Suchergebnisse

Studien redovisar den tredje mätningen som följer upp förändringar av trafikanternas hastighetsval och hastighetsefterlevnad på det kommunala huvudvägnätet i tätort. Resultaten visar att de genomsnittliga reshastigheterna ligger under gällande hastighetsgräns, men att bristande hastighetsefterlevnad fortfarande är ett problem. År 2009 fattades ett riksdagsbeslut som innebar ett mål att antalet dödade i vägtrafiken skulle halveras mellan åren 2007 och 2020. En av indikatorerna för att följa utvecklingen är "hastighetsefterlevnad på det kommunala vägnätet". Ett delmål är att minst 80 procent av trafikarbetet ska ske inom gällande hastighetsgräns. År 2012 var startår för mätserien och under 2015 genomfördes den tredje uppföljande mätningen. ; In 2009 the Swedish Parliament passed a resolution stating that by 2020 the number of fatalities from road traffic crashes should be reduced to half the level in 2007. This corresponds to a maximum of 220 deaths in 2020. In order to monitor progress toward this goal, yearly national follow-up studies are conducted to examine trends in the numbers of people killed and severely injured, along with a number of indicators. One of these indicators is speed limit compliance on the municipality streets; the milestone here is to have at least 80 per cent of all traffic travelling within the speed limit. The aim of the present study is to report the changes between the years 2014 and 2015 concerning driver speed levels and speed limit compliance on the main municipality streets. The annual measurement series started in year 2012 and with the measurement series from 2015, this third follow-up was performed.

There is a movement away from government governance of farm animal welfare towards more private governance. As a result, many farmers need to comply with both legislation and private standards simultaneously. The overall aim with this project was to study the intentions of different animal welfare regulations, and how effective these systems can be in improving animal welfare. The first study examined the intentions and values of various animal welfare regulations. The second study analysed the content and structure of different sets of Swedish regulations, and the last study focused on controls at the farm level, to identify common remarks and risk factors of non-compliance at dairy farms in official (CAB) and private (Arla) control. We found that the aim of a regulation could be quite vague, and more ambitious than what is included in the detailed requirements. Policymakers had different views on what constitutes 'necessary suffering' and 'natural behaviour'. These differences were seen both between countries, between regulations in a country, and between species in a regulation. The second study illustrated that private standards for dairy cows in Sweden partly covered the same requirements as the legislation, with the exception of the organic standard. However, due to vague wordings and different ways of measuring it was not always clear if the requirements were truly identical between the regulations. In the third study we identified that inspections focused on different areas; dirty dairy cattle being the most common non-compliance in official controls, and dirty cowsheds being most common during Arla audits. The highest risk for non-compliance was, however, similar for CAB and Arla; tie-stalls during winter. Organic farms had a lower risk for non-compliance compared to conventional farms. This project identified the need to clearly define concepts and desired animal welfare outcomes in order to reduce the gaps between intentions, requirements and assessments within a regulation. Also gaps between different animal welfare regulations need to be illuminated with the purpose of either clarifying the differences or reducing the gaps provided that the aims are similar. The presence of both similarities and differences between different regulations and control systems puts extra high demands on transparency, predictability and clarity during inspections.

Postgraduate quality management can be carried out from two approaches: the first, (competitive) is based on compliance with academic, scientific and administrative standards, and the positioning of universities in world lists of best institutions; the second (humanist-social) in the commitment of the universities with the solution of the problems of sustainable development. The objective of this article is to review the recent information backing the competitive and social-humanist approaches to quality in postgraduate studies, and on this basis support what should be the meeting point between both approaches in Latin American universities. For this purpose, articles published predominantly in Latin America, and also from Asia and Africa, were analyzed. From the points of view expressed in the reviewed documents, reflections on quality management in postgraduate studies were formulated from the Latin American perspective. It was found that the competitive approach predominates in postgraduate quality management worldwide, and that the social responsibility of universities, and of postgraduate studies in particular, implies a commitment to solving local, regional and national problems, only achievable with a solid social-humanist approach. Latin American universities must combine compliance with competitive standards with postgraduate social responsibility objectives, and assign greater weight to the latter in accreditation systems.

Despite significant institutional changes and refinements since its creation in 2004, the ENP(European Neighborhood Policy) remains a major tool available to the EU for providing incentivesfor reform and stability in non-member states through the diffusion of its norms and rules.Earlier studies, drawing on the Europeanization conceptual framework, have been mostly concernedabout how and by which mechanisms compliance with EU rules takes place, rather thanfocusing on whether and to what extent it occurs. By contrast, this article assesses the actorness ofthe EU in three countries of the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), viewingactorness as composed of three dimensions – capability, opportunity, and presence – enabling andconstraining the aspirations of the EU to be an international actor in the South Caucasus.

The objective behind this article is to study the proliferation of the politics of information technology (IT) in Sweden, 1994-2003, based on a discourse analysis. The article argues that the Swedish IT political discourse is characterised by a guiding rule according to which there exist an autonomous & inevitable historical path towards the "information society." Swedish citizens are defined as dependent subjects, without any means to influence the advent of this new society. Instead they have to comply with new requirements in terms of swift social adaptation & life-long learning. In addition, the IT-political discourse is distinguished by nationalist optimism, as well as democratic ambitions. This also gives rise to peculiar contradictions within the discourse, for instance in the educational arena where there is a clash between individualist pedagogical doctrines & collective compliance to the information society. The author concludes that Swedish IT politics have hitherto mainly focused on affecting definitions & perceptions through the persuasive use of a model of steering which the author labels "visionary governance," ie, the establishment of an authoritative definition of the future by certain experts or "visionaries." Discursive power within such a model consists in making all actors addressing the political issue unanimously. 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

Roses and other cut flowers from Kenya can be found in innumerable European and Asian supermarkets, floristry shops and online mail-order firms. The importance of the floricultural sector is fundamental for the Kenyan economy. However, during the last two decades, international media and scientific reports have pointed out the problematic working conditions and negative environmental impacts of the industry. In response, at the beginning of the 21st century, the international Fairtrade initiative came into the picture to improve the problematic production impacts of the sector. The Fairtrade initiative has a broadly positive reputation and quantitative data show an improvement in production manners. Nevertheless, it remains unclear if and how Fairtrade is perceived and experienced by ordinary workers on a subjective level. This study examines whether Fairtrade initiatives are an attainment for general workers or if they are considered as more of a top-down development approach. Through a qualitative, phenomenological inspired research design, a comparison of working conditions on a Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade cut flower farm is done on a local micro level. Results show that the Fairtrade initiative on the examined farm is perceived and experienced as rather negative and inhuman while, on the contrary, workers on the non-Fairtrade farm reported their conditions as positive in comparison. Also, the empirical data shows that this specific Fairtrade farm might not be an individual case in Kenya. Due to weak compliance with international Fairtrade standards and national legislation, workers and worker's unions point out lacks in the Fairtrade system in the cut flower business in general. Therefore, starting from this study's results on worker's subjective negative experience of their working conditions, a broader, mixed method study on a meta level is required. Meanwhile, the Fairtrade initiative should re-evaluate its standards and inspection systems to prevent the dilution of its own standards and reputation.

The present study examines the Swedish eco-label Good Environmental Choice (Bra Miljöval); an eco-label that has attained great recognition in Sweden since its initiation in 1989. The focus of the study is on the control function behind this particular label and how the criteria writing and control mechanism are organized. Good Environmental Choice is operated by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Naturskyddsföreningen). One of the aspects that distinguish Good Environmental Choice from many other contemporary eco-labels, such as KRAV, FSC and Fairtrade, is that the control of compliance with the criteria is kept internally within the organization. The same person, or group of people, who have been participating in the process of writing the criteria, or standard behind the label, may carry out the control. Thus, the way Good Environmental Choice organizes its eco-label, differs from the norm that has evolved during the past decades with clearly independent regulatory functions: standard setting by one actor, certification by private companies specialized in the control function, and accreditation of certification firms by yet another actor. Given the divergent organization of this particular ecolabel, the study uses a qualitative approach and investigates how the particular way of organizing the Good Environmental Choice label has evolved, how it has been justified, and how people engaged in its organization perceive their work. In the discussion, possible explanations are proposed for the high levels of recognition and credibility of this particular eco-label. Some of the challenges of this way of organizing eco-labels are also reflected upon. At a general level, the study contributes to nuance the knowledge about the workings of certification labels and the prominent position they have today in bridging the gap of trust between consumers and (often distanciated) producers.

Simple Summary: In all European countries, farmers keeping animals must comply with European and national animal welfare legislation. Each government has a responsibility to make sure that the legislation is complied with by the farmers. However, during the last decades it has become increasingly common that private organisations, such as the industry, farmers' organisations, or animal welfare organisations, develop additional animal welfare regulations (private standards') that the farmers also need to comply with. These private standards have the opportunity to improve animal welfare above the legislative level, however, in our study we have shown that this is not always the case and that all of these different private standards, in addition to the legislation, makes it difficult to get an overview of the animal welfare regulation and control arena. For the sake of the farmers, the animal welfare inspectors, the consumers, and the animals we conclude that it is important that policymakers consider this arena as a whole and not their own regulation as a single phenomenon.Abstract The current shift moves the governance of animal welfare away from the government towards the private market and the consumers. We have studied the intentions, content, and on-farm inspection results from different sets of animal welfare legislation and private standards with an aim to highlight the most important opportunities and risks identified in relation to the trend of increasingly relying on private standards for safeguarding or improving farm animal welfare. Our results show that different focuses, intentions, animal welfare requirements, inspection methods (i.e., methods for measuring and evaluating the compliance with a regulation), and inspection results, together with the use of vague wordings and a drive towards more flexible regulations does certainly not facilitate the interpretation and implementation of animal welfare regulations, especially not in relation to each other. Since farmers today often have to comply with several animal welfare regulations, including private standards, it is important to stress that a given regulation should never be seen as a single, stand-alone phenomenon, and the policymakers must hence consider the bigger picture, and apply the standards in relation to other existing regulations. This is especially relevant in relation to the legislation, a level that a private standard can never ignore.

It may be challenging to see how illegal hunting, a crime that ostensibly proceeds as shoot, shovel and shut up in remote rural communities, at all communicates with the regime. Examining the socio-legal interplay between hunters and state regulation, however, clarifies illegal hunting to be part of a politically motivated pattern of dissent that signals hunters' disenfranchisement from the polity. While few contemporary illegal hunters cut conscientious figures like Robin Hood, their violation of illegitimate law may likewise testify to a profound disjuncture between legality and legitimacy. This is the premise taken in the following research. Here it is observed contemporary Swedish hunters experience the deliberative system pertaining to wildlife and wolf conservation to be systematically stacked against them and unable to serve as a site for critical law-making that provides equal uptake of all voices. One manifestation of their growing disenfranchisement is the establishment of a counterpublic mobilised on the basis of shared semantics for the sorts of deliberative deficits they argue befall them in the present. Within the remit of their counterpublic, hunters undertake and justify illegal hunting along with other forms of disengaging dissent like abstentions, non-compliance, boycotts and conscientious refusals with state agencies. The research captures hunters' dissent in Smith's deliberative disobedience, a deliberative and Habermasian grounded reinterpretation of the more familiar classical theory of civil disobedience. On this perspective, illegal hunting signals a deficit in the deliberative system, which hunters both bypass by taking an alternative conduit for contestation, and draw attention to when they undertake dissent. The dissent in this case study is deconstructed in terms of its grammar—as simultaneously engaging and disengaging with the premises of power—and in terms of its communicative content. Set within the field of Environmental Communication, the dissertation is intended as an empirical and theoretical contribution to a discussion on the boundaries of political dialogue in the context of civic disenfranchisement: it asks whether some of hunters' dissent may be parsed as a call for a more inclusive debate, or as dialogic acts in themselves. Finally, it presents ways toward short-term and longer-term reconciliation of hunters with the deliberative system, drawing on the work of contestatory citizen mini-publics from the third wave of deliberative democracy.

Illegal hunting has constituted an expression of contested legitimacy of wildlife regulation across the world for centuries. In the following report, we critically engage with the state of the art on the illegal hunting phenomenon. We do so to reveal emerging scholarly perspectives on the crime. Specifically, we aim to capture the complexity of illegal hunting as a socio-political phenomenon rather than an economically motivated crime. To do so, we adopt a critical perspective that pays particular attention to the societal processes that contribute to the criminalization of historically accepted hunting practices. To capture perspectives on illegal hunting, fifteen researchers from various countries participated in an illegal hunting workshop in Copenhagen 16-17th June 2014. A primary contribution of the research workshop was to bring together criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists and geographers, each equipped with their own research perspective, to engage in a critical and interdisciplinary discussion on how to apprehend and constructively address the challenges of illegal hunting in contemporary society. A majority of those that attended were primarily based in the Nordic and the UK context, which motivated a strong focus on the illegal hunting that currently takes places in these countries. Similar trends of illegal hunting were identified across Europe, many of which traced from EU legislation on the reintroduction of large carnivores or other controversial wildlife conservation projects. In the workshop, proceedings took the form of individual presentations, plenary discussions and group work. Common themes that emerged from these presentations were: illegal hunting as communicating socio-political resistance; the targeting of specific species based on its symbolism or environmental history; illegal hunting as symptom of class struggles; the role of rewilding and domestication of nature on wildlife regulation; corruption, complicity and conflicts of loyalty in enforcement, and discrepancies and discontinuities in legality. These themes were framed in an understanding of illegal hunting as a complex, multifaceted expression that transgresses livelihood based motivation. Critical discussions conceptualised illegal hunting as a crime of dissent. This meant situating crimes as everyday forms of resistance against the regulatory regime. In so doing, the relationship between hunters and public authorities was highlighted as a potential source of disenfranchisement. In this interactionist perspective, illegal hunting tells us not just about the rationales of the offenders. It also elucidates the broader context in which non-compliance with regulation serves as symptoms of democratic and legitimacy deficits on the state level. Erratic transitions in legislation and a subsequent discord between legal, cultural and moral norms in society were identified as factors that contribute to the conflict. Crucially, the research workshop and the report contribute with three perspectives. First, it emphasizes the need to uncover the grey areas of complicity in wildlife crime. Previously corruption, bribery and selective law enforcement have been associated with wildlife trafficking in the global south, but this understanding is too blunt for the complicity that exists in many other contexts. Here conflicts of loyalty exist across several strata of society and differ in degrees. In highlighting this fact, we show a more opaque and contingent climate of complicity around illegal hunting in Northern Europe and elsewhere. Second, as crimes of dissent seeking to publicise injustices, illegal hunting and its associated resistance tactics are counterproductive by constituting a 'dialogue of the dead'. With this is mean that such communication is prone to distortion, misunderstanding and exaggeration and does no favors to hunters. There is consequently a need to move to a clarity of messages, as in institutionalised diogue processes. Third, hunting regulation cannot be seen in isolation to the broader differences in society in terms of values, economic factors and development. Research questions for future scholarship concluded the workshop and are summarized in the report. In terms of illuminating the junctures at which additional research is needed, these questions may provide important guidance. Above all, the report is intended as help for policy-makers, wildlife managers and law enforcement in better understanding and responding to the complexities of illegal hunting. We hope this will lead to more long-term preventative measures that address the core of the issue rather than proximate causes. The workshop was organized by the Environmental Communication Division of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The event constituted a part of the FORMAS funded research project Confronting challenges to political legitimacy of the natural resource management regulatory regime in Sweden - the case of illegal hunting in Sweden whose members include Erica von Essen, Dr. Hans Peter Hansen and Dr. Helena Nordström Källström from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Tarla R. Peterson from Texas A&M University and Dr. Nils Peterson from North Carolina State University.