special interests? An attending question is in what way the knowledge is acknowledged and used.
The research will focus on how civil society takes part in the public discourse of the welfare state. The project will provide increased knowledge of the role of civil society in the knowledge-generating process, and its role in the public debate on the welfare state design. In addition to raising awareness of the welfare state development we will also get a better understanding of how civil society interact with other spheres of society.
The studies, which will combine qualitative and quantitative analysis, focus on key actors in civil society such as associations and major think-tanks.
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The aim of this research project is to increase our understanding of the boundaries of democratisation by identifying the mechanisms through which conflicts over political inclusion are being managed in the multi-ethnic state of Georgia.
A central point of departure is the established argument that democratisation requires a demos - the people can hardly rule until there is consensus as to who are the people. Transitions tend to be short-circuited, oftentimes violently, in the absence of such agreement. No nationality wishes to be subjugated to the will of the majority within a state dominated by another nationality. National democratisation processes therefore tend to awaken local ethnic conflicts, which often spill over into inter-state conflagrations.
Departing from post-Soviet Georgia, this project investigates how such questions of political inclusion are being contested between - and within - the central government and nation-building entrepreneurs in the peripheral ethno-regions of the country. It draws on interviews with representatives of the Georgian government as well as Armenian and Azerbaijani activists from the ethno-regions of Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli, respectively. However, the project also builds on socio-linguistic experiments (matched-guise tests) created to unearth inter-ethnic attitudes. Taken together, this data enables the research project to re-construct the incentives for integration in Georgia's Armenian- and Azerbaijani borderlands.
A decisive advantage, stemming from this data triangulation, is that the research project will be able to identify the social mechanisms through which conflicts over political inclusion are being managed.
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All over Europe the processes of immigration during the last decades
have generated a growing concern politically and academically of identifying models of successful integration. The aim of this project is to further improve the knowledge regarding the mecanisms of political integration, through a comparative study striving both to describe and explain patterns of integration in a number of European states by combining quantitative and qualitative techniques. The project will be conducted by re-analysing European attitudinal data, focusing both on first- and second generation immigrants and by intensive, qualitative, studies of the Bosnian diaspora in four host societies: Sweden, Britain, Germany and France.
Hur en lyckosam integration av invandrade ska åstadkommas är en fråga
som under de senaste decennierna har tilldragit sig stort politiskt och akademiskt intresse. Syftet med detta projekt är att öka vår kunskap om den politiska integrationens mekanismer. Genom en kombination av kvantitativa och kvalitativa analystekniker strävar vi efter att beskriva och förklara integrationens mönster i en rad Europeiska länder. Projektet genomförs genom re-analyser av data från opinionsundersökningar, där fokus riktas mot såväl första som andra generationens invandrade, och genom mer intensiva kvalitativa studier av den Bosniska diasporan i fyra mottagarländer: Sverige, Storbritannien, Tyskland och Frankrike.
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This research project explores how cooperation is established in an environment marked by distrust and non-cooperation. The research focuses on the private sector in Palermo and the cooperation that has recently developed between business owners refusing to pay protection money to the mafia. To date, Addiopizzo has mobilized more than 400 shopkeepers and 10,000 consumers. The strategy proposed by Addiopizzo is ?boycotting?, i.e. consumers are invited to use their shopping bag power to promote societal change.
The project combines theories on political consumption with social capital theory and contributes with an empirical test of the importance of generalized trust, bridging social capital and weak ties for political mobilization. While previous research to great extent builds on large surveys, we suggest that a more in-depth analysis of associations is more adequate for an understanding of the mechanisms at play when cooperation is established. Mixed techniques will be used: survey, network analysis and in-depth interviews with a selection of shopkeepers who have joined Addiopizzo. An analysis of changes in the political, cultural and economic opportunity structures that facilitate or hinder a political mobilization will also be conducted. The results are relevant to research on social capital but also for policy makers wishing to turn a vicious circle of non-cooperation into cooperation.
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The unemployment insurance system has been subject of intense research over the last couple of decades. Researchers have studied questions regarding the effects, origins, and optimal design of the insurance system. The starting point of this project, however, is that this previous research has paid insufficient attention to the possibility of various forms of institutional complementarities in the labor market, i.e., to the idea that the effect of a particular institution depends on the design of the other institutions in place. Despite the fact that it seems likely that a particular unemployment insurance system can have very different effects depending on the design of surrounding institutions, most of the previous research in the field has proceeded on the assumption that a particular unemployment insurance system structures individual incentives in the same way irrespective of context.
The aim of this project is fill this gap in the previous literature by studying how the presence of institutional complementarities in labor and product markets affect the effects, design, and desirability of various unemployment insurance systems.
In order to answer these questions both theoretical and empirical studies will be undertaken. Apart from comparative country studies the project will employ Swedish register data to investigate to what extent reforms of the unemployment insurance system have different effects on unemployment in different regions or branches. Further the project will utilize attitudinal survey data to examine how the presence of institutional complementarities affects the political support for various unemployment insurance systems.
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Invandringen av människor från andra delar av världen har inneburit nya utmaningar för den nordiska välfärdsmodellen och dess grundläggande integrationsidé om det sociala medborgarskapet. Detta blir särskilt tydligt i den politik som går ut på att fördela nyanlända flyktingar mellan olika regioner och bostadsområden. I projektet undersöks hur de olika dilemman som aktualiseras i denna politik uppfattas och hanteras på nationell och lokal nivå i Sverige, Danmark och Norge.
Projektet syftar till att genom analys av likheter och skillnader mellan tre länders nationella och lokala diskurser dels precisera hur politiken för nyanlända flyktingar kan utmana den skandinaviska välfärdsstatens traditionella integrationsstrategi, dels pröva hur dessa utmaningar hanteras i den nationella spridningspolitiken och den lokala bosättningspolitiken i de tre länderna.
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In any parliamentary system there is a chain of political delegation. Voters select their representatives and thereby delegate powers to elected officials in parliament. Parliamentarians delegate executive power to the Prime Minister and the chief executive selects cabinet ministers. Contemporary research claim that the Prime Minister's ability to appoint and remove ministers has increased over time, and some even suggest that a 'presidentialization' of parliamentary democracy is occurring. However, few studies have focused on the important step of the democratic process when ministers are selected and deselected. This project focuses on investigating the Prime Minister's power when appointing and removing ministerial portfolios. More specifically, the project explores whether a presidentialization of parliamentary democracies has occurred and tries to explain the variation between countries by studying their constitutional designs. This is achieved by performing a comparative analysis of government formation in a large number of European countries.
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The most important project I am working on now concerns tolerance and democracy. In colaboration with Sven Oskarsson (Department of Government, Uppsala University) and Karolina Hulterström (Sida) a project has been initiated which includes surveys in Uganda, India, Pakistan and Kenya. We are also preparing applications to carry out surveys in several European countries together with project collaborators from the Polish Academy of Sciences, Groningen University and Universität Konstanz. The project aims at determining what decides levels of tolerance and intolerance among citizens who live in areas where economic resources are very limited as well as where economic resources are more abundant, where there is a varying degree of ethnic pluralism, and in states which vary in the spectrums between authoritarian rule and democracy. Standard assumptions about tolerance will be tested, such as those relating to the influence of literacy, class, gender, membership of civic organisations, levels of social capital, indicators such as trust, and religious and political affiliation. We will also test for the influence of contextual variables such as the character of state institutions, their level of democratic performance, and varying degrees of cultural or ethnic pluralism. At this point, by using data collected in a project previously carried out in India, and by using data from World Values Survey, we have already published articles that indicate that at least two assumptions previously held by researchers focusing on modernization and development can be challenged. The first is that trust and tolerance always co-varies. They certainly can, but it also turns out in that in some areas, groups and individual who trust each other do not necessarily tolerate each other (in terms of granting each other equal political rights). Secondly economic growth does not automatically make citizens more tolerant (this is assumed implicitly or explicitly expressed by proponents of modernization theory). Consequently, we can draw the conclusion that simply advocating economic growth in combination with a ?vibrant civil? society consisting of many voluntary organizations, will not be enough to bring about a society which upholds core democratic and human rights oriented values. So, far we have found indicators showing that other factors usually classified as belonging to the sphere of political culture are more important in providing for tolerance which is a pillar for democracy and equality.
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In most rural areas in developing countries the room for wildlife has been shrinking rapidly during the last decades. Expansion of agriculture leads to increased human pressure on ecologically sensitive areas.
What impact have different institutional arrangements -- political, legal and economic -- had on bio-diversity and human development? How has conservation and the economy of villagers living close to protected areas changed over time?
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PRESSMEDDELANDE
Vilken betydelse har föreningsliv för integration i politiken?
Att delta i föreningslivet ger ofta mötesvana, fler kontakter och ett ökat självförtroende. Det kan i sin tur leda till att man också blir politiskt aktiv. Men gäller det även för kvinnor och män med invandrarbakgrund? Det undersöks i ett nystartat forskningsprojekt.
- Personer med invandrarbakgrund är underrepresenterade inom partipolitiken och har mindre politiskt inflytande än vad infödda svenskar har. Det är ett demokratiskt problem, säger Clarissa Kugelberg som är forskare på Institutet för bostads- och urbanforskning vid Uppsala universitet. Tillsammans med statsvetaren Per Adman ska hon studera föreningslivets betydelse för politisk integration. Projektet löper i tre år och finansieras av statliga Forskningsrådet för arbetsliv och socialvetenskap.
Frågan är om engagemang i t.ex. en invandrarförening skapar vägar in i det svenska politiska livet för kvinnor och män med invandrarbakgrund. Eller är det tvärtom så att engagemang i en invandrarförening betyder att man "sluter sig" och fokuserar mer på att värna den egna kulturen än att försöka påverka situationen i det nya hemlandet? En annan viktig fråga är om föreningslivet har olika betydelse för kvinnor och män, och om de är föreningsmedlemmar på lika villkor.
I projektet kommer Clarissa Kugelberg bland annat att studera några invandrarföreningar som har varit framgångsrika i att integrera kvinnor. Hon ska också intervjua personer med invandrarbakgrund som har gjort "politisk karriär" i Sverige.
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Uppsala universitet har på uppdrag av regeringen gjort en översikt av kunskapen om strukturella hinder och bemötanden bland förtroendvalda i SverigeI studien presenteras forskning om hur bemötandet ser ut med avseende på flera diskrimineringsgrunder. Rapporten ger också konkreta förslag på fortsatt arbete.
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EU ställer de nordiska länderna inför nya utmaningar. Den fördjupade integrationen innebär att den nordiska modellen konfronteras med andra politiska traditioner. Frågan är vad det europeiska samarbetet innebär för det reella styrelseskicket. Projektets syfte är att genom ingående empirisk analys klarlägga på vilket sätt EU-inträdet återverkar på de politiska maktförhållandena på nationell nivå inom Norden.
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Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a considerable devolution of
power from the national government to lower levels of government
has taken place. Most of the research on this decentralisation process
has focused on the growing importance of the second tier of
governmental structures, the republic- and oblast’ level.
The aim of my own research is to go one step further down the
administrative ladder, to the level of local government. Which are
the factors enabling and restraining the development of an
autonomous local government? Can we even speak of a politically
autonomous local government? And what is the attitude of the
population at large to these developments? As one of the results of the
previously mentioned decentralisation to the regional level has been
a considerable regional differentiation, it is likely that the situation
for local government is not uniform throughout the Russian Federation.
A selection of cases therefore has been made.
The focus of the study will be on the oblasts of Sverdlovsk, Nizhegorod
and Tambov, and specifically on the regional centres of these three oblasts
(Ekaterinburg, Nizhnii Novgorod and Tambov, respectively). Naturally,
a selection of just three oblasts will out of necessity limit the potential
for generalisations of the findings. It is, however, this author’s belief
that the chosen oblasts are sufficiently similar in terms of constitutional
status, ethnic composition and political development (all have a history of
conflictual relations between the local government of the regional centre),
to warrant a comparison. Simultaneously, they are sufficiently different
in terms of socio-economic development and importance for the national
economy, for such a comparison to be worthwhile.
The overall objective of the study is the following:
1) To evaluate the level of autonomy of the local government structures
in the chosen oblasts,
2) To disentangle the reasons for these differences, if any, and
3) To correlate the findings in step one and two with the public attitudes
toward decentralisation and local government autonomy.
The first and second of these objectives will be accomplished by a
combination of analysis of relevant legislation and economic factors, and
in-depth interviews with public officials of all levels of government.
For information on public attitudes, I have access to a survey measuring
(among many other things) popular trust in different levels of government,
and whether they believe local level autonomy should be increased or
decreased.
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During the 1990s decentralisation was prescribed by bilateral donors and major economic players as a general solution to development problems. The World Bank, for example, argues for the devolution of power almost as if it were the panacea bringing "the advancement of 'good government' and fiscal responsibility", and above all more democracy (Manor 1995:81). Today, however, policy makers recognise that what determines the outcome of decentralisation is a more complicated issue. Or as one observer puts it, decentralisation can in one context lead to improved democratic performance, while in another it can lead to anything from a decline in economic growth to "ethnic strife and civil war" (Yusuf 1999). Against this background the panchayat reforms initiated in India in the 1980s and 1990s, which may turn out to be one of the world's largest decentralisation schemes, naturally attracts attention. After being undermined in the 1960s and 1970s, the Asoka Metha committee report presented in 1977 recommended that Panchayati raj institutions in India should become an "organic, integral part of [the] democratic process." West Bengal was the first state to try to implement the recommendations but Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir soon followed. In many parts of these states democratic performance improved as a direct consequence of the reforms and this paved the way for decentralisation in other states. A number of constitutional amendments, most of them passed in 1992, established a uniform three-tier system below state level, provided with political, fiscal and other institutional mechanisms safeguarding, at least constitutionally, the devolution of power. Today, however, it is hard to judge what improvements have followed from this process. As in many other developing countries, empirical research on decentralisation, and above all systematic research, is to a great extent lacking (Goudie and Stasavage 1998:154; Lancaster and Montinola 1997:194). There are, however, important and relatively successful cases that deserve attention. They may provide indications of what is needed to make local democratic units efficient and more self-sustainable, and they may also tell us something about the type of policy recommendations that may be suitable in specific contexts. Therefore, this project will carry out a case study of the factors that may determine the different outcomes of decentralisation - and, in particular, why reforms can manage to improve democratic and governance performance in spite of a hostile or harsh institutional environment, and why they may fail in other contexts. The specific cases to be studied are how the panchayat reforms have affected one of the biggest problems of schools and health institutions in India - personnel absenteeism. The analyses will utilise hypotheses derived from the fields of political science, economics, and social science in general. Theories on decentralisation, corruption and social capital will provide relevant ideas to be tested. The project will primarily investigate mechanisms that may have played a crucial role in making education and health services more effective as a consequence of giving more power to local democratic governing bodies in the decentralisation schemes.
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This research project furthers our understanding of an often ignored but important and central part of modern politics; the dynamic relationship between territory and state. The republic of Syria, carved out of a much larger territory during the post World War I re-mapping of the Middle East, constitutes the empirical focus. The study analyzes Syrian policies towards three territories lost; Lebanon, Hatay and the Golan Heights. Through the examination of Syrian policies towards the three areas from the time of their loss until the end of 2010, the study argues that while special relations to these three cases are signaled through words or deeds or both, Syria clearly has different views of and ambitions for them. Although Syria, during the period under study, repeatedly disrespected the sovereignty of Lebanon it does not strive to incorporate it into Syria. The same goes for Hatay, despite the fact that Syrian maps depict it as part of Syria. The Golan Heights, on the other hand, is considered a necessary part of the Syrian national territory and therefore has to be returned to Syria. The study seeks to understand why certain territories lost remain on the agenda as something that has to be returned while the loss of others are possible to come to terms with. For this purpose, a theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing change and consistency in a state's perception of territories lost is developed. Further, five explanatory factors are discussed and applied to the Syrian cases. Of the five, only integrative state building and the existence of a contending élite with the ability to formulate an alternative version of an appropriate and right-sized national territory were concluded to have affected policies towards territories lost in the Syrian case. The project ended in May 2011.
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The Chinese regime?s capacity to maintain political control over China will in this project be studied by looking at local democracy reforms. The extent to which these experiments have been an intentional policy from the central government or locally initiated without the involvement of the center, will inform us of the regime?s capacity to maintain political control over the country. Control over local cadres is a key to the central state?s capacity to maintain political control. Local democracy experiments challenges that capacity by redirecting the political accountability of local politicians towards the local electorate and local government. Factors such as who initiated the experiment, if orders from the center are obeyed and the subjective opinions of key actors serve as indicators of state capacity. The consequences of the extent of regime control will be analyzed in relation to the viability of the Chinese nation state project. Chinese state capacity, nation building and local democracy have previously been separately researched. This project differs from previous research by using the local democracy experiments as a test of the central state capacity. The project will use qualitative methods and includes fieldwork in China. Three democracy experiments will be selected for case studies including interviews with local actors. In addition other local democracy experiments will be mapped based on Chinese and English secondary literature and media reports.
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The project finalised with a PhD thesis "Do Protests Make a Difference?: The impact of anti-privatisation mobilisation in India and Peru" (June 2007). It focuses on the outcomes of protests mobilised against privatisation in two developing countries. The mobilisation of protests has become more visible during the last few decades and the amount of literature focusing on the links between protest and policy has significantly increased. Nevertheless, scholars acknowledge that there is a lack of theoretical advancements, careful empirical analysis and attention to developing countries regarding these links. In my thesis I endeavor to address the above shortcomings. I elaborate on and evaluate existing theories on social movement outcomes by applying an event history analysis to my data on anti-privatisation struggles in India and Peru.
See more in http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-7901
or ask for a hard copy from me.
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How does a "gendered" public policy affect the attitudes and actions of political elites and the general public? It is the theoretically relevant question of this dissertation project, which analyzes the impacts of electoral gender quotas on political gender equality, looking beyond the number of women in parliament. More precisely, their possible effects on two for democracy central aspects is analyzed; first, in terms of women citizens' political empowerment, and second, in terms of the substantive representation of women.
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The political development in South Africa in the last decade has fundamentally changed the opportunities for all actors in the political arena. The overall purpose with the proposed PhD project is to increase our understanding of how changes in the political opportunity structure affect the relations between the civil society and the state. The empirical case is the interaction between residents' associations, political parties and the local government in Cape Town, as the city exhibits large variations in local politics. The underlying assumption is that the changes in the political opportunity structure have had different implications for different sectors of the South African society. Therefore various political contexts will be included in the study. The hypothesis is that there is a correlation between type of organisation and access to the state depending on which political party is in power. Theoretically the study connects to the social movement discourse.
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A central feature of European Union policy has been the expansion of regulation to ensure the efficient functioning of the common market. Community regulation grew rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s. Efforts began with the removal of trade-inhibiting tariffs, and later extended to the razing of non-tariff barriers and the introduction of Community standards. EC regulation has spread to new policy areas and deepened its role in existing policy domains. Regulation within the environmental field - chemicals regulation, for instance - must ensure the efficient functioning of the internal market and the competitiveness of the chemical industry. Chemicals yield benefits on which the European Community heavily depends. At the same time, however, they have been regulated, in order to ensure that human health and the environment are protected, both for present and for future generations. The classic trade-off involved here - between economic growth and environmental protection - presents policy-makers with a serious challenge.
This project has a general aim: to define the area of chemicals regulation in the European Union in political terms, and to discuss its democratic foundations. At present, it is not clear how decisions on the regulation of chemicals are made in the European Union. This is an area which has been harmonized completely under the EU's first pillar; today, most national regulations on chemicals involve the implementation of Union-level decisions. Yet the distribution of tasks and of influence - between risk assessors and risk managers, between experts and policy-makers, between Commission and non-Commission actors, between industry and public agencies, and between different member countries - are largely unknown.
This study will furnish an in-depth description of decision-making processes within the European Union in the area of chemicals regulation: how decisions are made, who the participating actors are, and how influence in the decision-making process is distributed. It will also contribute to the larger discussion of the democratic quality of supranational decision-making in the European Union. Regulatory efficiency - in the area of chemicals as in all other areas - is highly dependent on the legitimacy of the institutions that decide on standards and regulations. To improve Community regulation of new and existing chemical substances it is thus essential to address the democratic aspects of the decision-making process. A normative analysis will clarify the democratic principles behind present and possible future institutions in the chemicals area: how the exercise of legislative and regulatory powers - powers which have been transferred from the member states to the institutions of the EU - can be legitimized.
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Projektet tar sin utgångspunkt i den välkända statsvetenskapliga
konfrontationen mellan majoritetsdemokrati och
samarbetsdemokrati. Ledande företrädare för den senare som
Arend Lijphart anser inte bara att samarbetsdemokratin ger en
sannare bild av den politiska verkligheten. Han anser också att
samarbetsdemokratin är en bättre styrelseform både med
avseende på ekonomisk skötsel och icke-ekonomiska välfärdsmål.
Frågeställningen för projektet är: leder samarbetsdemokratin till en
mänskligare, mera omtänksam demokrati ("a kinder, gentler democracy")?
Projektet utformas som en kvantitativ totalundersökning av Sveriges
kommuner med avseende på den förda handikappolitiken, kompletterad med fallstudier. Undersökningen genomförs i samarbete med Centrum för
handikappforskning. Medarbetare: Med doktor Barbro Lewin, fil doktor Hanna Bäck och forskningsassistent Lina Westin.
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Corporatism may be seen as variety of capitalism in which specific structural prerequisites such as unionization, centralization, and strong states combined with bargaining and concertation produce certain economic outputs. Corporatism may also be seen as a variety of democracy in which interest groups are integrated in the preparation and/or implementation of public policies. Departing in the last position we measure the strength of Scandinavian corporatism by the involvement of interest groups in public committees, councils, and commissions. Causes and consequences of changes in Scandinavian corporatism is investigated in terms of Government Authority and Interest Group Capabilities.
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How formal and informal political institutions influence conflict, co-operation, justice, and growth on the labor market, has been the focus of this research project.
We have shown, in both articles (e.g. in Governance, 2006, 19: 1) and in book chapters (Öberg & Svensson eds. 2005) how formal institutions in a decisive way influence behavior of labor market actors. For example in Politics & Society (2003, 31:4), we describe how a certain combination of the wage bargaining system and the existence of local branches of trade unions cushion the effect of factors well-known to suppress union density. Furthermore, in Politics & Society (2005, 33: 3), we demonstrate how factors that usually have an effect on wage inequality are neutralized by centralized wage negotiations.
In addition, we have investigated informal institutions (in combination with formal institutions) on the labor market. We argue (in Economic and Industrial Democracy 2009, 30: 2), that workers believing that terms of employment and conflicts on the working site is coordinated by fair sets of institutions, are less inclined to act opportunistically. Hence, they might to a larger extent indulge in helping behavior. Moreover, workers that consider relevant institutions fair are also more willing to work under flexible job descriptions. We argue that this in fact decreases transaction costs, and, hence, promotes economic growth.
This partial result from the project is not altogether new. However, in contrast to earlier research, we have specified and investigated the mechanisms (better). More precisely, we can show that the relationship between institutions and non-opportunistic behavior is entirely channeled through trustworthy relationships: fair institutions create trust between workers and their superiors, and this in turn lead to less opportunistic behavior among workers.
Hence, trust between labor market actors is crucial. In order to investigate this further we asked seventy centrally positioned actors in Swedish labor market politics (government agencies, political parties, trade unions, employers´ associations, and big companies) to estimate all other actors´ power within their field. They were also asked how much other actors in the network could be trusted (hence, we collected data on a complete network). Based on this network data, we demonstrate (in Political Studies, forthcoming 2009) in contrast to what was expected according to established research on trust, that actors on the Swedish labor market indeed can trust other actors that have power over them. In fact, actors with more power are also more trusted than actors that are powerless. We argue that the reason for this rather unexpected finding is that there are institutions on the Swedish labor market that restrain actors from making destructive use of their power.
This interpretation is supported by another article published in West European Politics (2005, 8: 5). In this article, we show that the Labor Court occupies a central position on the Swedish labor market. Actors that distrust each other often trust the Labor Court highly. This makes it possible for the court to act as coordinating glue on an otherwise distrustful labor market.
An even better evidence for the assumption that power inequalities produce distrust, but that "accurately" established institutions mitigate this relationship, is shown in Rationality and Society (2009, 21: 2). As expected, power asymmetries indeed produce distrust at the working site: workers that consider themselves to be in a disadvantage power position in relation to their closest superiors, trust their superiors less. However, trust is less influenced by power inequalities, if the worker considers institutions on the labor market to be fair. Hence, an employee might trust his/her superior also in situations of large power asymmetries to the disadvantage of the employee, g
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The relationship between macroeconomic performance and wage bargaining institutions is a classic topic in comparative political economy. However, whereas a great deal is known about the effects of different types of wage bargaining institutions, the knowledge is yet poorer about their origins. In an attempt to overcome this asymmetry my dissertation project aims at explaining the variation in wage bargaining institutions across the OECD-countries.
The project is focused on the politics of wage bargaining, i.e. the establishment of wage bargaining institutions is considered as a bargaining game in its own right. Unlike most other accounts to wage bargaining the crucial role played by the state will be explicitly considered. The aim is to contribute to the lively discussion about the origins and effects of the variation in the institutional framework of national political economies.
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This project focuses on democracy in Latin America and particularily on the relationship between social movements and political parties. In this regard, the proposal connects to theoretical suggestions concerning civil society and the character of democracy, but also to the global discussion concerning a possible crisis for representative institutions. Beyond this, however, the projectaddresses questions that are becoming increasinly prominent in the debate about democracy in Latin America, such as the crisis of political parties, attempts at institutional invention, etc.
So far, field studies have been carried out in Bolivia (2002).
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Our research project focusses on the boundaries between the peoples and the nation-states which were established in Western and Central Asia in this century by international actors (the mandate) or internal forces (nation-building), and the actions taken by individuals and groups as well as their perceptions of belonging and boundaries. These two aspects are studied partly in the period when the boundaries were formed and when what is seen as the modern nation-state was established and replaced the old dynastic, multi-national empires and partly in the contemporary period when nation-state borders are becoming more porous through transnationalisation, globalisation and the superpower constellation in the world is no longer inclined to freeze the situation in the area.
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The purpose of the project is to compare women as political actors, women's political influence and gender equality and welfare policies in all five Nordic countries.
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