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.
Read more about the project.
|
Why do some political reform attemps succeed while others fail? Political issues concerning gender equality are often controversial and therefore particularly suited as study objects in order to understand how different interests are in conflict with each other and how politicians handle conflicts of interests. In previous research there has often been a bias towards analyzing cases of ?successful? gender equality reform initiatives. This project aims instead at explaining ?failed? reform attempts. More specifically, two widely debated but unsuccessful reform attempts on the Swedish labour market will be analyzed: individualized parental leave and gender quotas to company boards. Theoretically, the project contributes to research on public policy and the politics of gender equality.
Read more about the project.
|
This project examines how Swedish municipalities integrate research, evaluations, consultant reports and follow-up studies in policy decisions: Do they use this kind of knowledge and what can explain differences among municipalities and various policy areas? And, most importantly, are the municipalities able to integrate knowledge without turning into a technocracy where democratic judgement is completely dominated by the rule of experts? Moreover, we try to disentangle how experiences and knowledge are diffused among municipalities. It is essential to answer these questions since they tell us something important about why various policies are being implemented and whether and how it is possible to use knowledge without turning into a technocracy. We study three policy areas: activation policy programmes for unemployed recipients of welfare benefits, the introduction of immigrants to Swedish society and local environmental polices. The analyses are based on interviews, questionnaires, various documents and register data. The project is financed by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research.
Det är naturligtvis önskvärt att alla politiska beslut blir så bra som möjligt. Exempelvis när en kommun ska besluta om åtgärder för arbetslösa ungdomar, hoppas vi att beslutet grundar sig på god kännedom om problemen. Hur kan vi ordna beslutsprocesser så att beslutfattarna kan utnyttja det rådande kunskapsläget på bästa sätt? Och kan vi åstadkomma det utan att demokratin hotas av expertvälde och en urvattning av politiken? Detta är projektets övergripande frågeställningar. Det innebär att vi tar oss an en klassisk diskussion om hur man ska utforma politiska institutioner så att besluten baseras på förnuft, utan att för den skull avpolitiseras till enbart teknik och administration. Med andra ord: hur man navigerar mellan expertstyre och kunskapsbrist. Men istället för att lämna ytterligare bidrag till den ymniga filosofiska debatten i ämnet, är det hög tid att undersöka frågan konkret, empiriskt och metodiskt.
Denna studie sker mot bakgrund av att det finns ett växande intresset av att integrera utvärderingar och vetenskap i politiken, samtidigt som det råder oenighet om denna trend är av godo eller inte. Vi vet exempelvis mycket lite om relationen mellan kunskap och politik på kommunal nivå, trots att välfärdspolitikens faktiska utformning i tilltagande utsträckning sker där. Här finns alltså en lucka i litteraturen som vi vill fylla. Genom att kombinera kvantitativa och kvalitativa analystekniker ska vi mer precist studera tre frågor: Hur går den kunskapssökande processen till vid kommunala beslut? Hur integreras kunskapen i besluten? Vad förklarar hur den kunskapssökande processen bedrivs och hur kunskapen integreras i besluten? De politikområden som undersöks är arbetsmarknads-, integrations- och miljöpolitik.
På ett generellt plan ska projektet ge lärdomar om relationen mellan politik och kunskap. Mer konkret handlar det om att finna former som gör att kommunala beslutsprocesser använder relevant kunskap så bra som möjligt, utan att politiken urholkas.
Read more about the project.
|
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.
Read more about the project.
|
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.
Read more about the project.
|
|
|
The projects main focus is on the cuts and reforms of the welfare state in Sweden during the last two decades.
These have been and will be studied from different perspectives:
1. What can explain the variance between cutbacks between different transfers to households.
2. Has the Swedish welfare state been dismantled? Why (not)?
3. What explains the outcome of the Swedish pension reform?
4. Why has housing policy been partically targetted for cutbacks.
These different perspectives call for some different explanatory factors: intransparency of cutbacks, strength of pensioners' organisations, and path-dependence.
Read more about the project.
|
|
|
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.
Read more about the project.
|
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.
Read more about the project.
|
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
Read more about the project.
|
The project is a study of women's participation in the political decision making process in three policy areas; gender equality, parental leave and child care. Women's representation in these areas have been rather high and the purpose of the project is to find out what significance women's representation had for the debates and the decisions. I will also look at the institutionalisation of different reforms in these policy sectors and what they have meant women's and men's possibilities to become more equal.
Read more about the project.
|
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.
Read more about the project.
|