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The theory of social choice has recently benefited much from advances within the power index approach in game theory. One may start from the classical Wicksell framework of a unanimity regime & proceed to state the advantages of deviations from his model. A case can be stated for quantitative voting using some majority voting scheme, as it empowers the choice participants, also providing for blocking power. The power distinctions generated from the power index framework may be applied to the institutional evolution of the Council of Ministers with the EC or EU. It allows one to state in a concise manner the comparative advantages & disadvantages of alternative regimes for the European Community or Union. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

Welfare, and the role of social democracy in defining its content and meaning, is often described as one of Sweden's distinguishing features. However, in the quest for liberalization and marketization, reforms in past decades have substantially changed the political landscape. These developments have led many to question the viability of describing the main political actors and their attitudes towards the welfare state in terms of left or right. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of ideological convergence and past and current political cleavages by analysing the welfare debate on freedom of choice between the two main political opponents in Swedish politics over three decades. Using a morphological approach, where ideologies are viewed as distinctive configurations of political concepts creating specific conceptual patterns depending on how they are combined, the analysis focuses on the content of the concept of choice by examining the conceptual relationships between political concepts such as choice, the public and the private, equality, equity and need. The analysis reveals a convergence suggesting that the parties have united around a narrower concept of freedom of choice that relates to how it is implemented in welfare services, that is, the choice between different providers of welfare services. However, important differences remain, which are expressed in the parties' differing conceptions of the power resources citizens need to become truly free individuals. These findings suggest that, while freedom of choice has become a central concept in the political debate, it is not central to the parties' ideologies. Instead, the core of the parties' ideologies appears to be articulated in e.g. the political cleavages that remain, which can be described as differing views on the role of politics and competing conceptions of need and equality. It is how these cleavages are translated into policies that will determine possible welfare choices in the future.

In the quest for individualization and liberalization, policies within the Swedish public sectors have since the late 1980's been marked by market-like reforms. Despite earlier intense debates between Swedish parties on these reforms, parties across the political spectrum currently support the "choice agenda", as the reforms are known. To understand the process of how parties have come to mutually support choice reforms, I analyze the arguments of the Swedish Social Democratic and Conservative parties on private and public, in relation to the question of individual choice, from the late 1970s until today. The analysis reveals that the Social Democrats show continuity in the way that they attribute essential values to the state in regards of the state's capability of guaranteeing the desirable outcome (an equally distributed welfare), but a marked change in the instrumental values assigned to the market. Although the Conservatives show ambivalence regarding the desired functions of the state, it has not had the same impact on the conservative significance of the concept of choice and therefore the conservative ideology can appear as more coherent. For both parties, it seems, however, that the welfare society still requires a welfare state. Adapted from the source document.

Recent advances in game theory and experimental social science provide insights for the study of corruption and abuse of power in local politics. We survey the evidence from theoretical and experimental research and illustrate findings and problems with two examples from a survey among local politicians and officials in Sweden. The most simplified theoretical models, such as the prisoner's dilemma, fail to capture the distinction between group loyal behavior at different levels. There are several grey zones between pro-social behavior and corruption. These grey zones can be considered corruption danger zones. While Sweden is typically seen as a non-corrupt society, there are several situations where local politicians and officials must make choices in these corruption danger zones. Both formal institutions and informal norms influence these choices, and the views among politicians can vary substantially regarding what behavior is considered acceptable. Communication, openness and public debate can help the fight against corruption. Adapted from the source document.

This thesis examines the question of organization, governance and choice of seeds in Swedish agriculture. It consists of four papers: Paper I investigates the evolution of plant breeding industry in Sweden. The results suggest that the establishment of intellectual property rights (IPRs) schemes creates power in the seed value chain in Sweden and has therefore been a major driver of mergers and acquisitions, together with changes in domestic agricultural policy as well the country´s entrance to EU. Based on nationwide survey among farmers, papers II and III examine the impact of IPRs and specifically the implications of the enforcement of Plant Breeders Rights on farmers´ choice between certified versus farm saved seed (FSS). Paper II uses transaction cost theory and logistics regression to examine empirically the governance structure of farmers choosing certified or FSS. Farmers´ assessment of the quality seed in terms of the genetic purity of each channel has no impact on their choice while personal relations with their upstream partners, investments in the farm as well as delivery contracts affect their procurement strategy. In paper III, spatial autoregressive models are used in order to analyze the transfer of "know-how" between farmers, and the spillover effects of social learning in farmers´ choice of seed channel. Farmers are distinguished between neighbors, based on their relative distance; and peers, based on membership in farmers' cooperatives. The results indicate the existence of spatial dependence on Swedish farmers' choice of seed channel. Paper IV evaluates the impact of farmers' social networks on their decision to be involved in the governance of the agricultural cooperative. The findings suggest a relationship between network characteristics and farmers' involvement in the governance that persists over a long period.

In the EU, some farmers depend farming for their livelihoods, while others use the land for other reasons, e.g., to embrace a new, more environmentally friendly lifestyle. But regardless of their approach to land use, farmers' choices are affected by the various actors of the sector and by society as farmers are an inseparable part of both. Such effects are in some cases perceptible and in some not so, but they are part of the mechanism that composes farmers' cognitive selves and that defines to an extent the orientation of their values. This exogenous and endogenous influence that is followed by the co-construction of one's cognitive self can be seen also in the values expressed by farmers on subjects other than the narrow choice of how and what to farm. Their own definition of what constitutes a good farmer and their view of themselves regarding nature and their relationship with it are a direct result of this. This paper examines and contrasts farmers' values elicited through qualitative interviews in Sweden and Greece. The values expressed were mapped and analysed to identify and discuss a range of related concepts such as ideas of the good farmers and what inhibits or motivates them, their unique relationship with nature that is reflected in their practice as 'businesspeople' or 'stewards'. The values revealed by the analysis, in combination with the different contexts in which the interviewees were situated, reflected their practice and allow insights into the sector and its people.

The Swedish Social Insurance Agency is an important part of the Swedish welfare state. The Agency has recently made a number of major changes, such as establishing a new internal organization and reforming processes for decision making. Many of these changes have been controversial. Critics have complained that the Agency shows a lack of efficiency, has failed to make payments on time, and has been too harsh in its application of eligibility rules. The changes have put the agency at a number of crossroads, many of them recurring from earlier reforms, in dealing with problems such as regional differences in the application of rules. In this article, some of these choices are discussed. The discussion departs from four dichotomies: uniformity-local adaptation; centralization-decentralization; specialization-generalist approaches; and closeness-distance. These dichotomies are illustrated with examples from the agency. The general conclusion is that although the change process has taken a rocky road, there has been a great deal of internal consistency in the combination of measures taken.

Gunnar Myrdal offers a pragmatic extension of the Weber-Rickert solution to the value-incommensurability problem in post-Enlightenment. The notion of Myrdal as a more radical Weberian than Weber himself calls for further investigation of "Science, Values, and Politics in Gunnar Myrdal's methodology". Myrdal recurrently confirms his deep allegiance to Axel Hagerstrom's radical anti-metaphysics, but actually denies Weberian influences on his way to apply explicit value premises as a vehicle to avoid uncontrolled value intrusion in policy analyses, despite obvious affinities. A public intellectual can hardly avoid to "beat the drum" for some values, which cannot satisfy any criteria of truth. The use of significant social movements as norm-senders provides a problematic way out of the problem of value-polytheism in the post-Enlightenment era and the necessity and anxiety of choice in late Modernity, even if it remains unresolved philosophically. This is the solution Myrdal applies. Weber's and Myrdal's common project is the rationalization of value hierarchies for instrumental policy analyses. Myrdal goes one step further, "operationalizing" a solution to the norm-sender problem, for intersubjective means-end-analyses. An American Dilemma is an exemplary work, with its list of explicit postulated premises. Adapted from the source document.

The free market economy, to which East European countries are increasingly being exposed, implies that classical budgeting techniques in the form of the Faustmann approach present themselves as the tools of choice for forest investment analysis. One implication is that the choice of a proper discount rate (r) must be made as part of the basis for formulating a harvest policy. The paper discusses this choice in the light of practice as well as theory, and, using Lithuania as a case, examines the potential economic and political impact of softening the current restrictions on forest management. A review of the debate on discounting in forestry is provided. A statistical analysis of the relation between reported rs and internal rates of return (IRR) from numerous studies on forestry investments reveals a strong correlation between r and IRR. Possible explanations are provided. Analysis reveals that application of any positive r will significantly change forestry practice in Lithuania. Setting r = 3 per cent, slow growing species are to be replaced by fast growing species, and rotation periods should be substantially shortened. The standing volume of (over-) mature forests is about 160 million m3, as compared with the currently harvestable volume of about 40 million m3 according to the minimum allowable rotation age. The macroeconomic perspectives of cashing some of the mature forest for the small transition economy are discussed, taking into account the effects of externalities of forests. Consequently we suggest an alternative formulation of the normal forest. Finally, based on these considerations, a real r of 0-2 per cent is suggested for State forestry in Lithuania. A post-tax r of 2 per cent is advocated for private forestry, with potential project specific deviations downward to 0 or upward to 4 per cent. It is stressed that discount rate is viewed as one of important decision parameters and due regard should be given to non-timber forest outputs, social and institutional settings and other factors.

This study is about seven women's organizations in Belgrade, Serbia and their relations to domestic and international donors during the period 2003-2006. My main research questions focus on their choices of either domestic or international cooperation partners. How and why did the women organize themselves? What factors were essential when selecting donors? In what ways were the organizations influenced by donors? Through interviews, with organization representatives' concepts such as gift and reciprocity, power and dependency, trust and mistrust and collective identity emerged. These concepts were used as points of departure for developing deeper understanding of women organizations' choice of cooperation partners. The women organizations' basically had two alternatives for cooperation: cooperation with foreign donors which offered funds, organizational development and social networks. Alternately, cooperation with local donors, which offered the equivalent except for the organizational development. Cooperation with the foreign donor has resulted in more professional attitudes to the work that have been desired by other international donors. A result is that they can compete with other women's organizations' for international funding. Cooperation with local donors has led to fewer resources but more independent working practices. For these women organizations' independence was important so they choose partners who, they felt more respected this allowing them to write articles or discuss gender in the media with little external influence. Regardless of the chosen donor the reciprocity is embedded in the relation between the donor and the receiver of aid, which in various ways is beneficial for both parties.

This thesis explores the human-environment interaction within the climate-sensitive socio-ecological system of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. It uses the livelihoods framework to analyse various coping strategies to resource scarcity due to lake recessions. The main aim is to understand the processes by which decision-making takes place and the influence of various agents of change on coping with environmental shocks, i.e. water recessions. Lake Chilwa undergoes periodic water recessions with up to twelve incidents recorded between 1900 and 2012. While the lake and its wetland is an economic aquatic agriculture system in between recessions, it is unclear how households around the system survive during the periods of water recessions. Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted between March 2012 and December 2013 on Chisi Island of Lake Chilwa to evaluate the coping strategies and their major drivers in responding to the periodic lake recessions. Using interpretive analysis, the findings show that people from the Lake Chilwa socio-ecological system have lived in anticipation of periodic environmental shocks due to their deep historical knowledge of the lake level and its fluctuations. This knowledge has been passed from generation to generation. Results further show that the main coping strategies that have stood the test of time for every recession are based on reciprocity and redistribution. These include sharing through kinship ties, hunting wild birds and farming. In many cases coping strategies for each specific recession are driven by political, social and economic factors prevailing at that particular period. Given these conditions, different agents (individuals or communities) make choices designed to maximise their own interests as they scramble to access scarce resources. Although natural resources in these systems are fundamental assets in rural livelihoods, accessing them in times of scarcity requires better governance systems that consider social, political and economic contexts.

This article raises the issue of 'industrial relations' in the public sector, ie, how employer-employee relations are conceptualized in liberal democratic political theory. The historical & theoretical legacy of this conceptual apparatus can help explain why the welfare workers (employed in publicly financed health care, social service, education, elderly care, & day care for children) are hardly mentioned in the liberal democratic scheme. The liberal democratic state traditionally focuses on political subjects as if they all were citizens/cohabitants (in the civil society), when in fact roughly 20% of the Swedish electorate at the same time are citizens/co-workers (in the local welfare state). The issue of rights & duties in direct & indirect relations between the local state & the citizenry is therefore heavily biased in favor of the citizen-as-cohabitant/consumer. If both these roles of the citizenry were adequately handled in political theory, this would possibly cast a new light on New Public Management as well as the current Swedish focus on freedom of choice ('exit rights') for welfare consumers. It is argued that there is nothing inherent in liberal democratic political theory that could block the application of the idea of a neutral & benevolent state to the citizen-as-coworker. A coherent application of the Marshallian scheme of civil, political, & social rights therefore means the inclusion of social rights to citizens-as-co-workers. 55 References. Adapted from the source document.

This thesis deals with the question of how Swedish society responds when juveniles commit crimes. The focus is social work co-operating with the legal system and the interaction between these two. The aim of this study is to make visible/analyse factors that affect the choice between treatment and correction of juveniles in an emergency situation, when there is a necessity to choose between immediate preventative custody on the one hand, and detention on the other. This study analyses the selection through outcome patterns. Theoretically the base is six concepts; system/practice, and treatment/correction. Together they form a model where the actors (the social services/the police/the attorney/county administrative courts/district courts) on this juvenile field can be situated. The strategies of the actors' decision-making are implied by either norm-rational decision-making or goal-rational decision-making. Empirical data is studied through records of immediate custody and detention of juveniles aged 15-18 years old. The immediate denial of freedom represents, in the Swedish legislation, a process whereby social services and law enforcers meet and decide whether to treat or correct the juvenile. This selection is the focus of the empirical study of this thesis. In 1992, 1998 and 2003 a national overall survey was made of all juveniles aged 15-18 years that have been either in immediate custody or in detention or both. Documentation was obtained from the courts. The results show that the general denial of freedom of juveniles have increased greatly during the years 1992, 1998 and 2003, and especially from 1998 to 2003. Almost all of the acts concern boys, even though girls are making at break-through in 2003. There are differences between the groups that either have been in detention or in immediate custody in ways of "survey-year", "ethnic background", "age" and "categorising of crime". This study shows a large discrepancy between legislation and the legal practice.