Suchergebnisse

Scripted states and changes in governance / Bengt Jacobsson -- Europeanization and organization theory / Bengt Jacobsson -- Rituals of inquisition. European Commission monitoring of accession processes / Matilda Dahl -- Governance through meditation. EU twinning in Lithuania / Jenny Svensson -- Opening up for change: modernizing public administration in the Baltic States / Eva Granqvist and Emma Wallin -- Europeanization of labor market policy-making in the Baltic States / Kerstin Jacobsson and Charlotte West -- The choice of parliamentary EU scrutiny mechanisms in the new member states / Ann-Cathrine Jungar -- Scripted parties: the case of Estonian social democracy / Karl Magnus Johansson -- Soft powers (in a community of the willing) / Bengt Jacobsson and Anders Nordstrom.

Abstract
In the fight against the Covid-19 virus, France and Sweden stood at opposing ends along a continuum: one country went for lockdowns; the other relied on voluntary measures. Both strategies were shaped by the governing structures in each country: in France complex and fragmented organizational arrangements focusing on health security, in Sweden a single dominant agency maintaining a broad public health perspective. Using concepts from organization theory – loose versus tight coupling and exploitation versus exploration – we show how the divergent strategies evolved in both countries. While loosely coupled organizational arrangements were rapidly tightened in Sweden, the system in France went in the opposite direction becoming loosely coupled. While the Swedish case was mainly one of exploitation of existing knowledge and expertise, more unchartered territories were explored in France. While alignment across actors in Sweden took place with one dominant agency in the center, alignment in France was related to actions of neighboring countries. Evidently, there was more than one way to fight the pandemic.

This article explores discretion in welfare professional work. The aim is to analyse what room for discretionary decision-making that exist in case handling of debt relief at the Swedish Enforcement Authority (SEA). The analysis is guided by a conceptual distinction between structural and epistemic aspects of discretion, as well as between substantive and procedural aspects. The data comprises official and internal SEA documents, interviews with management and staff and field notes from observations. The analysis points to a change in the balance between standards and discretion in relation to the on-going formalization of case handling at the SEA, though not in the simplistic sense that discretion is diminished through formalization. When taking into account the different analytical aspects of discretion, it is concluded that discretion is narrowed only in some respects. There is still space for case officers in selecting and interpreting information and assess-ing the conditions regarding subject matter.

This paper aims to describe and understand the accounts given in applications for debt relief/adjustment in relation to the 'question situation' that overindebted person stand before in their encounters with Swedish authorities. The analysis is based on the sociology of accounts and is made against the background of previous research on overindebtedness in the Nordic countries. The paper shows that the accounts given by debtors include examples of 'refusals' and 'denials', but mainly comprise narratives and accounts centred around giving 'justifications' and 'excuses' focusing on external circumstances (illness, unemployment, divorce, bankruptcy), helplessness, or a lack of knowledge or intent (others causing the debt, or problems of addiction). The applications also contain some 'concessions', 'pledges' and 'appeals' by which the debtors try to show that they are improving in taking economic responsibility and deserve debt relief. The analysis thereby shows which accounts are considered legitimate, but also that the framing cues defining and delimiting the question situation are too weak to produce uniform forms of accounting. Many applicants for debt relief respond to a wide definition of the question situation - one that relates to self-image and social identity.