Suchergebnisse

Den här avhandlingen undersöker utvecklingen av en elektronisk förvaltning ur ett legitimitetsperspektiv. Det övergripande syftet är att analysera den reella och potentiella förändring som e-förvaltning innebär för den offentliga förvaltningens legitimitetsgrunder, både i form av hur e-förvaltning har formulerats som idé, och hur det konkret har gått till när e-förvaltning har implementerats i praktiken. Avhandlingen består av fem artiklar som undersöker olika aspekter av syftet, från idéerna bakom e-förvaltning på internationell nivå, till implementeringsprocessen på lokal nivå. Den övergripande analysen använder sig av så kallad pragmatisk institutionalism, samt perspektiv på hur legitimitet skapas och upprättshålls i förvaltningen. En fallstudie av en svensk kommun utgör det huvudsakliga empiriska materialet. Detta material kompletteras med en mindre studie av ytterligare en svensk kommun, samt dokumentstudier av den Europeiska Unionens policy för e-förvaltning. Avhandlingen lyfter fram fyra huvudsakliga slutsatser: (1) e-förvaltningsreformer bidrar till skapandet av en ny praxis, där den praktiska utvecklingen och tillämpningen av IT blir ett allt viktigare inslag i den studerade kommunens organisering och serviceutövning, (2) detta bidrar till en omorganisering av aktörsroller- och förhållanden. Ledande tjänstemän i kommunen övertar den strategiska styrningen av utvecklingsprocessen från lokala politiker, medan kommunens närbyråkrater kringgås genom att medborgaren förväntas ta ett större eget ansvar för interaktionen med förvaltningen, (3) legitimitetsgrunder såsom brukarinflytande och kundanpassning placeras därmed i förgrunden medan den politiska styrningen och bedömningen hamnar i bakgrunden, (4) dessa förändringar tyder på allt starkare inslag av en gör-detsjälv-logik, där legitimitet i genomförandeprocesser främst grundar sig i individens möjlighet till självbetjäning och självförvaltning via elektroniska kanaler. ; This thesis explores the development of an electronic government from a legitimacy perspective. The overarching aim is to analyse the actual and potential processes of change and impacts of e-government on bases of legitimacy within public administration – both with regards to how the ideas behind e-government have been formulated as well as how e-government in practise has been realised. The thesis consists of five articles that examine different aspects of the overarching aim; from the ideas behind e-government on an international level, to the practical implementation process in local government. The overarching analysis uses an institutional perspective and perspectives on the creation and maintenance of legitimacy in public administration. An in-depth case study of a Swedish municipality provides the main empirical material for the analysis. In turn, the material is supplemented with a smaller case study of another Swedish municipality, as well as document studies of the e-government policy of the European Union. The analysis arrives at four overarching conclusions: (1) egovernment reforms contribute to new practises, in which the development and application of IT is becoming increasingly central for the local organisation and the provision of public services, (2) this contributes to a reorganisation of actor roles and relationships. Leading public officials shoulder the strategic steering usually confined to local politicians, whilst street-level bureaucrats are circumvented by citizens since citizens are expected to shoulder greater individual responsibility in their interaction with administrations, (3) in turn, certain bases for legitimacy are placed in the foreground, in particular user influence and customer adaptation, whilst political steering and evaluation are downplayed, (4) these developments point at the emergence of a do-it-yourself-logic, in which legitimacy is mainly based on creating sufficient preconditions for individual selfservices and self-government through the electronic channels of administrations.

Young people's view of nuclear power and democracy since the 1980s: attitude epidemics, path dependencies and technical-political cultural revolution. In the wake of the leftist wave, young people's criticism of the system has diminished, both in terms of criticism of the nuclear-based energy system and of the nature and workings of the political system. Baby-boomers (people born in the 1940s and '50s) in particular have changed their attitude and become less hostile to the establishment. But how did this change in attitudes occur? How has young people's view of technology and democracy changed during the past few decades? Based on data from the SOM Institute gathered between 1987 and 2005, this final report presents the results of one of the two studies conducted in the project "Towards activism or indifference? How Swedish young people view democracy and the environment, science and technology in an international and longitudinal perspective". First a theory and a method are proposed for analyzing what is called in this report "attitude epidemics", referring to the fact that attitudes spread like wildfire or epidemics, leading to what societal researchers call "path dependencies". Then age-versus-generation differences are studied, as well as a large number of other factors, with regard to attitudes to technology, nuclear power and democracy in particular, or the way democracy works in Sweden. Younger people are found to be the most critical of nuclear power, while they are most satisfied with democracy, even though gender, risk perceptions, party affiliation and political positioning are some of the factors that also influence these analyses on the individual level. The "epidemic effect" and path dependencies do not show their strength in these individual analyses, but all the more in the analysis of time series where the computer and IT revolution is found to be very strongly linked to the strong growth in acceptance of nuclear power. Using new communication technologies is somehow associated with a decline in hostility toward technology and nuclear power. But many cause-and-effect relationships in this attitudinal and technical-political "cultural revolution" still remain to be explored. ; I vänstervågens svall har ungdomens systemkritik avklingat, både i bemärkelsen kritik mot det kärnkraftsbaserade energisystemet och mot det politiska systemets väsen och funktionssätt. Främst 1940- och 1950-talisterna har ändrat inställning och blivit mindre systemfientliga. Men hur gick denna förändring i attityder egentligen till? Hur har synen på teknik och demokrati bland ungdomar förändrats senaste årtiondena? Med användning av SOM-institutets data 1987–2005 presenterar denna slutrapport resultat från en av de två delstudierna inom projektet "Mot aktivism eller ointresse? Svenska ungdomars syn på demokrati och teknologi i ett internationellt och longitudinellt perspektiv". Först föreslås teori och metod för att analysera det som i denna rapport kallas "attitydepidemier", att attityder sprider sig lavinartat, och genom dem etablering av vad samhällsforskare kallar "stigberoenden". Därefter studeras ålders- kontra generationsskillnader, liksom ett stort antal andra faktorer, med avseende på attityder till framför allt tekniken kärnkraft och demokrati eller demokratins funktionssätt i Sverige. Yngre visar sig vara de mest kritiska mot kärnkraften men de mest nöjda med demokratin, även om kön, riskuppfattningar, partianhängarskap och politisk positionering är några av de faktorer som också spelar roll i dessa analyser på individnivå. "Epidemieffekten" och stigberoenden visar inte sin styrka i dessa individanalyser, men desto mer i analysen av tidsserier där dator- och IT-revolutionen visar sig mycket starkt förbunden med den starka tillväxten i kärnkraftsacceptans. Att använda nya kommunikationstekniker hänger på något sätt samman med minskning av teknikfientlighet även till kärnkraften. Men många orsakssamband i denna attitydmässiga och teknisk-politiska "kulturrevolution" är fortfarande outforskade. ; "Mot aktivism eller ointresse? Svenska ungdomars syn på demokrati och teknologi i ett internationellt och longitudinellt perspektiv"

There is no doubt now that energy is fundamental to our development. Global energy trends such as higher energy demand and prices, big differences across regions, structural changes in an oil and gas industry increasingly dominated by national companies, the prospect of irreversible climate change, as well as demand for energy security all highlight the need for a rapid transition to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign energy system. The search for energy alternatives involving locally available and renewable resources is one of the main concerns of governments, scientists and business people worldwide. As researchers tackle problems according to global trends, an overwhelming body of research focusing on bioenergy in relation to other types of renewable energy might illustrate the role bioenergy has as the most important renewable energy source for the near and medium-term future. Thus, analyzing the amount of existing research, we found that about 50% (4,911 records) of 9,724 renewable energy records available were bioenergy records. We also found that publications on each of the four main sources of biomass (agriculture, forest, waste and other) represent about one quarter of the 4,911 bioenergy records retrieved. Biomass – the fourth largest energy source after coal, oil and natural gas - is the largest and most important renewable energy option at present and can be used to produce different forms of energy. As a result, it is, together with the other renewable energy options, capable of providing all the energy services required in a modern society, both locally and in most parts of the world. Renewability and versatility are, among many other aspects, important advantages of biomass as an energy source. Moreover, compared to other renewables, biomass resources are common and widespread across the globe. The sustainability potential of global biomass for energy is widely recognized. For example, the annual global primary production of biomass is equivalent to the 4,500 EJ of solar energy captured each year. About 5% of this energy, or 225 EJ, should cover almost 50% of the world's total primary energy demand at present. These 225 EJ are in line with other estimates which assume a sustainable annual bioenergy market of 270 EJ. However, the 50 EJ biomass contributed to global primary energy demand of 470 EJ in 2007, mainly in the form of traditional non-commercial biomass, is only 10% of the global primary energy demand. The potential for energy from biomass depends in part on land availability. Currently, the amount of land devoted to growing energy crops for biomass fuels is only 0.19% of the world's total land area and only 0.5-1.7% of global agricultural land. Although the large potential of algae as a resource of biomass for energy is not taken into consideration in this report, there are results that demonstrate that algae can, in principle, be used as a renewable energy source. From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the report leads to a simple conclusion: Biomass potential for energy production is promising. In most cases, shifting the energy mix from fossil fuels to renewables can now be done using existing technology. Investors in many cases have a reasonably short pay-back because of good availability of lowcost biomass fuels. The latter is of course dependant on local incentives, however. Overall, the future of bioenergy is also to a large extent determined by policy. Thus, an annual bioenergy supply covering global energy demand in 2050, superseding 1,000 EJ, should be possible with sufficient political support. Global production of biomass and biofuel is growing rapidly due to the increasing price of fossil fuels, growing environmental concerns, and considerations regarding the security and diversification of energy supply. There are many scenarios that predict a high potential for biomass in the future. There have also been many studies performed in recent decades to estimate the future demand and supply of bioenergy. Overall, the world's bioenergy potential seems to be large enough to meet the global energy demand in 2050. The current stock of standing forest is a large reservoir of bioenergy and in line with the theoretical potential of biomass energy. However, most of the research studies on biomass potentials ignore existing studies on demand and supply of wood, despite the extensive literature and data on the subject. Taking into account data from a variety of international sources, rough estimates of the energy production potential of woody biomass from forestry show that, in theory, the demand for wood fuel and industrial roundwood in 2050 can be met, without further deforestation, although regional shortages may occur. However, the shift in the energy mix requires much more investment in infrastructure, equipment and in some cases R&D. Moreover, a prerequisite for achieving bioenergy's substantially high potential in all regions is replacing current inefficient and low-intensive management systems with best practices and technologies.

Knowledge and valuation of ecosystem services are important components for reaching the governmental goals for improving the natural environments. Recreational fishing has more than one million practitioners nationwide.Knowledge about the fishers and their catches increases the ability to assess whether the ecosystem services are retained. In addition, it gives means for evaluating the actions for the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of oceans, lakes and rivers. Knowledge of recreational fishing is also needed in order to follow up the details in its environmental objectives relating to outdoor recreation, tourism industry and the governmental goals in the open-air policy. The EU's common fisheries policy, the Swedish environmental policy and Swedish fisheries policy all emphasize that ecosystem-based management should be implemented. Thus, there are needs for knowledge of the ecosystems which are exploited by humans. Fish populations are important components of aquatic ecosystems, and are affected by the surrounding environment, while they themselves affect the structures of the aquatic food-webs. Fishes often have regulatory functions in the ecosystems, and thereby contribute to valuable ecosystem services in addition to the more obvious services as providing food and recreation for humans. Mostly issues regarding the impacts of fishing-related activities on fish populations have been focused on commercial fishing. A widespread and intensive commercial fishing may lead to the depletion of stocks or, at worst, a collapse of the fish populations; the fish population reaching such low levels that recovery may be difficult. In recent years the knowledge of the impact of recreational fishing on aquatic systems has increased, but still the effects of recreational fishing on ecosystem are relatively poorly studied, compared to commercial fisheries. For many, it may be difficult to accept that recreational fishing may affect fish populations; each fisher/angler favour just their own fisheries without bearing in mind that although the small influence from each individual fisherman may be small, it will be significant when many fishermen harvest from the same stock. Recreational fishing and its effects on the aquatic ecosystems are often neglected in fisheries science, mainly due to the lack of data to estimate recreational fishing harvest with a sufficient resolution to calculate the effort and landings of recreational fisheries. In this report, we try to give an overall picture of the fish species needing increased knowledge in order to get an estimate of harvest in recreational fisheries and thereby the effect on fish populations. Furthermore, we also try to give a picture of international studies and finally to give examples of methods concerning how and to what extent one may conduct studies in Sweden. Our proposal is largely based on combining different surveys in specific areas that we believe can be used to scale-up the results. We suggest data collation of recreational fishing is concentrated to areas with public waters, because in other water bodies the land owner has sovereignty under the law. The focus areas we point out are those already having some data collection, both in terms of recreational fishing and environmental monitoring / stock assessment and where there are non-fishing protective areas nearby. Collection of data should not be made in all areas at every year; three areas are suggested to become intensive areas (data collection every year) and the remaining areas data collection will take place every three years - on a rolling schedule. The sampling methods we recommend are national survey (i.e. mail and telephone surveys), recording of catches in fishing tourism, voluntary catch registration of individual anglers, collection of data from fishing competitions, on-site inventory of fishing effort (e.g. count fetter and trailers), inventory of catch per effort (e.g. by creel-surveys) and fish tagging studies. For the west coast we propose one focus area, Älgöfjorden. At the coasts of Bohuslän County and the northern part of Halland County the fishing pressure is high for lobster and crab and therefore a focus area should be established in this area. We suggest that data are collected by on-site visits for inventorying fishing effort (counting numbers of pots / buoys / fishing people), combined with catch registration can return an estimates on catch per effort, and this can then be applied to a larger area. Another potential focus area is the area around Torhamn (Blekinge) which, for example, is popular area recreational fishing for pike. Torhamn is one of three national reference areas for coastal fish monitoring on the East Coast and has been monitored since 2002. It is also desirable to study aspects of fishing mortality in recreational fisheries. To our knowledge, there are no national studies that have explored the effects of catch-and-release in natural environments over long periods of time. The Bråviken Bay is a relatively limited and well-defined area having considered high recreational fishing pressure, but large time series from fish monitoring programmes are lacking. This site will give good opportunities for studying pike, pikeperch and to some extent also sea trout, data collection is suggested to take place every third year. An adjacent area is Kvädöfjärden having fish monitoring time series from 1989. Closely situated to Kvädöfjärden is Licknevarpefjärden where fishing has been prohibited since 1970. Additional areas that are of interest to follow up with some regularity are Asköfjärden, Gålö and / or Lagnö in the Stockholm archipelago. In the future it might be fruitful to shift data collection intensity between Torhamn in Blekinge and an area in Stockholm archipelago. Such decision should be based on factors like where the most practical solutions / contact network can be found. In the Gulf of Bothnia angling with nets, traps and similar gears are relatively widespread. We suggest that Långvind Bay in Gävleborg County, is an area for the study of recreational fishing in a relatively sparsely populated county and is most likely typical for large parts of the Gulf of Bothnia. Data collection is suggested to take place every year. As for the Gulf of Bothnia the recreational fishery in the Bothnian Bay are mainly targeting the whitefish, sea trout and, to some extent also perch. By monitoring the recreational fisheries in Kinnbäcksfjärden near Piteå, we hope to be able to describe the local recreational fishing patterns and then apply these values for catch per effort for most of the coastal strip of the Bothnian Bays. Recreational fishing is widespread in all of the five largest lakes in Sweden, and there is a need for data collection in all five. In Lake Vänern, Lake Vättern and Lake Mälaren there are fish monitoring data of good quality and regularity. However, in the two smallest lakes, Lake Hjälmaren and Lake Storsjön in Jämtland County, few test fishing areas and few studies regarding recreational fishing have been made. For Lake Vättern we suggest that data collection is done every year; especially the archipelago in the northern part of the lake will be an excellent area for the study of recreational fishing for pike. In the other four lakes we propose that data collection is made every third year. By studying recreational fishing - its practitioners, scope, gear-use, and harvest, it will be possible to achieve a more detailed view of how recreational fishing is done and how it varies along the Swedish coast and in the five largest lakes. Such knowledge is important for the managers of common fisheries resources and the monitoring of environmental status and evaluating the recreational goals established by the Swedish governments.