Suchergebnisse

The aim of this thesis paper is to integrate three important thematic aspects i.e., improve qualities in the urban ecological situation, provide ideas for handling stormwater flooding and ideas to improve socio-economic aspects for inhabitants. The integration of ideas is illustrated in a masterplan program-sketch in three phases. Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh. Dhaka is a densely populated fast developing city. The chronological changes of the natural setting due to rapid growth of urbanization in Dhaka city creates an imbalance with nature and disrupts urban ecology. The green and blue structures are replaced with built areas and hard surfaces. The situation for urban ecology in the city of Dhaka affects storm water flooding and social wellbeing. The methods used for background knowledge to this proposal are literature reviews, document searches, interviews, GIS analysis and a study of role models from different countries and contexts where a variety of solutions, proposals and functions inspired me in my own sketching. The methods and the background for this thesis were used to formulate guidelines to support the overall program-sketch for the three phases in a masterplan. The first phase program-sketch includes redesigning the informal settlements in Karail into better living conditions for the dwellers according to Patrick Geddes theories by keeping the overall road- and block structure and provide new shelter, job opportunities and adding recreational values to the area. The second phase concentrated on re-establishing of water streams in a green park according to the philosophy of Fredrick Law Olmsted, and in the third phase the former airport Tejgaon to become a large green area for social meetings, recreation activities for the Dhaka city inhabitants and provide job opportunities for the informal dwellers. The discussion on strengths, limitations, challenges, and further development ends with a conclusion that it is of great importance to work integrated with the three thematic aspects urban ecology, storm water flooding and social wellbeing on an overall level and with understanding of the issues among both specialists, politicians, and inhabitants to be able to implement necessary change towards sustainability.

The 'socioenvironmental state' conceptualisation probes how contested, shifting, emergent boundaries of the state contain the possibilities for transformative change in the Anthropocene. The paper outlines a research programme capable of addressing the questions: who becomes authorised to govern change, who is required to make changes on the ground, and what subjectivities and pathways emerge in the context of rapid rate change? The conceptualisation unpacks three boundaries: state– society, its socionatural emergence, and the relationships between boundary-making and belonging to address these questions and better account for the successes and failures of attempts at governing an uncertain, rapidly changing world. In this analysis, 'environmental change' arises as a stochastic, relational becoming – ecologies and resources are emergent with the social-politics of governing them – suggesting that more analytical attention is required on how 'environmental challenges' and their 'drivers of change' are conceived and delimited. Together, these theoretical insights help reveal the way that the micro-politics of local resource use and the contradictory acceptance and refusals of authority and subjection are not only products of, but also productive of, larger scale political economies, socionatures, governance, and political struggles. The aim is to contribute towards a reimagination of political authority that begins to capture the complex interplay between our attempts at governing a changing world and the inadvertent authorisations, inclusions, and exclusions that we produce in those efforts. The paper partially illustrates the conceptual ideas with an account of forestry and climate change in Nepal. In a context wherein programmes to govern resources have become of global concern, probing the implications of these points is crucial. It is not only that states govern resources with particular consequences for 'environmental change' or 'sustainability', but also that the act of governing resources (re)produces the socioenvironmental boundaries of the state with profound implications for how future transformations can unfold.

This dissertation analyses how the Government runs governmental agencies. Which management methods can and may the Government apply for the purpose of implementing political decisions through administratively independent agencies? Can political actions be conducted with rational methods? In accordance with Swedish administrative practice, Government and Parliament are to set up comprehensive objectives and establish the principal direction of activities, while the agencies are responsible for the implementation of the political decisions. The subject of the dissertation is primarily results-based reports, and results are analysed and assessed relative to the objects. The purpose of this study is to compare how management should work according to political programs and intensions, and how it actually works in Parliament, the Government and Government Office, and agencies. It is based primarily on a close scrutiny of management in eight agencies and in the Government Office, Government and Parliament. Special attention is devoted to the implementation of results-based management in Swedish administration, and also to relations between politicians and civil servants at various stages of the management process. Considerable differences between objectives and reality are found, and also considerable differences between different agencies and fields of activity. Certain parts of the results-based management model have been over-applied, due to the fact that the Government has set too many and too detailed objectives. Other parts are under-applied, and there are too few examples of systematic follow-ups and assessment of activities. Results-based management contains valuable features, primarily that results awareness is emphasized in agencies, but the Government has taken its management ambitions too far. The consequence is that necessary developments and changes in the activities of the agencies have not been implemented.

The SURE-Farm project aims to analyse, assess and improve the resilience and sustainability of farming systems in Europe. Farming systems face a whole range of social, ecological, economic and political disturbances and changes, such as sharp market fluctuations, severe weather events, climate change, new technologies, changes in consumer preferences and in governance structures and so forth, operating at a range of scales (local, regional, national and global). Some stresses on the farm system can be predicted (e.g. retirement of farmers), while other shocks are more uncertain and unpredictable (e.g. flooding, sudden price drop, illness). Project's WP2 aims to comprehensively understand farmers' risk behaviour and risk management (RM) decisions, and to develop and test RM strategies and decision support tools that farmers can use to cope with increasing economic, environmental and social uncertainties and risks. WP2 contributes to the development of RM in EU farming systems by understanding and eliciting farmers' risk perceptions and preferences; learning about farmers' adaptive behaviour; learning capacity and preferred improvements of current RM tools; designing and analysing improved strategies to deal with extreme weather; and co-creating improved RM tools and map-related institutional challenges.

Three alternative scenarios to the much debated present organisation of the Lithuanian State forest sector are examined: (i) the integrated, where all functions are delegated to one central administrative authority – the Danish prototype, (ii) the commercialised, where State forests are managed by a commercial State company – the Irish prototype, and (iii) the minimalistic, where only negligible forest areas of special importance remain in State ownership – the Swedish prototype. The scenarios are assessed according to six imperatives: (i) sort out the ambiguity of the present structure, (ii) increase the profitability, (iii) reduce the level of public spending, (iv) accommodate changes in ownership structure, (v) rely on a holistic approach, and (vi) comply with the national forest policy. If adopted, any of the scenarios would most likely improve the various elements of State forestry, although in substantially different ways. Politicians will take the final decision that may be supported by the findings of this study.

The thesis has two purposes. The first is to understand the organizational forms of the public administration when it participates in international rule making processes. The second purpose investigates democratic implications of internationalization of the Swedish state administration. A theoretical framework, combining theories of governance with ideas on resource dependence and a neo-institutional approach, is applied to three empirical cases. The cases follow decision making processes within the European Employment Strategy, The Kyoto Protocol for reduction of green house gasses and negotiations on trade facilitation within the WTO. The studied processes can be described as complex and fragmented, containing multiple types of actors and parallel arenas, complex technical material and bureaucratic processes. They were also characterised by the fact that policy was created throughout the course of the processes. They also seemed to lack an ending and were to a high degree bound by their history. The administrations' response resulted in an organisational form that is theoretically developed in the study – enclaves. Enclaves contain members from different organizations, both private and state organizations and the work within them is carried out in an informal and interactive way. They are de-coupled units with stable membership that is related to positions in the hierarchy. As opposed to networks, enclaves are not self-organizing but the membership is mainly controlled by state-actors. The second aim of the study is carried out through a number of indicators derived from the deliberative and the representative models of democracy. The blurring of responsibilities, the lack of transparency and the barriers for entrance into the enclaves made the organisational forms of the administration seem problematic in relation to the representative model. However other features of the enclaves seemed to support a more communicative logic of action, leaving the deliberative model more promising as a way of understanding the administrations' work as democratically legitimate. Still, the analysis showed that the deliberative model also faced some challenges in terms of lack of openness and inclusion of all relevant stake holders.

Environmental conflicts of interest are important to account for when environmental policies are designed. This paper explores the quantitative connection between urban waste water treatment, coastal eutrophication, and fish biomass in the mesotrophic Gulf of Riga (northern Europe). The probable effect on the water quality from one clearly defined abatement measure, improved urban sewage treatment has been studied. Furthermore, the implementation cost and the likely effect on total fish biomass have also been assessed. Computer simulations using the previously published model CoastMab suggested that good water quality according to the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive could be achieved if urban sewage treatment would be upgraded to Nordic and German standards, and not only around the Gulf of Riga but in the whole Baltic Sea drainage basin. The Secchi depth would double according to these simulations while total phosphorus and summer chlorophyll concentrations would decrease by 54% and 53%, respectively. The total fish biomass should be expected to decrease by about 42% if "good" water quality (as defined in European Union directives) should be achieved. However, changes in total fish biomass could also be offset by changes in other important determinants such as climate related variables or fishing pressure. The study estimated that it could take about 20-40 years after abatement action for the trophic state in the Gulf to stabilise again. Upgrading urban sewage treatment to this extent would cost 468-1,118 million euros per year. Treatment could have substantial positive effects on the water quality of the Gulf but could also have adverse side effects on the total fish biomass.

In recent years evaluation has become a very important element in the public administration. The Swedish state administration to a significant extent both evaluates and is evaluated. This means that the evaluating state is at the same time the evaluated state. In this dissertation the institutionalization of evaluation is studied in a field within which this development has been particularly lively and interesting, namely the field of higher education. The dissertation focuses on evaluation activity that has been carried out in conjunction with central public authorities within higher education: the Office of the Chancellor of the Universities and Colleges in Sweden, the National Swedish Board of Universities and Colleges, and the Office of the University Chancellor, and encompasses the period 1964-1995. A newly revived research tradition within political science – historical institutionalism – is used as a perspective and a methodology. Since the application of this tradition has not yet been fully tested, another purpose is to examine the practical utility of this analytical tool and the kind of knowledge that it produces. The dissertation thereby combines the fields of education policy, evaluation research and institutional theory. The beginning of the institution has been dated to the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. In the dissertation the forces behind the initiation of the institution are taken up. Events and developments in the field that have influenced the further development of the institution have been identified and analyzed. Developments reveal that the institution has been stable during the entire period of time under study, despite some changes. The use of historical institutionalism as a perspective and methodology has proven satisfactory on a general level. However, special solutions have been required as problems and ambiguities have arisen. The dissertation concludes with reflections on the practical utility of historical institutionalism in political science research.

Already from the title of this dissertation can two important points be made. The first is that the dissertation is about the relationship between central and local government, more specifically in Sweden today. The second point is that this relationship is seen from a balance of power perspective, where the relative power of the actors is an empirical question rather than derived from a given hierarchical structure. Such a perspective is based on analysing the actors as interdependent. The central government can thus be dependent on the local government, as well as the other way around, and this interdependence can vary over time and between policy areas. This perspective differs from that of most studies, which often see the relationship either in terms of steering (that local governments are executing centrally determined policies) or local self-government (that the Swedish local governments has a constitutionally protected right to handle their own affairs within certain legal limits). I argue that both these perspectives take a hierarchical point of departure and are, to a large degree, static in their approaches, which means that they risk not discovering, or have problem explaining, changes in the relation between central and local government. To view the relationship between central and local government as interdependence leads to a focus on the resources that the actors possess. For public organisations the most relevant resources are: authority-related resources, financial resources, political resources, informational resources, and organisational resources. The central government has a power advantage concerning authority and financial and political resources while local governments generally have an advantage in terms of informational and organisational resources. The policy area chosen is Swedish refugee policy. The basic paradox within this area is that the central government grants the refugees asylum but cannot give them a place to live without the permission of the local government. This permission is accomplished through voluntary agreements signed between the National Integration Office and the local governments. It is then the local governments that integrate the refugees to Swedish society by providing housing, education, healthcare and so on while the central government is giving the local government a grant to cover the expenses. The central government has lacked political, informational and authority-related resources. The resource used to compensate for this has been the financial resource. By economic incentives the central government has encouraged local governments to increase their refugee reception. This has been the central government's universal weapon and has been used to reduce its vulnerability as well as its sensitivity. For local governments, authority-related and financial resources have been lacking. The resource that the local governments have had, all the way through the time period studied here, is the organisational resource. This is something that the central government simply cannot provide and this is why there is a relationship of interdependence – just as only the central government has authority in its power base, the local level is the only one with organisational resources.

The relationship between the state and municipalities has for the recent decades become increasingly complex, strained and infected. The education policy has for several decades been surrounded by different governing logics and conflicts where the conflict between the state's pursuit of national equality and the local self-determination is prominent. This study examines how this conflict affects the municipal official's approaches to the state's control of the municipal compulsory school through aimed government grants. The study consists of a qualitative interview study of six municipalities with 23 respondents. In each municipality, I have conducted interviews with municipal officials, principals and municipal politicians. The findings show that the aimed government grants should be seen in the field of tension between state and municipality and between politics and professions. Conflicts arise between the municipalities' different conditions as well as their local needs and the state's pursuit of national equality between schools. The municipal officials are assigned significant power regarding how the state and municipal governance is to be put into practice and are therefore given a coordinating central position where they must balance between state requirements, local requirements and school's requirements. The findings indicate that they seem to prioritize the state's target of national equality in favor of the local target of self-determination. The relationship between the state and the municipalities gets exposed through the role conflicts of the municipal officials, which both compete and cooperate. The conclusion is that the municipal officials should be regarded as the state's extended arm, or as "state municipal officials". They possess a double loyalty to the state and local government and must, with this double loyalty, be the guardians of the local and national democracy at the same time. There is a risk that the municipal officials' double democracy loyalty demonstrates that the local democracy ...

In 2017, the Swedish government took the initiative to conduct a country­wide information campaign with the aim of informing the citizens on what to do in the event of a serious crisis or war. In this article the effects of this information campaign are studied through a unique panel survey with identical surveys sent out immediately prior to the campaign and two weeks after the campaign. Concerning the effect, the level of responsibility for civil preparedness ascribed to different actors increased after the campaign, including the responsibility of the citizens. This effect is significant. However, the study reveals no significant effect on the lev­ els of trust with the trust in different authorities and their civil preparedness remaining on a mid­level before as well as after the campaign. Moreover, we do not see any general proof of higher risk perceptions or higher fear of threats as a result of the campaign, with the im­ portant exceptions of fear of measures to destabilise democracy and severe power cuts. In the article it is argued that despite current trends of strong individualisation with effects on media consumption and respect for authorities, the Swedish campaign illustrates that it is still possible to reach the greater part of the population with vital information and also, to at least some extent, affect attitudes.

This is a study of inter-organizational relations, especially of control relations, applied to Swedish state enterprise.The growing interdependence between different parts of society as well as the dynamic environment of organizations bring forward a need for new patterns of interaction. Organizations of very dissimilar types have to cooperate in new areas. The state enterprises have an external environment that exhibit both political and economic characteristics. The control relation, to the owner, may involve both types.The study consists of three parts. Part one present an initial theoretical framework, used in an empirical study (part two). This shows the need for a further development. A revised and enlarged framework is presented in part three. In the initial framework the concept of control, within a systems approach, was the focus of investigation. The approach was traditional and pointed to the importance of structures and of characteristics of the decision process. Control of two levels was discussed — organizational control and control of specific situation. The model suggested was mainly developed for description of control of state enterprises.The empirical study was conducted as an interview study in nine state enterprises. The interviews were of a semi-structured type and the purpose was to gain new insights as to the conditions of control of organizations. The enterprises were selected according to mission, three types were identified: strictly political tasks, strictly economic tasks and a mixture of tasks. The findings were that organizational control differed according to task so that political task gives a more strict control: The differences in control of ongoing avtivity was less pronounced. The most striking finding was the relevance of expectations of control. The empirical study led to demands for a more actor-oriented approach.This was the starting point for the revised and enlarged framework. A review of studies of relations in the systems approach and within a more actor-oriented approach was made. The role of the actor in the organization is discussed. The importance of structural conditions and of process in control is also analyzed. This review and analysis forms the basis for a somewhat different approach to relations. A concept of complexity is developed. This concept involve the total variation in a situation. Complexity is a main factor in perceptions of uncertainty < Coping with uncertainty gives power, which is the prerequisite of control.These concepts are used to form a game approach to control. Control is considered as the result of a game of power. Two types of games are presented — for organizations as a whole and for situations of a deviant character. In both types actors and processes are of prime interest. ; digitalisering@umu

This chapter provides an overview of the status and trends in biodiversity and ecosystem function through assessment of key species and habitats, and summarizes the ecological status of selected Nordic regions. Important habitats across the Nordic coastal region include sea grass beds, kelp forests, blue mussel beds and soft sediments. Declines in sea grass have occurred since the 1970's, most likely due to eutrophication and overfishing. Norwegian kelp forests are recovering following severe losses in the 1960–1970's, most likely due to increased water temperature and changes in grazing pressure. Seabird populations have declined significantly during the last decades, reaching historical lows. Knowledge gaps are identified and a common biodiversity indicator system across the Nordic region is suggested. An indigenous local knowledge perspective is also presented.

This chapter examines the conceptual framework boxes and fluxes on "Institutions and governance and other indirect drivers" (Ch. 1, Fig. 1). International and EU governance of relevance for ecosystem services, biodiversity and water is presented. Policy integration, policy coherence, management regimes and stakeholder involvement is reflected upon. The chapter contributes to further understanding of the current and future challenges for sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. It provides insights in options for integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services into sustainable development strategies and provides examples of current policy conflicts, along with trade-offs and innovative governance strategies for management of natural resources. Policy-makers need to find ways to handle policy conflicts, improve integration of different stakeholders' perspectives and value dimensions including ILK in policymaking, develop new data collection methods for linking biodiversity and ecosystem services, and develop governance systems that enhance transparency, sustainability and human well-being.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the biggest threats against public health in the world. Antimicrobial substances are used within all different sectors and contribute to development of AMR. Global action against irresponsible use of antibiotics and further development of AMR has been of great concern in the last years and risk factors are being pointed out. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have a precarious role in the matter. Insufficient health care systems, poor law enforcement and, high accessibility of over-the-counter drugs (OTCs) are contributing to the unregulated use of antibiotics. Poorly developed surveillance programmes make it hard to correctly analyse the situation of both antimicrobial use (AMU) and AMR. Bangladesh, like its neighbouring countries, faces a lot of challenges regarding public health. One of the major concerns related to public health is access to safe food. Food products can be contaminated with toxins, chemical substances, and microbial organisms, including AMR-bacteria. Furthermore, national programmes for surveillance of AMU and AMR are inadequate. In this study, data from previously done field studies by Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI), Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and newly collected information from interviews were put together to analyse the AMR situation in Bangladesh. Sampling of food products (tomato, chicken, fish) from traditional markets and supermarkets was done at three locations representing rural, peri-urban, and urban areas from November 2018 to June 2019. Samples were tested for prevalence of Salmonella spp, Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholerae. Samples positive for bacteria were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility through disc diffusion test. As a supplement to the analysis of samples, questionnaires to the vendors of the food products were made to provide background information. During 2020, statistical analysis of previously collected data and interviews with stakeholders working with AMR was made. The interviews aimed to serve as baseline information about current conditions regarding AMU and AMR. 320 cultivations of 1589 (20.1%) were positive for bacterial prevalence. 319 of these were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility where 203 (63.6%) were found to be multidrug-resistant (MDR) (resistant to three or more antibiotic groups). Furthermore, interviews with stakeholders stated that surveillance of AMU and AMR in Bangladesh is inadequate, especially within the animal and agriculture sector, and that a one health approach on a government level is needed to improve the situation. To be able to fully analyse the AMR situation in Bangladesh, a nation-wide study would need to be conducted, within all sectors, including both AMU and AMR testing.