Suchergebnisse

This volume describes the "Swedish part" (WP4) of the EU project COMPLEX, which has been dealing with pathways to a low carbon society with the Stockholm-Mälar region in focus. COMPLEX started on 1 October 2012 and ended after four years, on 30 September 2016. The central theme of the WP4 research has been to use the Stockholm-Mälar region as a sort of a "laboratory" for modelling and stakeholder interactions, but also for providing backgrounds, perspectives, tools and suggested policy outlines.

Ecological challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss lead to a need for change, but the radical changes that are required seem not to come about. One hot issue debated is who has the power and responsibility to change. This discussion has many different dimensions (e.g., between countries, or technological fixes vs radical system change) but here I base my study on the discussion of agency or structure. To put it simply, do we need to focus on structural political changes or rather on the level of the individuals and their consumerist lifestyles. This thesis aims to contribute to this debate by providing a better understanding of the (im)possibilities of individual lifestyle changes in a society that is largely organized to accommodate consumerist lifestyles. It does so by focusing on the example of Voluntary Simplicity, a lifestyle movement that advocates for a post-consumerist lifestyle. With the help of practice theory, which is especially fit to analyze everyday practices and change, and a qualitative interview study with seven voluntary simplifiers living in Sweden, I answer the following research questions: What are the motivations and drivers for having a voluntary simplicity lifestyle?, what are the challenges and obstacles that voluntary simplifiers need to overcome?, and does life, in consequence, get more complicated by striving for a "simpler" life because it is against the grain of society? The analysis demonstrates a motivation among the simplifiers to live sustainably and to reduce material possessions, working hours and stress. Impediments include the struggle of wanting to be part of a community but at the same time being different from the mainstream society, inflexible work structures and time and labor-intensive activities such as self-sufficiency. The question if life got simpler could not satisfactorily be answered and is connected to considerations on what life is about. In the discussion, I argue to consider social norms and values because they seem to exacerbate change both for politics and individuals. Future avenues for study could be based on participatory observation, autoethnography or doing research in non-capitalist-consumerist societies. This study is relevant because it opened up and contributed to the debate about change by acknowledging the entanglement of social structures and individuals.

In recent decades structural changes in the forestry sector have changed forest owners' characteristics and thus the member base of forest owners' associations. More general social trends have also changed how individuals and organizations interact with each other. A major challenge for the forest owners' associations is thus to adapt their service offers and organizational structures to fit the needs of current and future members. The objective of the project this thesis is based upon was to examine processes that are shaping the future membership of forest owners' associations in Sweden and identify elements that are likely to affect their relationships with members and (hence) their cooperative nature. To meet this objective, the issue was addressed from different angles and organizational levels in studies reported in four appended papers. Paper I showed that renewal of district councils is a slow process in which election committees play a central role. However, they were found to act passively and select candidates from narrow pools, which restrict the councils' representativeness and raises risks of strategic misalignment with members' interests as it severely limits inputs from several user groups in decision-making processes. Paper II showed that in order to meet the changing member needs the organizations are currently focusing their strategic efforts on developing new services to support members' management activities and ownership issues, improve education offers, and become strong political actors. Paper III showed that members who had traded timber with the association displayed significantly higher affective commitment, but not calculative commitment, than both non-members and members who had traded with other organizations. Thus, the findings suggest that the associations should focus on communicating their core values and strengthening members' identification with the organization, as this will have stronger effects on their loyalty than fostering calculative relationships. Paper IV provides support for the findings in Paper II, showing that young adults generally have limited familiarity with forestry activities. Further they rarely discussed forest issues with their parents. Thus they did not feel comfortable in discussing their own future as potential forest owners since they lacked understanding of the personal implications for them in practice. A key highlighted finding is that the main challenges for the organizations are connected to their democratic governance processes.

Design science research was used for the generation, use and evaluation of a model for knowledge sharing in the user community through open educational resources (OER). The focus of interest was on the development process of a model for knowledge sharing that emphasizes the characteristics and the needs of the user community; the empowerment and democratic issues of openness; the collaboration between institutions and dialog with society; and the consideration of quality and sustainability issues. Initially, the community needs were analyzed through surveys and workshops, and the findings used, through negotiations, to formulate the development process. An open-training platform served as an infrastructure and included a repository with OER, a wiki and a discussion forum. The purpose of this article is an attempt to provide universities with a plan and template for integrated knowledge sharing that responds to societal needs. Usability and usefulness has not been evaluated. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

At the turn of the century agrarian parties emerged in large parts of Europe. The parties had one thing in common: they stood up for the social, economic, cultural, and political interests of the agrarian society. The Swedish agrarian parties - 1 Bondeförbundet ' and 'Jordbrukarnas Riksförbund1 - were formed between 1913 and 1915.In this study the agrarian parties are not considered to be class parties. Instead, they are described as traditional parties, defending the old agrarian community against expansive industrialization. Their potential voters belonged to various social strata in the agrarian community, and their political programme, often characterized by a markedly negative view of modern society and by cultural protectionism, is summarized here under the term agrarianism. Agrarianism seen as a political theory and an applicable ideology had features in common with Conservatism as well as with Fascism and Socialism. Liberal values, however, were kept in the background.A modernization perspective is adopted in order to demonstrate that the agrarian parties were in fact traditional parties. It is assumed that regional variation in the electoral support of the agrarian parties reflects the modernization process, and, consequently, that the parties were weaker in industrial areas and stronger in socially and economically backward areas.The empirical studies show that the Agrarian parties stand out as traditional parties rather than class parties. Their voter support was stronger in areas where the historical and economic development was characterized by stagnation and conservatism, as well as in areas where social mobilization advanced slowly. In more industrialized and modernized areas conditions were quite the opposite. A study of Swedish interwar agrarianism with special regard to regional variations in party strength proves the agrarian parties to be the inheritors of a way of life formed by centuries of agrarian traditions. ; digitalisering@umu

This paper aims at documenting the experience of the Environmental Research Center at the Royal Scientific Society in stakeholder participation in greywater management (treatment and reuse) in the rural communities in the northeastern Badia of Jordan. Stakeholders participating in the management process included local people, nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations, governmental authorities, scientists and experts from universities and research institutions. The local stakeholders committee, NGOs, CBOs and local people have participated in capacity-building programs, data collection, situation analysis, problems identification, selection of types and locations of treatment technologies and construction and operation of treatment units and reuse projects. Experts, scientists and governmental entities contributed to the development of a treatment technology selection matrix and identification the best technology that suits the study area. The study reveals that the incorporation of input from a broad range of sectors and stakeholders during the project insured cooperative management of the greywater resources and enhanced project quality and ownership.

The size of a country's police force is of great public and political concern. In the 2006 national election campaign the opposition coalition promised that if they would be elected the number of police officers in Sweden would increase from about 17 500 to 20 000 by the year 2010. The coalition was elected and the political goal was achieved. The main question in this report is: What impact will such an increase of the number of police officers have on the crime rate? In this report previous research, mainly from the United States, is reviewed and thoroughly analyses of the relationship between police strength and domestic burglary, robbery, homicide and car related offences in Sweden are made. The data consists of a random sample of 145 municipalities studied between the years 2001 and 2008. A complementary data set consists of all 21 police forces in Sweden between 1995 and 2009. Through panel data analysis it is concluded that an increase of the local police by 10 percent would possibly reduce domestic burglary by 3 to 4 percent. No impact is found on robbery, car theft or homicide, however. More police officers also means that more drug offences are being registered and more crimes in general being cleared-up. The allocation of police officers is also briefly investigated in this study. About 30 percent of all police officers in Sweden are allocated to Stockholm County. This proportion has been fairly stable over the last 15 years. However, the population in this metropolitan area has increase by 20 percent since 1995, compared to about 3 percent in the rest of the country. One consequence is that the surplus of police officers per capita in Stockholm in relation to the number of officers per capita in the rest of the country has decreased substantially.

Det finns lantbruksföretagare som idag upplever en stor arbetsbelastning, ekonomisk börda, frustration och stress orsakat av olika lagkrav och myndighets- och branschkontroller, vilket är ett allvarligt hinder för utveckling och tillväxt i sektorn. Denna studie syftade till att identifiera och kvantifiera tid och kostnader för olika regelverk som belastar de svenska lantbruks- och landsbygdsföretagarna och analysera effekterna av dessa. Studien omfattade analys av utvecklingen av antalet regler som gäller för lantbruksföretag under 1996-2016. För att kvantifiera tid och kostnad för lantbruksföretagens administration användes en digital dagbok där cirka 50 lantbruksföretagare registrerade den tid som de årligen lade ner för insamling, dokumentation och rapportering av uppgifter och kostnader för administration, kontroll, inspektioner och tillstånd. Vidare intervjuades 30 lantbruks- och landsbygdsföretagare, statliga tjänstemän och rådgivare om deras erfarenheter kring lagstiftning och byråkrati i svensk livsmedelsproduktion. Under 20-årsperioden 1996-2016 ökade antalet lagkrav som berör lantbruket med 120%. Flest lagkrav berör gårdar med nötkreatur i kombination med växtodling (ca 450 lagkrav). Under samma period ökade även kravet på antalet journaler med 340% (från 5 till 22) och tillfällen då det krävs en anmälan eller tillstånd med 450% (från 6 till 33). Den ökande byråkratin tar tid att hantera och medför en kostnad och mental belastning för företagen. Den administrativa aktivitet som tog mest tid var journalföring, märkning och rapportering av djur. Kostnaden för rapportering av djur (per djurenhet) var fem gånger högre för får jämfört med nötkreatur. Förberedelser, genomförande och efterarbete av kontroller var den administrativa aktivitet som tog näst mest tid för företagen. Drygt 70% av företagen som deltog i studien kontrollerades minst en gång under en sexmånadersperiod. Knappt 30% av företagen kontrollerades av både myndighet och bransch under samma period. Flera företag framförde önskemål om att kommuner, myndigheter och bransch skulle samordna eller samverka kring kontroller. De flesta företagen som medverkade i projektet var generellt nöjda med sin inspektör eller kontrollant men upplevde det som ett stort problem när kontrollanten hade låg kompetens, speciellt inom djurskydd. De ansåg att utfallet av kontrollen delvis var ett resultat av vilken kontrollant de haft, eller vilken kommun de var verksamma i och att det skiljde sig åt mellan kontrollanter och kommuner. Företagarna upplevde tvärvillkorskontroller extra jobbiga, då en avvikelse kunde få stora ekonomiska konsekvenser. Tjänstemännen ansåg att de arbetade med samsyn inom myndigheten och kände sig ibland hotade och uthängda i media. Det har i många år funnits en politisk vilja att förenkla regelverket för företagen. Detta har avspeglats i att flera myndigheter har fått i uppdrag att förenkla via sitt regleringsbrev. Frekvensen på detta uppdrag har varierat mellan olika myndigheter och år. Förenklingarna som genomförts har ibland förenklat för företagen och ibland för myndigheterna.

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)

Plant breeding has always relied on progress in various scientifc disciplines to generate and enable access to genetic variation. Until the 1970s, available techniques generated mostly random genetic alterations that were subject to a selection procedure in the plant material. Recombinant nucleic acid technology, however, started a new era of targeted genetic alterations, or precision breeding, enabling a much more targeted approach to trait management. More recently, developments in genome editing are now providing yet more control by enabling alterations at exact locations in the genome. The potential of recombinant nucleic acid technology fueled discussions about potentially new associated risks and, starting in the late 1980s, biosafety legislation for genetically modifed organisms (GMOs) has developed in the European Union. However, the last decade has witnessed a lot of discussions as to whether or not genome editing and other precision breeding techniques should be encompassed by the EU GMO legislation. A recent ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union indicated that directed mutagenesis techniques should be subject to the provisions of the GMO Directive, essentially putting many precision breeding techniques in the same regulatory basket. This review outlines the evolving EU regulatory framework for GMOs and discusses some potential routes that the EU may take for the regulation of precision breeding.

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

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.

Wild animals are used for research and management purposes in Sweden and throughout the world. Animals are often subjected to similar procedures and risks of compromised welfare from capture, anesthesia, handling, sampling, marking, and sometimes selective removal. The interpretation of the protection of animals used for scientific purposes in Sweden is based on the EU Directive 2010/63/EU. The purpose of animal use, irrespective if the animal is suffering or not, decides the classification as a research animal, according to Swedish legislation. In Sweden, like in several other European countries, the legislation differs between research and management. Whereas, animal research is generally well-defined and covered in the legislation, wildlife management is not. The protection of wild animals differs depending on the procedure they are subjected to, and how they are classified. In contrast to wildlife management activities, research projects have to implement the 3Rs and must undergo ethical reviews and official animal welfare controls. It is often difficult to define the dividing line between the two categories, e.g., when marking for identification purposes. This gray area creates uncertainty and problems beyond animal welfare, e.g., in Sweden, information that has been collected during management without ethical approval should not be published. The legislation therefore needs to be harmonized. To ensure consistent ethical and welfare assessments for wild animals at the hands of humans, and for the benefit of science and management, we suggest that both research and management procedures are assessed by one single Animal Ethics Committee with expertise in the 3Rs, animal welfare, wildlife population health and One Health. We emphasize the need for increased and improved official animal welfare control, facilitated by compatible legislation and a similar ethical authorization process for all wild animal procedures.

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