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Lawns have a significant influence on the cityscape as one of the essential elements of green spaces and an important part of people's everyday lives. Most people in the Western world view lawns as a compulsory element of the urban landscape, almost an icon, without questioning their social, symbolic, ecological or aesthetic values. This research is a part of the conceptual framework and methodological approaches that are being used in an ongoing transdisciplinary collaboration project to study lawns in Sweden as a social and ecological phenomenon.The overall aim of this study was to investigate social and cultural perceptions of lawns, as well as motives behind decisions about the establishment and management of lawns in Sweden. Two multifamily housing typologies, the 'Million Programme' and People's Homes', were examined due to their dominance in Swedish cities. We also studied how an alternative vision of conventional lawns can be applied and accepted by urban residents. We estimated lawn cover in multi-family housing areas and links to people's perception and use of lawns. Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observational studies were used (N = 300). Our results showed that people like lawns even if they do not always directly use them. Lawns cover the most significant amount of outdoor spaces in all multi-family residential areas and accompany people everywhere from the house to the schoolyard or park. The total lawn cover in the study areas was 27.8%. Lawns were particularly valued as important places for different outdoor activities (playing, resting, picnicking, walking, socialising) and enjoying the green colour. However people do not want to use a vast monotonous lawn, but a variety of spaces that provide good conditions for different senses (sound, smell, touch and sight) and activities. Alternative lawns were also appreciated by many citizens, politicians, planners and managers. The implementation of new types of lawns requires special planning and design solutions adjusted for each particular neighbourhood.

This thesis is about Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) practice in Sweden. Impact Assessment (IA) is expected to play a crucial role in enabling democratic and enlightened decision making. EIA practice seems however not to be in accordance with best IA practice norms and legislation in many countries. We therefore need a more thorough understanding of IA practice and its outcomes and about what is gained through EIA and thus also be able to suggest, on a more profound basis, how the practice can be improved. This thesis presents an analysis of the two cases EIA practice on cumulative effects and the final disposal for spent nuclear fuel. The methods and approaches used are qualitatively and include literature review, document analysis, individual interviews and focus group interviews. The results were analysed using social psychology theory and community of practice theory. The case of cumulative effects clearly demonstrated that a positive attitude towards including cumulative effects was in place, but the conditions to change the knowledge base were not. In the investigated case for a final disposal for spent nuclear fuel it was revealed that a shared practice and social learning over time might result in difficulties for the authority in mapping out a clear role and identity for itself in relation to the proponent. It also showed that the shared practice that has developed between the industry, and the competent authorities, has over time resulted in the adoption of a shared understanding and similar perspectives, concerning at least two points. The first concerns downgrading the need to more thoroughly investigate alternate technical methods to the main alternative, while the second concerns the need to avoid delays in the planning process. Communication and the shared practice that has developed over a long period of time, can have a significant and not necessarily positive impact on power relations and thus hamper knowledge production, diffusion of roles and identities.

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.

The European Union (EU) is committed to conserving biodiversity, both in terms of natural and cultural legacies, and also to limiting biodiversity loss. Relevant policies have underlined the importance of considering ecological and social issues, as well as the complex relations between the two spheres in conservation of biodiversity. These policies have clear implications for all sectors responsible for planning for biodiversity conservation. In order to be consistent with international legislation, it is necessary to move beyond protected areas and include biodiversity conservation considerations in planning activities of various sectors, and also to involve relevant stakeholders in the planning process. This is in line with the landscape approach to planning that has recently been advocated in research and practical planning. The landscape approach has a holistic perspective that encompasses both ecological and social considerations. This thesis focuses on the implementation of policies regarding biodiversity conservation and public participation; that is, the ecological and social dimensions of spatial planning in landscapes. In particular, I examine the role of people, such as planners implementing policies and other stakeholders who might influence biodiversity conservation. The studies within this thesis concern Poland and Sweden, and three sectors: regional, road and forestry planning. The thesis is comprised of four papers. Paper I deals with planners working to implement biodiversity and public participation policies. Paper II concentrates on the issues of stakeholder involvement in the Environmental Impact Assessment of road planning. Paper III investigates a specific conflict that influenced the conservation of biodiversity in an important biodiversity hotspot. Paper IV is a conceptual paper that discusses the tools used to integrate ecological and social dimensions when implementing the European Landscape Convention. The studies included in this thesis reveal that successfully implementing biodiversity conservation and public participation policies may require more than just ecological knowledge about how biodiversity should be maintained, and more than just formal guidelines regarding how the public should be treated in the planning process. In addition, the role of people who may influence the planning and decision making processes is crucial. Accordingly, there is a need for two key developments. Firstly, planners and the general public should be properly educated about conservation-related issues. Secondly, various incentives should be introduced that influence the behaviour and, in the longer term, the attitudes of the people who may affect biodiversity.

This report is based on information collected within the context of the study concerning Community Land Rights in Niassa Province in Mozambique, with special attention paid to the programme implemented by the Malonda Foundation. This programme is supported and financed by the Swedish Government and aims to promote private investment in the province while seeking, during the course of the process, to ensure equitable and beneficial social impact as an explicit objective, in particular for the local population. The study was commissioned by Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and the Swedish Embassy in Mozambique, as a contribution to the preparation of continued Swedish support to private sector development in Niassa Province. Provincial and local work was carried out during the period April 29th to may 22nd 2008. The team consisted of Gunilla Åkesson, team leader, from Sida's Helpdesk for Environmental Assessment, Sweden, and André Calengo, legal consultant, Mozambique. Christopher Tanner, FAO's advisor in Mozambique and specialist in the Mozambique Land Law participated as a technical advisor. During the field work the team was accompanied by staff from the Malonda programme: Célia Enusse and Francisco Pangaya, both from the Community Work Unit, Alexandre Chomar, Communications Officer and Belindo Manhiça, official from the Environment Programme.

AKIS är en förkortning av det engelska "Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System", fritt översatt till "Agrara kunskaps- och innovationssystem". AKIS kan ses som en analytisk konstruktion, ett verktyg för att illustrera aktörer och nätverk i ett specifikt sammanhang. I EU:s nya jordbrukspolitik 2023-2028 uppmuntras medlemsstaterna att använda AKIS-konceptet för att förbättra kunskapsflöden och stärka kopplingen mellan forskning och praktik. Detta faktablad presenterar AKIS historik, en översikt över AKIS i Europa och Sverige, och avslutar med några reflektioner kring konceptet. Källhänvisningar ges så att den intresserade läsaren kan leta sig vidare.

Environmental assessment (EA) is intended to ensure that environmental issues, in a broad sense, are considered in decision making. EA is globally institutionalised through national and international legislation, policies and guidelines, and a field of practice. However, there is a gap between the expectations on EA presented in these regulatory and guiding documents and how it is addressed in practice. This thesis explores the reasons for this gap, focusing on EA practitioners' daily work. The aims of the research are development of theory and generation of new empirical knowledge about how EA practitioners think and act in their daily practice. At the heart of the research is the development of a conceptual framework, space for action, that centres on practitioners' possibilities for influencing practice. The two-dimensional framework is developed iteratively, through empirical and theoretical investigations. The empirical investigations centre on: challenges for practitioners from the multiple perspectives available to apply when deciding appropriate actions; how practitioners think and act when seeking possibilities to influence practice; and, the consultant's role in determining quality. The theoretical basis for the framework integrates and builds on earlier work by planning theorists and elements from frame theory. The first dimension in the framework concerns how practitioners decide on appropriate actions. This process restricts which perspectives practitioners decide to act on and argue for in practice and, subsequently, which perspectives that have potential to be addressed in EA. The second dimension concerns whether these suggestions for appropriate action are enacted and agreed upon in EA processes. These interactions restrict practitioners' possibilities of exerting influence on practice, in terms of both the actual scope of an EA, and how the issues and impacts included are addressed, hence influencing EA quality. The results reveal that these dimensions are important for understanding the gap between expectations of improvements and actual practice. They also reveal a need to recognise the evolving and multi-perspectival character of EA, together with opportunities for advancing the field of practice through critical reflection, reframing and multi-profession collaboration. Overall, this thesis contributes to understanding the important role of practitioners in shaping the field of practice, and provides a new theorisation that strengthens the practitioner focus in EA research.

This text offers an overview over and a categorization of visionary statements produced by Swedish government agencies. The visionary statements are analyzed with respect to the values that they highlight, whom they pinpoint as the principal or initiator, and whether or not the visionary statement is limited to the agency's sphere of activity. From this discussion it can be concluded that the visionary statements among public agencies bears similarities with the visions used as management tools in the private sector. This similarity is highlighted by the tendency among the public agencies to emphasize economic values such as efficiency comparatively more than accountability and democracy. Since this study only covers official material retrieved form web pages it can draw conclusions about how the visionary statements are presented – and not concerning how they were initiated and developed. Nevertheless, the very existence of visionary statements among public agencies turns attention to the division between the politicians as policy makers and the bureaucracy as a purely implementing force – and to the question about where, when and by whom politics is being made.

Rising levels of discontent among rural residents and parts of the hunting community toward large carnivore conservation policy has effected a phenomenon of socio-politically motivated illegal killing of these unpopular species. Such wildlife crime formed the investigation of an interdisciplinary and internationally collaborative research project headed by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Ultuna, Uppsala. Through 3 years of in-depth interview studies with hunters in Sweden, a quantitative survey to hunters, comparative studies in other parts of the world and close collaboration with Fennoscandian researchers and practitioners, this project ran to completion at the end of 2016. The following report marks the dissemination and discussion of the research results and insights for future research produced by this project. Hence, it represents the first time the full research project and its members stand before the public and interest groups. The report synthesizes two days of workshop thematic discussions between 45 participants from societal sectors including hunting and nature conservation NGOs, county administrative boards, Environmental Protection Agencies, law enforcement, environmental attorneys and farming associations as they feature across the Fennoscandian countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Its discussions center on social control in wildlife crime, the juridification of hunting issues, the influence of the EU and platforms for going forward to mitigate poaching, in particular of large carnivores like the wolf. The report is an essential read for both researchers and practitioners faced with the problem of socially accepted, but secretive and hidden, forms of illegal hunting in response to governmental legitimacy crises, distrust of policy and policy-makers, and as a manifestation of rural resistance in modernity.

Etablerade partiers strategiska bemötande av radikala högerpopulistiska partier(RHP-partier) står i fokus för avhandlingen. Syftet med avhandlingen ärrekonstruktion och analys av innehållet i de etablerade partiernas strategiskabemötande av partier som anses utmana centrala principer inom den liberalademokratin, såsom pluralism och tolerans, och vars närvaro också anses skapa ettdemokratiskt dilemma. Syftet har operationaliserats inom ramen för en svenskkontext med fokus på Socialdemokraternas och Moderaternas strategiskabemötande av ett svenskt RHP-parti i form av Sverigedemokraterna. Detmetodologiska ramverket utgår från ett kvalitativt perspektiv med fokus påintervjuer med representanter för de två etablerade partierna ochSverigedemokraterna. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats med hjälp av PSOteorin(Position, Salience and Owner-ship theory). Teorin visar hur de etableradepartiernas strategiska bemötande av RHP-partier kan relateras till 1) den specifikasakfråga RHP-partiet politiserar och 2) till vilken grad RHP-partiet hotar deetablerade partierna i fråga om väljarstöd. Avhandlingens resultat visar attinnehållet i de etablerade partiernas strategiska bemötande avSverigedemokraterna har förändrats sedan valet 2006 och att den sakfråga somSverigedemokraterna politiserat, flykting- och invandringsfrågan, är central förutformningen av de etablerade partiernas bemötande av partiet. ; The strategic approaches towards radical right-wing populist parties (RRP-parties)are in focus for the thesis. The aim of the thesis is reconstruction and analysis ofthe content of the established parties' strategic approaches towards parties thatchallenge central principles of liberal democracy, such as pluralism and tolerance,and who´s presence are creating a democratic dilemma. The aim has beenoperationalized within a Swedish context with focus on the strategic approachesused by the Social Democratic party and the Conservative party towards theSweden Democrats, a Swedish RRP-party. The methodological framework is builtupon a ...

The contemporary crises become increasingly complex, accompanied by more hostilities leading the infected societies to witness more unfortunate events, especially when political solutions are absent in war times or internal conflicts. The humanitarian sector, on the other hand, has to mitigate the severe effects of these crises on communities and provide assistance despite lack of funding and data. The action of UNHCR during the conflict in Syria has been taken as a case study due to the complexity of the situation in Syria. Contingency theory has been adopted within this study to investigate how does the humanitarian crisis in Syria impact the structure of UNHCR. Furthermore, contingency planning as a vital element to address emergencies effectively, enabling the organization to absorb shocks entirely or even partly, is adopted to investigate whether the UNHCR's crisis management is efficient or not. The study reveals that UNHCR's emergency preparedness planning is a sophisticated tool in meeting emergencies, particularly when adopting and implementing these plans on the ground and in coordination with the other stakeholders. Emergency preparedness planning has been observed to be an advantage to the organization primarily when the existing hazard or the predicable one is described as very dynamic. The case study discovers that UNHCR experienced extreme conditions in Syria, such as lack or absence of the data, funding gaps, and safety threatening. Despite these challenges, the organization developed an inclusive response action in which it collaborates with the other humanitarian organizations in Syria and involves the local communities to design site-oriented and more accurate plans.

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.

This thesis explores the human-environment interaction within the climate-sensitive socio-ecological system of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. It uses the livelihoods framework to analyse various coping strategies to resource scarcity due to lake recessions. The main aim is to understand the processes by which decision-making takes place and the influence of various agents of change on coping with environmental shocks, i.e. water recessions. Lake Chilwa undergoes periodic water recessions with up to twelve incidents recorded between 1900 and 2012. While the lake and its wetland is an economic aquatic agriculture system in between recessions, it is unclear how households around the system survive during the periods of water recessions. Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted between March 2012 and December 2013 on Chisi Island of Lake Chilwa to evaluate the coping strategies and their major drivers in responding to the periodic lake recessions. Using interpretive analysis, the findings show that people from the Lake Chilwa socio-ecological system have lived in anticipation of periodic environmental shocks due to their deep historical knowledge of the lake level and its fluctuations. This knowledge has been passed from generation to generation. Results further show that the main coping strategies that have stood the test of time for every recession are based on reciprocity and redistribution. These include sharing through kinship ties, hunting wild birds and farming. In many cases coping strategies for each specific recession are driven by political, social and economic factors prevailing at that particular period. Given these conditions, different agents (individuals or communities) make choices designed to maximise their own interests as they scramble to access scarce resources. Although natural resources in these systems are fundamental assets in rural livelihoods, accessing them in times of scarcity requires better governance systems that consider social, political and economic contexts.

The concept of civil society has lately become fashionable in political as well as scientificcontexts. This article critically discusses the 'politics of truth' in A Persistent Democracy!, thefinal report of the Swedish Commission on Democracy. The argument in the article is that thereport over-stresses the importance of civil society and the role of individual responsibilitiesand initiatives against public arrangements and interventions, referred to in the report as statepaternalism. The report is making specific 'technologies of government' visible, as it is creatingcitizens as primarily 'moral human beings'. The problem with strategies to 'roll back theState' for the benefit of a civil society of this kind, is that they necessarily open up for inequalitiesand conflicts in-built in civil society. To deepen democracy presupposes a continuouslong-term struggle for changing predominant power structures and unequal distributionsof vital resources, material and non-material. In this perspective, the report of the Swedish Commission on Democracy does not offer an adequate answer to challenging questions forthe future of a vitalized Swedish democracy. ; Reprint ur Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift 2000 (http://www.statsvetenskapligtidskrift.se/section.asp?id=552)

The paper argues that policies towards upland communities in Vietnam tend to reinforce land use strategies that increase vulnerability to climate-related risk and undermine adaptive capacity of upland communities. It is argued that the division of land use between intensive agriculture/tree plantation and protected forest is increasing both livelihood- and environmental risk. Qualitative interviews and group discussion with upland villagers and local government staff in two districts of north and central Vietnam suggest that farmers are facing frequent loss and damage due to floods, storms and drought. Changing production patterns, together with the increase in climate-related hazards and stresses, is changing the character of vulnerability of upland communities. The study primarily explores village-level perspectives regarding impacts of hazards and stresses, ideas of how to reduce risk, along with how related policies and institutions influence local possibilities of risk reduction and adaptation. Our fieldwork results suggest that many villagers and local leaders see adaptation and risk reduction in terms of improved irrigation and in terms of access to land and forests for their livelihoods. The findings support arguments for more integration of agriculture and forestry land use, allowing for more flexibility in the development of upland livelihoods, with the aim of facilitating adaptation to climate change.