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Older women are often portrayed as particularly vulnerable and in need of protection, producing processes of ageist "othering" that deny agency, foster "appropriate" behaviors, and work to exclude them from everyday life. While not denying many women face a precarious situation in later life, some older women resist their subjectivation as vulnerable. Drawing on a concept of precarity as governmentality, older women's acceptance and resistance to being characterized as "vulnerable" and in need of protection are explored in relation to focus group interviews with female pensioners in four Swedish municipalities. ; Rädsla och trygghet i handling och ord

Public sector reform involving decentralisation and marketisation has led to "soft" indirect forms of governance aimed at steering more fragmented systems. Although based on information and guidance rather than hierarchy and legislation, these new methods of regulating through evaluation and quality control may be as powerful as more direct control methods. Frequently embodying practices building on values concerning consumer choice and competition, they may challenge values of equality and social justice associated with the Nordic model of education. Drawing on a qualitative analysis using documentary data concerning evaluation structures and techniques, the development of an evaluative culture and consequences for compulsory education in the Nordic countries are examined. Although soft governance techniques of evaluation and control have impacted on compulsory education in all five countries, there are differences concerning the extent to which the Nordic model's values have been challenged. Further, there are signs of resistance and reluctance to abandon the model's basic tenets.

In the move towards governance, Swedish regional policy has changed from a largely centrally steered approach closely associated with the social democratic aim of levelling out territorial differences and helping lagging regions. A more decentralized regional policy with a more neo-liberal vision has emerged in which regions must take responsibility themselves and for their own well-being and be able to compete effectively in the global economy in order to survive and thrive. There is a powerful rhetoric of inclusion - of all being needed in the struggle to be successful and achieve economic growth. In this discourse of 'strong regions' with active, entrepreneurial citizens, what spaces and subject positions are being created for those who do not fit the strong region image? What are the gendered consequences? What happens to those not usually associated with economic growth? Are new spaces opening up for the silent in regional policies? What identities are being constituted for, for example, declining rural regions and non-traditional regional actors such as women's groups, immigrants and ethnic minorities? What are the consequences of this? Are these groups being constructed as active subjects able to influence and shape regional policies or as the passive objects of policies? Using Carol Bacchi's the 'What's the Problem? Approach' (Bacchi 1999), these questions will be explored in relation to a relation to a sparsely populated, peripheral region, V‰sterbotten, in the far north of Sweden.

This thesis makes a comparative study of local government autonomy in Britain and Sweden within the local economic development policy area. It argues for local government autonomy to be viewed in terms of both a vertical dimension concerning local government's autonomy vis-à-vis national government (national context) and a horizontal dimension relating to its autonomy vis-à-vis local social and economic forces (local context). A policy area approach is advocated as the strength of, and the balance between, factors influencing local government autonomy, both vertically and horizontally, may be modified by the particular characteristics of the policy area. For example, the local economic development policy area is characterized as a grey zone respecting the intergovernmental relationship and a "mixed-economy" concerning the public-private sector relationship. The concept of autonomy is distinguished into policy-making independence (measured as local authority cooperation with other actors in economic development policies) and capacity for action (measured in terms of four local authority roles in the local economy). These are tested empirically regarding the influence of the local context and the relationship between them examined. The dominant trend in both countries is that the more local authorities intervene in the local economy (extend their capacity for action), the greater their cooperation with other actors (the more restricted their policy-making independence). ; digitalisering@umu

This article uses a discursive approach to analyze how gender equality has and is being constructed and given meaning in the context of Swedish regional policy. Drawing on Carole Bacchi's 'What's the Problem? Approach', we explore how arguments concerning the new forms of regional policy are assigning different categories of people different subject positions and, in particular, we focus on the kind of subject positions that are being given to women as a group in this context. The discourse being shaped in national policy is, however, interpreted in specific contexts. Accordingly, we compare the way this new discourse is being (re)interpreted and (re)constructed and the subject positions being ascribed to women in the regional development partnerships and growth strategies in two Swedish regions: V1sterbotten and J1nk1ping. Finally, we draw attention to how both the form and the content of Swedish regional development policies create great difficulties for politicizing gender as a power dimension in society. We suggest that regional politics has become de-politicized and argue for the need for it to be re-politicized with gender included as a conflict dimension. References. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract.  This article uses a discursive approach to analyze how gender equality has and is being constructed and given meaning in the context of Swedish regional policy. Drawing on Carole Bacchi's 'What's the Problem? Approach', we explore how arguments concerning the new forms of regional policy are assigning different categories of people different subject positions and, in particular, we focus on the kind of subject positions that are being given to women as a group in this context. The discourse being shaped in national policy is, however, interpreted in specific contexts. Accordingly, we compare the way this new discourse is being (re)interpreted and (re)constructed and the subject positions being ascribed to women in the regional development partnerships and growth strategies in two Swedish regions: Västerbotten and Jönköping. Finally, we draw attention to how both the form and the content of Swedish regional development policies create great difficulties for politicizing gender as a power dimension in society. We suggest that regional politics has become de‐politicized and argue for the need for it to be re‐politicized with gender included as a conflict dimension.