The Reparliamentarization of Sweden? The Use and Relevance of Parliamentary Resolutions to the Government In contrast to the theory of deparliamentarization amongst parliamentary democracies, this article points to the Riksdag's use of so-called resolutions (tillkännagivanden) to the Government as a sign of growing reparliamentarization. Resolutions in the Swedish context are constitutionally non-binding but politically coercing. From this first study of a hitherto uncharted parliamentary instrument some preliminary conclusions materialise: Resolutions are more complex nowadays than 15–20 years ago requiring more effort from the Government. Parliament's use of resolutions has, broadly pictured, evolved from unanimous or bipartisan demands on often technical issues to an increasingly politicized tool of reiningin minority governments. In some exceptional cases even issuing a few so-called negative resolutions which essentially seek to infringe the Government's executive powers. Resolutions may offer a complementary measurement of a government's parliamentary strength and provide additional insights into the workings of Swedish (and potentially other countries) parliamentarism given additional research.
During the last few decades sustainable development has become a frequent topic among policy makers. In order to achieve this goal, the local level in the society has been regarded as one of the levels where changes towards a more sustainable development must come about. To this end, the Swedish state has used different instruments of control to influence its municipalities to start these changes. One example is the Local Investment Programme (LIP) which supported many different local investment programmes in Swedish municipalities between 1998-2002. The municipality of Luleå, where changes of the public transportation system were on the political agenda, received in 2000 financial support for a project called Public transportation in change. The aim of the project was to create a more attractive public transportation system, i.e. bus system, in order to get more people to choose the bus for their daily travels. Policy processes are however not always as rational as policy makers might think. Instead, they can sometimes be characterized as an incremental process with sudden changes. In order to conceptualize such processes, especially agenda- setting and decision making, John Kingdon has developed the multiple- streams framework (MS). According to this framework the policy process is separated into three streams; problem, policy and politics. When a window of opportunity opens, a policy entrepreneur with the right skills and institutional position might couple the streams thereby creating a policy change. The aim of this study is to describe and analyze the policy process underpinning the public transportation in Luleå kommun and explain why the process developed the way it did. The purpose is thereby to contribute to the understanding of the problems that are associated with local policy making regarding public transportation and sustainable development. Another aim is to test whether MS is applicable in a local context. The empirical material is made up of documents, interviews with policy makers, material from the local newspapers and a survey to the public. It is concluded that the 2002 election to the municipality council was the window of opportunity that finally brought about the introduction of a new bus system. The LIP programme mainly affected the local process in a positive way. It might even have been another reason that the new bus system was realized at this point. There were some problems concerning the institutional arrangement around the LIP programme, which seems to have caused a minor delay in the project. The study also indicates that sustainable development at the local level is associated with many problems. Rhetorically sustainable development is regarded as an important goal, but in reality there are differences about how to view and realize the concept. Sustainable development has been described as ecological, economical and social sustainability in cooperation or that they can be ranked. It is concluded that economical constraints seem to set the conditions in reality. Finally, MS has been found useful in a local context as well. MS have weaknesses concerning how it addresses value based conflicts and institutional arrangements. While this study deals with those problems, it is suggested that more studies should be conducted. ; Godkänd; 2006; 20070109 (haneit)
De artiklar som samlats i denna antologi har skrivits åren 2000-2003 inom ramen för forskningsprojektet Media Societies Around the Baltic Sea vid Södertörns högskola. De berör alla på olika sätt rysk kulturdebatt i olika medier under perestrojkan (1985-91) och den postsovjetiska perioden. Perestrojkadebatten och 90-talets postsovjetiska debatt skiljer sig starkt från varandra. 90-talet saknar målmedvetenheten och de klara politiska motsättningarna, det liberala lägrets kamp för yttrandefrihet och demokrati i tron på ordets, den uttalade sanningens, läkande förmåga. Med ett citat anfört ur en liberal artikel 1991: "Perestrojkan som började med en anti-alkoholkampanj har avslutats med en svår baksmälla." Det postsovjetiska 90-talet är präglat av övergångens svårigheter, av identitetssökande som tar sig många olika uttryck. Ett av dessa uttryck är att den ryska intelligentsians roll och egenskaper blir ett av huvudämnena i debatten under den första hälften av decenniet. Det är denna debatt som fokuseras i antologins artiklar om den postsovjetiska perioden.
Young people's view of nuclear power and democracy since the 1980s: attitude epidemics, path dependencies and technical-political cultural revolution. In the wake of the leftist wave, young people's criticism of the system has diminished, both in terms of criticism of the nuclear-based energy system and of the nature and workings of the political system. Baby-boomers (people born in the 1940s and '50s) in particular have changed their attitude and become less hostile to the establishment. But how did this change in attitudes occur? How has young people's view of technology and democracy changed during the past few decades? Based on data from the SOM Institute gathered between 1987 and 2005, this final report presents the results of one of the two studies conducted in the project "Towards activism or indifference? How Swedish young people view democracy and the environment, science and technology in an international and longitudinal perspective". First a theory and a method are proposed for analyzing what is called in this report "attitude epidemics", referring to the fact that attitudes spread like wildfire or epidemics, leading to what societal researchers call "path dependencies". Then age-versus-generation differences are studied, as well as a large number of other factors, with regard to attitudes to technology, nuclear power and democracy in particular, or the way democracy works in Sweden. Younger people are found to be the most critical of nuclear power, while they are most satisfied with democracy, even though gender, risk perceptions, party affiliation and political positioning are some of the factors that also influence these analyses on the individual level. The "epidemic effect" and path dependencies do not show their strength in these individual analyses, but all the more in the analysis of time series where the computer and IT revolution is found to be very strongly linked to the strong growth in acceptance of nuclear power. Using new communication technologies is somehow associated with a decline in hostility toward technology and nuclear power. But many cause-and-effect relationships in this attitudinal and technical-political "cultural revolution" still remain to be explored. ; I vänstervågens svall har ungdomens systemkritik avklingat, både i bemärkelsen kritik mot det kärnkraftsbaserade energisystemet och mot det politiska systemets väsen och funktionssätt. Främst 1940- och 1950-talisterna har ändrat inställning och blivit mindre systemfientliga. Men hur gick denna förändring i attityder egentligen till? Hur har synen på teknik och demokrati bland ungdomar förändrats senaste årtiondena? Med användning av SOM-institutets data 1987–2005 presenterar denna slutrapport resultat från en av de två delstudierna inom projektet "Mot aktivism eller ointresse? Svenska ungdomars syn på demokrati och teknologi i ett internationellt och longitudinellt perspektiv". Först föreslås teori och metod för att analysera det som i denna rapport kallas "attitydepidemier", att attityder sprider sig lavinartat, och genom dem etablering av vad samhällsforskare kallar "stigberoenden". Därefter studeras ålders- kontra generationsskillnader, liksom ett stort antal andra faktorer, med avseende på attityder till framför allt tekniken kärnkraft och demokrati eller demokratins funktionssätt i Sverige. Yngre visar sig vara de mest kritiska mot kärnkraften men de mest nöjda med demokratin, även om kön, riskuppfattningar, partianhängarskap och politisk positionering är några av de faktorer som också spelar roll i dessa analyser på individnivå. "Epidemieffekten" och stigberoenden visar inte sin styrka i dessa individanalyser, men desto mer i analysen av tidsserier där dator- och IT-revolutionen visar sig mycket starkt förbunden med den starka tillväxten i kärnkraftsacceptans. Att använda nya kommunikationstekniker hänger på något sätt samman med minskning av teknikfientlighet även till kärnkraften. Men många orsakssamband i denna attitydmässiga och teknisk-politiska "kulturrevolution" är fortfarande outforskade. ; "Mot aktivism eller ointresse? Svenska ungdomars syn på demokrati och teknologi i ett internationellt och longitudinellt perspektiv"
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 digitalisation of society decidedly affects public administration. Swedish public administration has long worked with information technologies for an effective and improved management of public services. But new and increased use of information technologies in society poses new challenges. New demands on information security are increasing, while accessibility and transparency are important priorities in policies on digitalisation in public services. However, the central government's ambitions and expectations with regard to digitalisation face a slow and hesitant implementation in local governments. There are important differences between municipalities in priorities, local needs, and implementation mechanisms in connection with e-government. In this thesis, I argue there is a need to reconsider the role of governance mechanisms in e-government. There is a need to understand local translations of national policies and technological developments in relation to the goals of more effective and legitimate public administration. The main purpose of this thesis is to analyse tensions that emerge in the implementation of egovernment in local public administration. On the basis of a constructivist and interpretivist approach, I have undertaken two empirical studies. One focuses on municipal administration of education in Linköping. The other focuses on a governance network on digitalisation policy in Östergötland. The studies are presented in four papers. The issues addressed in the papers are further analysed with a focus on four fields of tension, using network governance theory and translation theory. This shows that the implementation of e-government in local public administration is a tension-laden process. The four fields of tension relate to: different logics and dilemmas for adoption and implementation; concerns and ambiguities in a context of unclear organisational and institutional arrangements; concerns and resistance from professional users; and a reassessment of the meaning of security as a reference for the interpretation of information security. I contend that established managerial and evolutionary models of e-government leave important process-related aspects out of the analysis of change in public administration. The contribution of this thesis lies in its description and analysis of the four identified fields of tension. One significant implication of my analysis is that reassembling current governance mechanisms in local public administration is crucial. ; Samhällets digitalisering påverkar tydligt den offentliga förvaltningen. Svensk förvaltning har länge arbetat med datorer för effektivisering och förbättrad administration. Men idag ställs nya krav då digitala verktyg för informationshantering och kommunikation används allt mer i samhället och på nya sätt. Kraven på säker informationshantering ökar, samtidigt som tillgänglighet och transparens är viktiga ledord i policyer kring digitaliserad förvaltning. I Sverige är det tydligt att regeringens ambitioner med digitaliseringen av förvaltning inte går i linje med vad som sker och implementeras i kommunerna. Skillnaderna ligger i hur e-förvaltning prioriteras, förankras i lokala behov och implementeras. Därför krävs både förbättrad styrning och tydligare möjligheter att lokalt översätta nationella policyer och internationell teknikutveckling för en effektivare och mer legitim digital förvaltning. Syftet med avhandlingen är att analysera implementering av digitalisering i kommunala förvaltningar utifrån nätverksstyrning (governance) och översätts av olika aktörsgrupper.Studiens konstruktivistiska och tolkande ansats baseras på två empiriska studier. Den första handlar om kommunal utbildningsadministration och den andra om den regionala digitala agendan i Östergötland. Studierna presenteras i fyra artiklar. De övergripande slutsatserna pekar på spänningar som uppstår när digitaliseringen blir en del av den kommunala förvaltningspraktiken. Spänningarna har identifierats i relation till medarbetarnas varierande kompetenser, informationssäkerhet samt kommunernas olika resurser och kompetenser vilka betingas av dess storlek och förutsättnignar. Bidraget visar att etablerade managementmodell och evolutionära perspektiv är otillräckliga för att tolka och förklara hur digitaliseringen förändrar kommunal förvaltning. Istället framhålls betydelsen av att skapa förståelsen för hur digtalisering översätts i olika sammanhang. Analyserna pekar på behovet av att öppna för nya sätt att styra och organisera digital offentlig förvaltning.
Godkänd; 2005; Bibliografisk uppgift: Status och visionsrapport framlagd vid Nordiska Ministerrådets konferens Dåd eller Død 2 och 3 maj 2005 på Kattegatcentret i Grenaa, Danmark; 20070601 (ysko)
After years of various forms of cooperation between the government and various opposition parties, the Swedish parliamentary elections in 2002 resulted in a contact between the Social-democratic minority government, the Left Party, Vänsterpartiet, and the Green Party, Miljöpartiet de Gröna. The political issues included were specified in a 121 points programme, and the cooperation parties established two cooperation offices within the Swedish government administration. The cooperation offices consist of eight full time appointments as political advisors each. There are several reasons to put attention to this developed form of contact parliamentarism. The cooperation offices constitute a new form of coordination between a government and its cooperation parties, which contrasts the norm. In addition, the cooperation offices change the organization of the government administration whereby important aspects of the highly institutionalized culture in the ministries can supposedly have been affected. Thirdly, it is of importance to the representative democracy if parties that are not in a government position, and therefore cannot be held responsible, turns out to have a great deal of influence and many possibilities to affect, or even set, the political agenda. This paper describes how the cooperation offices are organised, and, secondly, discusses the consequences of the establishment of these offices for the government administration as such, but also for the parliamentary chain of governance as a whole. The conclusion is that this form of developed contract parliamentarism can break the parliamentary chain in several ways. The contract has resulted in an increase of resources in terms of economy, information and informal contacts for the two cooperation parties. The cooperation offices have also given the Left Party and the Green Party increased knowledge and experience of the government administration. The contract has, in this sense, given the cooperation parties larger influence than perhaps can be justified by their representation in parliament. ; Regeringskansliet och samhällets organisering
Regionalisation out of step - the varying growth of regional cooperation councils Traditionally regionalisation is either seen as a bottom up movement or as state reform politics from above. From that perspective, Sweden contains both parts. The state enables regionalisation through legislation, promote it through policies and encourage it in rhetoric's. But the formation of new regional institutions can only be done by the municipalities themselves. Without their belief in stronger and more self governed regions or their will to act and together build capacity in their region, the regionalisation is halted. Sweden is a unitary state and there is no real tradition of strong and self governing regions. In that perspective the regional experiments during the second half of the 1990th can be seen as a rather big step. These experiments inspired other parts of Sweden and in the millennium shift, all counties was interested in forming some kind of selfgoverning regional body. In 2002, when legislation made it possible to build new political regional institutions, these new institutions were formed in seven counties. Since then, yet six counties have formed these new regional bodies. This variation raises several empirical questions. The main purpose of this study is to describe and explain the variation in growth of these new regional institutions. The analysis follows three different perspectives. The first is a structural one and aims to investigate municipalities need for economic development as a driving force. The second is an institutional perspective where norms are supposed to promote cooperation. The third focus on promoting actors as a force behind the growth of new regional institutions. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods this thesis shows that different kinds of social norms promoting collaboration are the most important factor in explaining the variation in growth of new regional institutions. The analysis also showed that political actors play an important, both in building and maintaining coopera-tive norms, and probably also in bridging the lack of them.
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.
The view of networks has changed within the field of policy studies. Once they were considered as hampering the policy process, but today they are accepted as a legitimate policy instrument. The Swedish Government, for instance, makes use of networks to steer society. One attempt to do so is the Sustainable Municipality Programme launched by the Swedish Energy Agency in 2003. Five municipalities where selected to participate in this collaborative process to further sustainable energy policies. This thesis explores the potential of network governance theory as a model for describing policy making. A case study addressing three questions was conducted. Firstly, can the Sustainable Munici-pality Programme be described within the framework of network governance theory? Secondly, is this governance network successful in its struggle to achieve its goals? Thirdly, can this example of network governance further a discussion exploring a scenario where inter-municipality network governance might pose a challenge to the principle of local government? The first and second question is answered by focusing on four functions that the governance network should fulfil; to give priority to projects; to mobilize resources, to complete projects and, to evaluate the process. In order to answer the first question the case study focuses on the interaction within the governance network. Is the process organised in a fashion recognisable as network govern-ance, as an ideal type of coordination? The analysis shows that network governance theory provides an analytic framework well suited to shed light on the process. The analysis also shows that the three first functions were achieved. Through negotiations the network gave priority to different projects. The thesis focuses on three of these. The first project includes the education of maintenance person-nel. The second is a research project, investigating different actors' possibilities to plan for a more sustainable use of energy. The third project is a research project carried out within the field of physi-cal planning. The fourth function, evaluation, still poses a problem since the actors themselves are not content with the evaluation model they produced. In order to answer the third question the case study explores the notion of local government and how it can be safeguarded within a governance network. Two indicators are used to analyse this aspect of the process; the democratic anchorage of the governance network and the transparency of the process. The analysis shows that the process has been transparent and that local politicians have had an opportunity to meta govern the process. It is, however, undoubtedly so that the actors, or municipalities, gain influence over each other's policy processes. This causes discontent since local priorities get affected, sometimes negatively. In the end of 2007, four of the five municipalities decided to remain within the programme, or the governance network, for another three years. They are now joined by an additional 60 municipalities. ; Godkänd; 2008; 20080211 (ysko)
This short paper focuses on the relationship between the procedural and the epistemic arguments for democracy in David Estlund's epistemic proceduralism. It is argued that his theory could be purely epistemic, in the sense that it justifies democracy only from its ability to ascertain and implement an independent standard of correctness. Obedience to wrong decisions (within certain limits) – in epistemic as well as in non-epistemic cases – can be justified in terms of prospective concern for the epistemic (and moral) capacity of democracy. There is no need for a procedural justification of democratic political authority and legitimacy. ; Demokrati, kunskap och värderelativism
Humanity faces dire challenges associated with environmental degradation.Policy makers try to curb these problems with various policies andmanagement strategies. Some strategies are successful, yet too often, othersfail to meet their overall objectives. Scholars in the field of environmentalmanagement have suggested several explanations as to why environmentalpolicy fails to address environmental concerns. In this thesis, I take my pointof departure in a neglected theoretical component in environmentalmanagement research, namely the decisive role of street-level bureaucrats, i.e.bureaucrats working at the end of the policy chain, making operationaldecisions and taking action based on official policy. The aim of the thesis is tohighlight the significant role of street-level bureaucrats in the implementationof environmental policy and to examine which factors that can explain theirdecisions. In order to fulfil this aim, a tentative theoretical frameworkencompassing four explanatory factors – management setting, policyunderstanding, implementation resources and policy beliefs – is developed. Aqualitative case study approach is utilised in an attempt to empiricallyexamine how these factors influence decision-making and implementation atthe street level. Data is collected by means of semi-structured interviews with40 street-level bureaucrats working in the fields of fishery and water policyrespectively. The results from the empirical studies are used to refine thesuggested tentative theoretical framework and propose a more refinedframework that can explain street-level bureaucrats' implementation ofofficial policy. The findings suggest that different management settings seemto affect – more or less – street-level bureaucrats' autonomy and discretion.Moreover, bureaucrats' policy understandings, in particular their notionsconcerning policy coherence, affect their decision-making. The results alsoimply that the characteristics of bureaucrats' implementation resources, i.e.the actors to whom they turn for policy advice, influence implementation.Finally, differences in the implementation of environmental policies can beexplained by the bureaucrats' policy core beliefs. In particular, thebureaucrats' empirical policy core beliefs, i.e. their views on the policyproblem and its solutions, seemingly affect how policy is implemented. Theresults from this thesis underline the importance of street-level bureaucrats inthe implementation of environmental policy and the significance of the abovemention factors as drivers for street-level action. Thus, the decisive role ofstreet-level bureaucrats should be considered when explaining success andfailure in the struggle to curb environmental problems. ; Godkänd; 2015; 20150408 (miksev); Nedanstående person kommer att disputera för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen, Namn: Mikael Sevä Ämne: Statsvetenskap / Political Science Avhandling: The Decisive Role of Street-Level bureaucrats in Environmental Management Opponent: Docent Erik Hysing Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap Örebro universitet Ordförande: Docent Carina Lundmark Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik och samhällsvetenskap Luleå tekniska universitet Tid: Måndag den 13 maj 2015, kl. 14.00 Plats: D770, Luleå tekniska universitet
This mainly deductive study examines what factors explain the variation of e-democracy and if, why a causal pathway exists. The deductive feature is carried out through examining the predictions of the modernization theory, testing hypotheses concerning the link between economic development and wealth in relation to e-democracy. Deriving from a theoretical point of departure where e-democracy is conceptualized with the help of democratic theory, this phenomenon is studied in three different but linked empirical parts. A cross-sectional global study did establish a relationship between some of the indicators derived from the theory; however, the magnitude of the explanatory power was lower at the level of e-democracy than at the level of democracy. A cross-sectional national study of all Sweden's municipalities did show that especially high levels of education were clearly related to high levels of e-democracy. Approaching the questions of causal mechanisms and deviations from the found pattern, case studies did emphasize that the linkage between the structural conditions and actor's-orientated explanations largely could verify what is deducted from theory. However, the importance of economic possibilities and internal prioritizations inside the political organization was essential for the development of e-democracy and was found through more inductive approaches. The main contribution of this thesis is the results that, both on an aggregated and a micro level, verify the theory but also add other important explanations. Another important conclusion is the creation of a model for e-democracy where a complete e-democracy is linked to democratic theory and not only maintains information, discussion, and decision-making processes through information and communication technology but also does this while strengthening political participation and political equality. ; PECOI
