Scholarship in international law aims at addressing global forest governance comprehensively. This article reviews the recent contribution Global Forest Governance - Legal Concepts and Policy Trends by Rowena Maguire and puts it into the perspective of recent political and policy science research on global forests. While finding Maguire's volume being a very timely and valuable contribution to the interdisciplinary discussions on international forest governance, we identify some weaknesses which are mostly rooted in methodological critique and a lack of a systematic framework for analysis.
Biodrivmedel blev efter millennieskiftet en alltmer prioriterad energikälla för EU och ansågs kunna stävja både klimathot och energissäkerhetsproblem samtidigt som drivmedelsproduktionen skulle gynna sysselsättningen i jordbruket. EUkommissionen formulerade 2007 ett mål om att ersätta 10 % av transportenergin till biodrivmedel. Snabbt uppkom dock en strid mellan en grupp av aktörer (miljörörelse och livsmedelsindustri) som såg biodrivmedelssatsningen som ett hot mot både miljön och livsmedelssäkerheten medan en annan grupp bestående av företrädesvis biodrivmedelsintressenter såg det som viktigt att behålla och utveckla EU:s mål för att rädda både klimat och miljö. Motsättningarna som uppkommit väcker frågor kring vilka logiker som legat bakom detta. Avhandlingens syfte är att analysera EU:s biodrivmedelspolicy, vilka aktörer och nätverk som har format denna process, vilka problem och lösningar som dessa aktörer och nätverk argumenterat för i processen, samt hur de har agerat för att mobilisera stöd för sina ståndpunkter. Detta har kopplats till teorier om nätverksstyrning, förekomsten av utlösande händelser i policyprocessen, resursberoende i nätverksmodellen samt på vilket sätt managementteori utövat inflytande. Metoden har varit att utifrån dokumentstudier rekonstruera det historiska förloppet och de aktörer som medverkat i processen. Avhandlingens visar att en förhållandevis liten grupp aktörer har haft ett stort inflytande över policyprocessen från det att problemen som biodrivmedel var satta att lösa definierades i slutet av 80-talet till det att hållbarhetsstandarder utvecklades och implementerades. Dessa aktörer har funnits i policynätverkens kärna och har som ett av sina centrala mål velat utarbeta globala regelverk för råvaruhandeln. De miljöorganisationer som medverkat i processen har genom resursberoenden till stor del varit underordnade denna grupp. Processerna har innehållit ett stort inslag av strategisk planläggning men även utlösande händelser som klimat- och livsmedelskriser har varit viktiga för att motivera politiska beslut. ; Biofuels became a prioritized energy source for the EU in the new millennium. It was believed that biofuels would suppress both climate change and problems with energy security, and would simultaneously benefit agricultural employment. The EU Commission decided in 2007 that 10 % of the energy used in transportation would be replaced by biofuels. This was, however, soon criticized by a group of actors (environmental associations and the food industry) that saw the biofuels initiative as a threat to both the environment and food security. The biofuels proponents, on the other hand, argued that it was important to maintain and develop the EU's biofuels objectives to save both the climate and the environment. These contradictions raised my interest to understand and analyze the logics that lie behind these different perspectives on the same issue. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the EU's biofuels policy, which actors and networks shaped this process, which problems and solutions these actors and networks put forward in the process, and how they have acted to mobilize support for their positions. Theoretically, I have applied theories on policy networks, the occurrence of triggering events in the policy process, resource dependence between actors and networks, and how management theory can be used to understand how policy develops. The main results are that a relatively small group of actors has had a strong influence on the policy process. These actors have been at the core of the policy community. The environmental organizations involved in the process have been subordinate to this policy community through resource dependencies. One actor network was formed that wanted to increase the amount of biofuels, while another was formed to protect the forest and soil from heavy exploitation. It took over 20 years before these contradicting efforts collided. This thesis concludes that the process contained large elements of strategic planning and that triggering events such as climate and food crises have been important to justify political decisions.
The deliverable D6.1 of the LIFT project explores what types of discourses are used in six European Union (EU) member states' Rural Development Programs (RDP) and other agricultural policy documents and how they incorporate ecological approaches acrossthree Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) periods. This multiple case study highlights similarities and differences in the dominant discourses as emerging from national policy documents in the following selected EU member states: France, Germany (Bavaria), Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. It also demonstrates how discourse analysis can be used to gain understanding about the dominant discourses expressed in these documents in relation to how ecological approaches are defined, the policy rationale for encouraging ecological approaches and the expected consequences of doing so. Conceptually, we focused on two types of discourses identified from the literature: 1) the three CAP discourses: i) neomercantilism; ii) neoliberalism and iii) multifunctionality, and 2) the five socio-political discourses of Rural Development (RD): iv) agri-ruralist, v) hedonist, vi) utilitarian, vii) nature conservation and viii) community sustainability. These types of discourses were together integrated in a model, where each policy discourse depicts agriculture as accomplishing a specific function. The theoretical framework is grounded within a political economy perspective. This means that policy develops because of confrontation between different concerned agents with different interest, pushing for different objectives. The state acts as an intermediary between these agents and aims at ensuring consensus and maintenance of agreement. Policy documents are therefore often the result of competing discourses and contradicting policy objectives. Across EU member states, the results show that ecological approaches are mainly depicted with the multifunctionality discourse with two dominating sub-discourses of nature conservation and agri-ruralism. Nevertheless, we observe an increase in the use of the neomercantilist discourse in the last CAP period. This parallels what the previous literature finds in Commissioners' speeches: a reappearance of the traditional neomercantilist discourse in the CAP agenda 2014-2020. Farming systems (with farming practices) related to agroecology, biodiversity-based and organic farming are among the most commonly mentioned farming systems.
With continued pressure on biodiversity and ever-growing conflicts with human development, qualified systems for scenario modelling, impact assessment and decision support are urgently needed. Such systems must be able to integrate complex models and information from many sources and do so in a flexible and transparent way. To that end, as well as for other complicated and data-intensive biodiversity research purposes, the concept of LifeWatch has emerged. The idea of LifeWatch is to construct e-infrastructure and virtual laboratories by integrating large data sources, computational capacities, and tools for analysis and modelling in an open, serviceoriented architecture. To be efficient and accurate, a continuous inflow of large quantities of data is essential. However, even with new techniques, government-funded monitoring data and research data will not feed the system with up-to-date species information of sufficient scale and resolution. To fill this void, skilled amateur observers (citizen scientists) can contribute to a very valuable extent. After a preparatory phase, a Swedish LifeWatch (SLW) consortium was initiated in 2011. Swedish LifeWatch developed an infrastructure where all components are accessible through open web services. At the SLW Analysis portal, different formats of species and environmental data can be accessed instantly, and integrated, analysed, visualized and downloaded at selected temporal, spatial or taxonomic scales. Swedish LifeWatch currently provides 46 million species observations from eight different databases, all harmonized according to standardized formats and the Dyntaxa taxonomic backbone database. Almost 40 million of these observations were provided by citizens through the online reporting system named the Species Observation System (SOS) or Artportalen. This paper describes this system, as well as the incentives that make it so successful. The citizen science data in the SOS are accessible, together with data from research and monitoring, in the SLW infrastructure, making the latter a powerful instrument for large-scale data extraction, visualization and analysis.
Key Points • Understanding the impacts of SDG 16 on forests and people requires attention to the power dynamics that shape how all 17 SDGs are interpreted and implemented across the Global North and South. • As SDGs were agreed upon by nation states, SDG 16 places a strong emphasis on state power and the rule of law. • Yet inclusive governance requires the involvement of diverse actors, and consideration for customary laws and other non-state forms of rulemaking at global to local scales. • Many national laws governing forests and land use favour political elite, large-scale industry actors and international trade. • The development and strengthening of legal frameworks that support all of the SDGs – including those relevant to human rights, income inequalities, land tenure, gender and environmental protection – requires equal or greater priority than law enforcement. Otherwise, law enforcement will reinforce inequities and unsustainable practices. • SDG 16 provides an opportunity to overcome the stereotypes of the Global North as the referential role model for peace and democracy, by highlighting the role of the North in fostering market inequalities and global conflicts, and drawing attention to barriers to democratic and inclusive participation within the Global North. • How transparency, accountability and justice are conceived and prioritised shapes their impact on forests, as well as the degree to which their achievement either empowers forest-dependent peoples or excludes them from meaningful and informed engagement.
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.
Most studies of emerging Swedish parties and politics have mainly focused on the Swedish Social Democrats and their struggle for democracy and political power, most as a prelude to the so called "Swedish Model". Competing parties have received attention from historians on the national level, but their local origin remains to large extent an open field. The aim of this study is to investigate how local political factors shaped the emerging liberal party organizations in two small Swedish towns. By a case-oriented comparison two towns are contrasted, Skövde in Skaraborg county and Filipstad in Värmland. This thesis suggests that the distinction between national politics and municipal government, based on the interests of economic elites, was transformed during the period 1880-1920. During this period local elections and local government became increasingly sites for political struggle between different parties, with new agendas. With a framework that considered parties in light of their functions rather than organizational types and theoretical concepts borrowed from the sociology of social movements, the thesis main results suggest that political mobilization and liberal party-formation was depending on the local political traditions. The theoretical framework made it possible to pinpoint both similarities and differences between the cases. The results of the study indicate that the historical tradition is central to parties to emerge and flourish. This suggests that it is more meaningful to focus attention on local and regional processes to understand the historical development than has previously been done. ; De svenska partiernas historia är relativt väl känd på nationell nivå, men deras lokala ursprung är mindre utforskat och inte minst gäller det borgerliga partier. I den här avhandlingen undersöks hur lokalpolitiska faktorer formade de framväxande frisinnade, eller liberala, lokalorganisationerna i Filipstad och Skövde. Avhandlingen visar att politisk mobilisering och politisk organisering i städerna i hög grad formades av lokala och regionala politiska traditioner. Den visar också att kommunerna var politiserade långt före att de nationella partierna tog hand om valen och kommunala frågor. Studien visar att det fanns en kontinuitet mellan äldre lokala partier och de lokalavdelningar av nationella partier som etablerades efter sekelskiftet 1900. Det var en kontinuitet som återspeglades såväl ideologiskt som organisatoriskt. Avhandlingens resultat pekar på att det är mer meningsfullt att fokusera uppmärksamheten mot lokala och regionala politiseringsprocesser för att förstå den generella politiska utvecklingen i Sveriges historia än vad som tidigare har gjorts. Anders Forsell är doktorand i historia inom Forskarskolan i regionalt samhällsbyggande. Det här är hans doktorsavhandling.
The ways of organizing political problem solving in society are not static. A pluralistic dynamic society requires a continious reconsideration and adaption of its political institutions, i.e. political institutionalization. Institutionalization demands prior organizing activities among actors for political aims. Organizing activities can be seen both internally, externally or between existing organisations and institutions . The degree of institutionalization reflects the organizing activities' survival capacity. The higher the degree of institutionalization the more likely it is that the organizing activity will become a formally based organisation or institution, or will change the dominating values of organisations or institutions. The degree of institutionalization is discussed using the concepts of adaptability, complexity, autonomy and flexibility. The thesis represents a problem-oriented implementation approach where individuals' joint ways of organizing problem- solving are the basis for analysis of both policy-realization and political institutionalization. Policy is defined as ideas and the ways of creating institutional arrangements in order to realize them. A "policy-problem", defined as the empirical question answered by examining the process of institutionalization, is used to study the policy-processes in the field of occupational safety and health. The ways in which individuals collectively organize in order to create a good working environment are studied using the concept of implementation structures. These are defined as phenomenological administrative units of analysis, i.e. groups of individuals empirically judged to take part in solving the policy problem. ; digitalisering@umu
The EU Renewable Energy Strategy (RES) Directive requires that each member state obtain 20% of its energy supply from renewable sources by 2020. If fully implemented, this implies major changes in institutions, infrastructure, land use, and natural resource flows. This study applies a political geography perspective to explore the transition to renewable energy use in the heating and cooling segment of the Swedish energy system, 1980–2010. The Nordic welfare model, which developed mainly after the Second World War, required relatively uniform, standardized local and regional authorities functioning as implementation agents for national politics. Since 1980, the welfare orientation has gradually been complemented by competition politics promoting technological change, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This combination of welfare state organization and competition politics provided the dynamics necessary for energy transition, which occurred in a semi-public sphere of actors at various geographical scales. However, our analysis, suggest that this was partly an unintended policy outcome, since it was based on a welfare model with no significant energy aims. Our case study suggests that state organization plays a significant role, and that the EU RES Directive implementation will be uneven across Europe, reflecting various welfare models with different institutional pre-requisites for energy transition.
This study starts out with the hypothesis that the integration process in Europe is connected to cross-border régionalisation, a process which supports the institutionalization of subnational cross-border cooperation - region-building. Cross-border régionalisation is characterized by the decentralisation of vertical links and enhanced opportunities for horizontal links across state borders. In addition, political integration is expected to have some impact on the cross-border institutional forms that emerge at the subnational level. Three different approaches are utilized in order to establish the empirical connection between political integration and region-building. These are: an analysis of the factors which determine the general pattern of cross-border cooperation in Europe, an analysis of the policy network related to the regional and structural policies of the European Union (EU), and case studies of cooperation in the heartland of Europe, the Regio Basiliensis along the external border of the EU, and the EUREGIO along one of the internal borders. Two institutional factors are found to have a significant impact on the number of subnational cross-border cooperations, EU-membership and centrality. Federal constitution was shown not to be significant. It is suggested that the interaction between actors at different politico- administrative levels creates network relations, which typically bring both private and public actors together. More precisely, region-building is described as the outcome of the interaction which takes place between actors. A closer examination of the emerging policy network shows that community initiatives, the Interreg-programme in particular, improve the prospects for multilevel interaction. The EU plays a crucial role in providing the incentives for cooperation by increasing resource dependency and by establishing direct ties between the European Commission and a large number of subnational actors through partnerships. It appears as if the Commission wishes to demonstrate its capacity to deal with problems relevant to individual citizens. By, in part, bypassing central governments, it seems to increase its own importance vis- à-vis member states. The modus vivendi of cross-border region-building and régionalisation is the degree to which institutional actors at different levels share the same objectives. As shown by the case studies, there is a common interest in cross-border cooperation up to the point were public statues are introduced. Interests seem to coincide as long as the structures and contents of cross-border cooperation do not ultimately challenge the authority of state institutions. Therefore, it is not surprising that it seems impossible to give cross-border regions any rights under international law. Functional cooperation, rather than regionalist manifestations of cultural or political unity across borders, constitutes the backbone of region-building. Activities transcending borders are less controversial than those that may contribute to the establishment of new borders. It is concluded that region-building is a process which is embedded in the institutionalization of a multi-level interaction pattern. More favourable multilevel relations have been achieved through the transfer of some authority to the supranational level. This is the main reason why traditional integration theory fails to explain why there is a connection between political integration and cross-border cooperation. ; digitalisering@umu
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.
What is the political significance of affiliation with voluntary associations for people with and without foreign backgrounds in Sweden? Does associational affiliation offer an opportunity to influence the political decision-making process for those otherwise disfavoured in terms of political resources? Or does it rather aggravate the political marginalisation of people with foreign backgrounds? This thesis is based on two large-scale surveys that have been designed explicitly to deal with questions of this sort. It is shown that there are substantial differences in associational affiliation between people with and without foreign backgrounds. Interestingly, these differences are strongly correlated with patterns of ethnification and ethnic discrimination in Swedish society. Individuals who have migrated to Sweden from Western Europe and North America participate in voluntary associations to the same extent as native Swedes. In contrast, the levels of associational affiliation are consistently lower among people who have migrated to Sweden from other parts of the world, even controlling for age, education, occupation and other potentially important factors. The study supports the widely held notion that there is a positive causal relation between associational affiliation and political participation. However, this seems to be true only with regard to certain forms of political participation and only seldom to such an extent that differences in associational affiliation can be said to strongly affect the relative levels of political engagement of people with and without foreign backgrounds. In particular, the observed differences in associational affiliation seem to have little to do with the often debated marginalisation of immigrants in the electoral arena. ; Etnisk organisering och politisk integration i storstaden
This dissertation concerns Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (SKP) [the Swedish Communist Party] – in 1967 renamed Vänsterpartiet kommunisterna (VPK) [the Left Party – the Communists] and in 1990 renamed Vänsterpartiet (V) [the Left Party] – and the Party's process of coming to terms with history and its communist legacy. The aim of the study is to describe and analyse the SKP/VPK/V's process of coming to terms with history for the period 1956-2006, and to set out and problematise the driving forces and constraining mechanisms of this process. The theoretical framework of the study consists of Gunnar Sjöblom's theory about party strategies of political parties in multi-party systems and Michael Freeden's conceptual approach to ideology analysis. During the period of study the SKP/VPK/V has, like no other political party in Sweden, been ascribed historical guilt regarding its own party history but also regarding the effects of world communism. The Party has thus found itself in a situation where it has had history as an adversary. The process of coming to terms with history has mainly revolved around three issues: independence (1956-1977), international ties (1977-1989) and a broadening beyond the communist tradition (1986-2006). The internal debate within the Party has linked these issues to calls for change aimed at ridding the party of what is considered undesirable elements of the Communist legacy. By analysing the arguments pursued in favour of these calls, it is possible to pick out a number of the driving forces behind the Party's process of coming to terms with history, namely an ambition to obtain vote maximisation, programme realisation and maximisation of parliamentary influence. The urge to distance the Party from certain aspects of its communist past has thus been related to fundamental goals that political parties in multi-party systems seek to obtain. The results of the dissertation show that it is possible to pick out five main constraining mechanisms in the Party's process of coming to terms with history. 1) The safeguarding of Party cohesion. 2) The safeguarding of the distinctive character of the Party. 3) The need to resist external pressure. 4) The desire to avoid unfair apportioning of blame. 5) The safeguarding of the right to define the substance of one's own ideology. The existence of these constraining mechanisms help to explain why the process of coming to terms with history lingered on for several decades, and also why it seems to have been a process of such complexity for the Swedish Communist and Post-Communist Party.
This study in contemporary history describes the transformation of the public sphere in Sweden during the period 1969-1999, and analyses the role of information technology and politics in the process. The overall aim of the study is to explain how, and why, the public sphere in Jürgen Habermas sense has deteriorated during a period of rapid technological and political change, when increasing attention has been given to information technology as a new tool for improving democracy and empowering citizens. Theoretical inspiration is drawn from two perspectives within the modern history of technology and sociology of technology; the LTS (Large Technical Systems) and STS (Science, Technology and Society) approaches, as well as from the regime theory concept within political science. This multidisciplinary framework provides the theoretical basis for the study, including terms as socio-technical systems, system builder, technification, interpretative flexibility, stabilization, closing and regime change. In addition, the analysis draws upon previous research in economic history, where focus often has been on the important role of institutions. The term path dependence is central in this tradition. The starting point for the study is the process of a mutual legitimization between citizens and political actors that traditionally has taken place within the public sphere. In return for citizens support and trust, political actors have granted format rights to the public space. Two aspects of this interdependence are addressed: Freedom of speech and citizen's access to public information, and their access to arenas where an exchange of political ideas and opinions is taking place. In the study, the former is a question of the legal system and the limits to freedom of speech in new medias such as the Internet, while the latter concerns citizen's technical means and possibilities to connect to electronic networks. Research interest is concentrated on the formal political system, focusing both actors and structural factors such as technological development, media convergence, ideological change and international integration in the transformation process. Four case studies of institutional changes during formative moments, within what is defined as the legal and the technical infrastructures, are conducted and represent the empirical base of the thesis. The case studies are centered on Swedish governmental commissions, on the government itself and on proceedings in the parliament, and concerns formation and transformation of computer law, as well as the deregulation and privatization of the technical infrastructure. In the latter process Televerket (Swedish Telecom) has been an influential promoter of competition and institutional separation between tele- and data communications, representing a major regime change in favour of market relations in the technical infrastructure. In the area of computer law, the Swedish regime dominated by SCB (Statistics Sweden) was incorporated into a joint European data protection regime, resulting in limitations of freedom of speech on the Internet. These regime changes have also transformed the role of the state, constituting a "net watchers state". Another important finding is that promotion of democracy and improvement of access to the public sphere, never was on the agenda in the political transformation processes studied, although a parallel discourse on democracy and information technology existed throughout the period studied.
Since the early 1950's the foreign policy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) towards Sweden and the other Western European states was dominated by a striving for diplomatic recognition. This thesis examines that striving through an analysis of the East German-Swedish relations from 1949 until 1972. The main focus is on the years 1954-1972. The thesis draws mainly on East German archival material from the ruling communist party SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) and the GDR foreign ministry. A starting point of the thesis is that GDR generally used all its contacts abroad to further its foreign political goals. GDR's efforts to develop the relations with Sweden on seven different areas are investigated. An important aim is to analyse GDR's political utilisation of areas, such as culture and traffic, that normally are not considered political or studied by traditional political history. The application of the concept of public diplomacy is central in this context. The analysis of the Ostseewoche (Baltic Week) is a significant part of the investigation of areas that traditionally not are considered as being part of foreign policy. The Osteewoche was a week filled with cultural activities and sport. The analysis of the inaugural ceremony and other activities of the Ostseewoche shows that even official East German ceremonies were used for purposes of foreign policy. However, GDR's relations with Sweden on the normal foreign policy arenas such as diplomacy and economy are also analysed. Great weight is given to analysing the perceptions of the political elite and the foreign policy actors to understand why certain actions were taken and why certain elements were significant of the GDR foreign policy. The question of which political instruments were the most important to the East German efforts to improve the relations with Sweden is also investigated. An important result of the thesis is that GDR had a comprehensive strategy for the development of the relations with Sweden. The main elements of this strategy were in place 1958 and did largely not change since. The spreading of a positive GDR-image was a very significant element of the East German foreign policy. Sweden was one of the most important Western European countries to the GDR foreign policy during this period of time.
