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The rural-urban dichotomy is one of the most influential figures of thought in history, laying the foundation for academic disciplines such as rural and urban sociology. The dichotomy rests on the assumption that rural and urban areas differ fundamentally. By the mid-twentieth century, scholars had observed that many rural areas displayed a blend of rural and urban features. Since then, counterurbanisation, urban sprawl and ever-increasing flows of people, goods and ideas between rural and urban areas have blurred the distinctions even further. Attempts to create new rural-urban classification systems, whether based on factors such as population size, density or distances, have largely failed. Clearly, new classification systems must use the meaning of observed changes in rural-urban systems as their point of departure rather than simple measurements of these changes. These meanings can, despite the interdependencies of our global world, be explored only in their political, cultural and economic settings.

This book challenges the role of scientists in policy making and the idea of deliberative democracy. The author argues that awareness must increase among both politicians and the citizens who elect them. We must revitalise the decision-making processes in representative democracy. The book proposes new institutional structures

The article describes the founding principles, work program, and accomplishments of a Reference Group with both expert and layperson stakeholders for the corrosion of copper canisters in a proposed deep repository in Sweden for spent nuclear fuel. The article sets the Reference Group as a participatory effort within a broader context of stakeholder and public participation. It is argued that for the future it will be necessary to more precisely define the roles of different approaches to public participation in relation to the actual societal decision-making procedures, and the issue is raised whether an increasing level of their institutionalization is required. In particular, the focus is set on the safe-space approach to stakeholder participation designed to suit situations where independence and autonomy are crucial elements for the participants. To illustrate this we compare experiences from Sweden and the Czech Republic.

New policies in Sweden about intensive forestry and functional green infrastructure require involvement of different sectors for planning of landscapes and regions. However, Sweden has no territorial land-use planning at these spatial scales. Landowners, municipalities and regional governments work separately to implement policies about sustainability. There is thus a growing need for integrated spatial planning, and thus assessments of sustainability at local to regional levels by comparing monitoring results with norms expressed in policies. The aim of this thesis is to analyse and visualise such data using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to enhance comprehensive spatial planning approaches for cooperation between different planning sectors. In paper I, habitat functionality was modelled for area-demanding focal species' requirements in five coarse forest types. Also clear-felling rates within and outside functional habitats for each of four forest owner categories were measured. The differences among landowner categories concerning planning for ecological values were linked to how biodiversity-friendly their policies were. Papers II and III analyses how forest management affects two endangered species, and show that GIS-based proxy variables can be used to predict occurrence of both terrestrial and aquatic focal species. Paper IV assesses how Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) contributes to biodiversity conservation in Sweden and Russia. Analyses of structural connectivity and habitat functionality show that the minimum standard in FSC set-asides is not compatible with higher levels of ambition to maintain biodiversity. Paper V explores how planners, locals and tourists perceive landscape values, and how these can be interpreted and used in spatial planning. Paper VI demonstrates a zoning approach to identify green infrastructures and areas suitable for intensive forestry. In paper VII indicators for ecological, economical and socio-cultural values were summarised to compare municipalities' sustainability. To conclude, there are large opportunities for analysing and visualising data to support integrated spatial planning about sustainability using GIS. However, there is a need for new education programs including all dimensions of sustainability in combination with use of GIS.

AbstractThe aim in this article is to highlight the clash between an old regulatory framework; the one associated with the peasant state in Finland and a new rural activity sector, horseback riding, by predominately middle‐class women. The method used in the study was case studies with a mix of interviews, documentary analysis and, to some extent, participatory observation. It was found that the peasant state regulatory framework has been superseded by two competing frameworks: a neoliberal one and a 'neo top‐down' one strongly associated with the environmental authorities. However, none of these models can satisfactorily deal with the complex challenges posed by the emerging new equine industry. What is needed is a new kind of participatory governance – co‐management – that especially takes into account gender inequalities and strives towards the empowerment of disadvantaged groups.

This paper deals with the demographic and socio‐economic development in the Archipelago Sea Region in southwestern Finland in recent decades. The most important finding is that the region has fared rather well during recent decades, even during the first half of the 1990s, when the rest of Finland was hit by a severe economic crisis. Two factors seem to have influenced the relatively favourable development in the archipelago. On the one hand, the region has specific cultural, social and economic traditions that have enabled it to adapt to new challenges; and on the other hand, certain welfare, regional and other policies seem to have favoured the region to some extent. A general conclusion from the study is that there is a need for a broader theory of rural development than those theories currently being used. The most important feature of such a theory would be its use in providing general interpretations of regional development, even if each region has completely different economic foundations and its own development logic.

The report is an attempt to describe the effects on accidents of compulsory use of running lights - low beam or special lamps - during daylight in Sweden. The study is carried out on police reported traffic accidents with personal injury in Sweden. The before and after periods are two years before and two years after the operative day of the law, October 1st 1977. The use of running lights in the before-period was roughly speaking 50 % and in the after-period over 95 %. The basic assumption is that the use of running lights in daylight influences multiple accidents in daylight and only those. The method used is to study the relation of daylight to darkness numbers of multiple accidents. The corresponding relation for single vehicle accidents is taken as control. The estimated total effect depends both on the subdivision of accident data and the method used for accidents with unprotected road users. The estimates vary from 6 to 13 % reduction - from the before-period to the after period - of multiple accidents during daylight or 450 to 1100 less police reported accidents with personal injury per year. The estimated effects are not significant on a 5 % level.

During modernity metropolitan ruralities have been regarded as land reserves for urban expansion. However, there is a growing insight that there are limits to the urban expansion into rural areas. Signs of a new position are the awakened interest in the nature, the authentic and the simple way of living among an urban, academically educated middle class, an actual instance of which is the interest in local food but which also is manifested in rural gentrification. However, a more hardcore turn to nature is also discernible in the renewed interest for green lungs and for eco-services more broadly. In the future, local post-fossil energy may be a main concern regarding rural eco-services utilised by urban areas. We can here imagine flows and exchanges that may demand heavy societal regulation and thus be one of the main objects of future democracy. However, despite these developments urban (and rural) policy and planning is still tightly connected to the modern expansion of the urban into the rural. There are signs of new developments and paradigm shifts but these have to be strengthened to lay the ground for rural-urban resilience.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is one of the leading forest certification schemes. While many studies concern political aspects and social outcomes of FSC, little is known about the contribution of certification to biodiversity conservation. In Europe, the Russian Federation and Sweden have the largest areas of FSC certified forest. We assessed the potential of FSC certification for boreal biodiversity conservation in terms of standard content, and outcomes as habitat area set aside and habitat network functionality. First, we compared the biodiversity conservation indicators at different spatial scales in Swedish and Russian FSC standards. Second, focusing on one large state forest management unit in each country, we compared the areas of formally and voluntarily set aside forests for biodiversity conservation. Third, we evaluated the structural habitat connectivity by applying morphological spatial pattern analysis, and potential functional connectivity by using habitat suitability index modelling for virtual species. The Russian standard included indicators for all spatial scales of biodiversity conservation, from tree and stand to land-scape and ecoregions. The Swedish standard focused mainly on stand and tree scales. The area of voluntary set-asides for FSC was similar in Sweden and Russia, while formal protection in the Russian case study was three times higher than in the Swedish one. Swedish set-aside core areas were two orders of magnitude smaller, had much lower structural and potential functional connectivity and were located in a fragmented forestland holding. We conclude that to understand the potential of FSC certification for biodiversity conservation both the standard content, and its implementation on the ground, need to be assessed. We discuss the potential of FSC certification for biodiversity conservation with different levels of ambition. We stress the need for developing rapid assessment tools to evaluate outcomes of FSC for biodiversity conservation on the ground, which could be used by forest managers and FSC-auditors toward adaptive governance and management.

Today, societal decisions in areas of complexity are often dominated by one of three alternative ways: (a) by scientists, nowadays often in combination with commercial interest; (b) by politicians alone; and (c) by simply "laissez-faire," or "the tyranny of small steps." None of these three ways of decision making is fully democratic because they do not create enough awareness among the politicians and the general public. One reason is that the decision making basis becomes too narrowly framed and fragmented. Biotechnology will continue to feed society with new democratic challenges for many years, perhaps decades, to come. The initially promising ideas of participative and deliberative democracy do not seem to solve the awareness problem. Instead, the authors propose an approach with more structured efforts for awareness building with transparency and participation taking place within the framework of representative democracy.