This policy brief looks into the role of social norms to fight corruption in the school system in the Cau Giay district in Hanoi. An ongoing research project has conducted multiple ethnographic field studies in schools and included parents, teachers, and other school personnel in the research data. Their experiences and reflections are the core of this brief. The results show the existence of informal transactions to ensure good care and schools results backed up on social norms such as the celebration of national holidays throughout the school year, but also exist on an everyday basis with the practices of home teaching, and the recruitment of new teachers to schools. By applying a socio-legal anti-corruption perspective to the findings, we suggest a list of actions that could be implemented by local school administrators and headmasters to ensure that no child experiences corruption nor the impact of corruption on his/her schooling. ; Projekt finansierat av ICLD
In: Rustamjon Urinboyev & Måns Svensson (2013) Living law, legal pluralism, and corruption in post-Soviet Uzbekistan, The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 45:3, 372-390, DOI: 10.1080/07329113.2014.867752
In: New media & society: an international and interdisciplinary forum for the examination of the social dynamics of media and information change, Band 14, Heft 7, S. 1147-1163
The current study empirically demonstrates the widely discussed gap between copyright law and social norms. Theoretically founded in the sociology of law, the study uses a well-defined concept of norms to quantitatively measure changes in the strength of social norms before and after the implementation of legislation. The 'IPRED law' was implemented in Sweden on 1 April 2009, as a result of the EU IPR Enforcement Directive 2004/48/EC. It aims at enforcing copyright, as well as other IP rights, when they are violated, especially online. A survey was conducted three months before the IPRED law came into force, and it was repeated six months later. The approximately one thousand respondents between fifteen and twenty-five years-of-age showed, among other things, that although actual file-sharing behaviour had to some extent decreased in frequency, social norms remained unaffected by the law.
The current study empirically demonstrates the widely discussed gap between copyright law and social norms. Theoretically founded in the sociology of law, the study uses a well-defined concept of norms to quantitatively measure changes in the strength of social norms before and after the implementation of legislation. The 'IPRED law' was implemented in Sweden on 1 April 2009, as a result of the EU IPR Enforcement Directive 2004/48/EC. It aims at enforcing copyright, as well as other IP rights, when they are violated, especially online. A survey was conducted three months before the IPRED law came into force, and it was repeated six months later. The approximately one thousand respondents between fifteen and twenty-five years-of-age showed, among other things, that although actual file-sharing behaviour had to some extent decreased in frequency, social norms remained unaffected by the law.
AbstractThe European Union directive on Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement (IPRED) was implemented in Sweden on April 1, 2009, and was meant to be the enforcement needed to achieve increased compliance with intellectual property online, especially copyright. This, therefore, was the manifest function of the directive. The article empirically shows changes in levels of use of Online Anonymity Services (OAS) as a result of the implementation of IPRED in Sweden, as being a latent dysfunction of the implementation The data consists of two surveys of about 1,000 people between 15 and 25 years of age, where the first survey was conducted two months prior to the implementation of IPRED, and the second one seven months afterwards. This data is complemented with OAS statistics as well as Google search engine statistics in Sweden during 2009 on a selection of phrases related to online anonymity, revealing the link between encrypted anonymity fluctuations and copyright enforcement. The article suggests that a key to understand any relationship between IPRED and fluctuations in online anonymity can be found in the law's relationship to social norms and levels of perceived legitimacy. The implementation of illegitimate laws is likely to spur dysfunctional (for the law) counter‐measures. In the case of copyright enforcement and encryption technologies, the first seems to drive the other to some extent, affecting the balance of openness and anonymity on the Internet, possibly and at worst leading to that the enforcement of legislation that has a weak representation among social norms negatively affects the enforcement of legislation that has a strong representation among social norms.
The European Union directive on Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement (IPRED) was implemented in Sweden on April 1, 2009, and was meant to be the enforcement needed to achieve increased compliance with intellectual property online, especially copyright. This, therefore, was the manifest function of the directive. The article empirically shows changes in levels of use of Online Anonymity Services (OAS) as a result of the implementation of IPRED in Sweden, as being a latent dysfunction of the implementation The data consists of two surveys of about 1,000 people between 15 and 25 years of age, where the first survey was conducted two months prior to the implementation of IPRED, and the second one seven months afterwards. This data is complemented with OAS statistics as well as Google search engine statistics in Sweden during 2009 on a selection of phrases related to online anonymity, revealing the link between encrypted anonymity fluctuations and copyright enforcement. The article suggests that a key to understand any relationship between IPRED and fluctuations in online anonymity can be found in the law's relationship to social norms and levels of perceived legitimacy. The implementation of illegitimate laws is likely to spur dysfunctional (for the law) counter-measures. In the case of copyright enforcement and encryption technologies, the first seems to drive the other to some extent, affecting the balance of openness and anonymity on the Internet, possibly and at worst leading to that the enforcement of legislation that has a weak representation among social norms negatively affects the enforcement of legislation that has a strong representation among social norms.
This report is the result of study that was performed in January and February 2009. It was presented and reviewed at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association: Law, Power, and Inequality in the 21st Century in May 2009. The study empirically examined, or rather examined the lack of, social norms opposing illegal file sharing. A total of over 1,000 respondents have answered the questionnaire. Along with the social norm indicators, the study maps out relevant questions regarding internet behaviour in this field, such as the will to use anonymity services and the will to pay for copyrighted content. These results are compared and contrasted with the legal development trend in European law in internet and file sharing related matters, as well as the Swedish implementation of this development, as a member of the European Union. This includes the Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (IPRED), the Directive on Data retention as well as the implementation of INFOSOC. Svensson and Larsson in Social Norms and Intellectual Property – Online norms and the European legal development consequently portrays the social norms on the one hand and the legal development on the other, and the overarching question of the report therefore addresses the correlation of these two. Do the social norms amongst 15-25 year olds match the legal regulation, as well as the regulatory trend on this field? If not, how can this be understood or explained? The study shows that the cybernorms differ, both in inherent structures and origin, from current legal constructions. This study is part of Cybernorms – norm creation processes in young net cultures, a research project that explores the norm creating processes (social and legal) that appear in the wake of the changing information technology. The project is run by researchers at the Department of Sociology of Law at Lund University and is funded by The Knowledge Foundation (Stiftelsen för kunskaps- och kompetensutveckling). The members of the project run a scientific blog at www.cybernormer.se.
The research area of Digitalization and Privacy, as defined and delimited within the context of this knowledge review, (mainly through the selection of search strings), is in a phase of development. The present study has been delimited to articles in English that have been published in scientific peer-reviewed journals. During the past ten years, the number of scientific articles per year has increased more than five times. For example, a search of the database WEB OF SCIENCE for the year 2006 renders 13 matches, while an identical search for the year 2014 renders 72 matches. In the present systematic knowledge review, two types of investigations have been conducted. First, a bibliometric analysis that aims to produce a comprehensive overview of the current state of the research in the area at a statistically analytical level. Second, a systematic literature study that has identified relevant scientific articles, analyzed their content and categorized them. The bibliometric analysis demonstrates that research on digitalization and privacy is quite strictly divided, mainly between three scientific fields. In other words, communication between the various fields (i.e., intertextual references and citations of each field's research) is somewhat limited. The research fields can be described as: (a) a technical field that is largely concerned with systems development, (b) a legal field that focuses on issues regarding legislated protection of privacy, and (c) a social sciences and behavioral sciences oriented area that includes informatics, psychology, sociology, political science and marketing and management research and more. This systematic literature review, based on close reading of all included articles, shows a lack of clear, mutually shared, conceptual terminology and common understandings of methodologies within the various scientific disciplines. However, there are a number of areas (or focuses of research) that recur frequently. The five dominant areas are: (a) technology, (b) legislation, (c) the state, (d) theory, and (e) working life. Further, the research identifies different approaches to digitalization and privacy. First, as a problem (or, perhaps, a challenge) that can be managed using new, improved and more privacy-sensitive technology. Secondly, as an opportunity to work towards achieving good values such as improved health, through practical applications of potentially sensitive data. Thirdly, as a threat to citizens and employees. And, finally, as a relationship of ex-change between usefulness and risks, for example, with regards to state needs for information in order to prevent threats and protect the citizens rights of privacy. It is also strikingly clear that there is insufficient knowledge of the relation-ship between digital surveillance and potential behavioral changes in society. Various studies highlight that a lack of respect for privacy risks leading to reduced Internet use and reduced political involvement (at least on the Internet). However, at this point in time there is no empirical evidence to support that this is the case.
There have been extensive discussions in academic circles of why some countries develop into welfare states while others do not. Two main factors mentioned in these discussions are economic growth and the need for political stability. In these discussions, the example of Sweden, where the welfare state allegedly emerged from a 'culture of consensus', has often been treated as an historic exception. In this article we discuss the relevance of the two main factors suggested in the literature, and investigate whether Sweden is a rare case of a country where welfare arose out of a culture of consensus or if welfare in Sweden emerged as a product of strategies that aimed at promoting political stability, and thereby followed a similar pattern to other Western European countries. In undertaking this task, we have conducted a review of the literature and used Migdal's 'state-in-society' perspective and the 'institutional approach' as a theoretical framework. Our results can be summarised under three headings: (a) until the mid-twentieth century, Sweden was a highly unstable, conflict-ridden class society, and thereby a followed similar pattern to other Western European countries; (b) welfare reforms in Sweden were introduced as a means of addressing political and social instability; (c) Sweden is therefore no exception to the theory that deep political crises trigger welfare reforms.
There have been extensive discussions in academic circles of why some countries develop into welfare states while others do not. Two main factors mentioned in these discussions are economic growth and the need for political stability. In these discussions, the example of Sweden, where the welfare state allegedly emerged from a 'culture of consensus', has often been treated as an historic exception. In this article we discuss the relevance of the two main factors suggested in the literature, and investigate whether Sweden is a rare case of a country where welfare arose out of a culture of consensus or if welfare in Sweden emerged as a product of strategies that aimed at promoting political stability, and thereby followed a similar pattern to other Western European countries. In undertaking this task, we have conducted a review of the literature and used Migdal's 'state-in-society' perspective and the 'institutional approach' as a theoretical framework. Our results can be summarised under three headings: (a) until the mid-twentieth century, Sweden was a highly unstable, conflict-ridden class society, and thereby a followed similar pattern to other Western European countries; (b) welfare reforms in Sweden were introduced as a means of addressing political and social instability; (c) Sweden is therefore no exception to the theory that deep political crises trigger welfare reforms.
This systematic literature review investigates the extent to which recent anti-corruption literature goes beyond the established paradigms (i.e., principal-agent perspective, macro-level, structural, and legal centralistic approaches) to focus on society's informal norms, everyday micro-level power relations and non-monetary currencies (e.g. respect, prestige, social status and trust). By reconceptualising the various meanings and morality of informal, non-legal practices and transactions in the frame of the 'multi-level orders of corruption' perspective, the paper also assesses the extent to which the current canon focuses on the complex articulation and interdependencies between (1) global, transnational anti-corruption laws, initiatives, discourses, and institutions, (2) national/central level initiatives, policies, and laws, and (3) local, micro-level social norms and practices. Based on one-hundred and three systematically gathered peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2015 and 2020, we found that most studies conducted within this period focus on anti-corruption at the national level and mostly employ analytical and quantitative methods. However, the local level received scant attention, and qualitative methods were employed in a few studies. Also, even though a significant number of studies focus on anti-corruption at multiple levels, these are mostly either the global-national level or national-local level. None of the articles gathered for this review studies anti-corruption in a complete multi-level approach that explores the global-national-local level. Lastly, we found that most of the studies across the levels are shaped by the principal-agent perspective and indicate a predominance of the perspective within anti-corruption policy and practice across the world. Consequently, irrespective of the entity of focus (i.e., country or institution), method (quantitative, qualitative, analytical or experimental) or level of analysis (i.e., global, national, or local or multi-level), most of the ...
The issue of governance has become a fashionable topic of research in the study of post-Soviet societies. The key argument of this article is that there are multiple paradigms and understandings of 'good governance', some of which concur with the global (Western) understanding, while others offer alternative criteria. In this article, we explore the specifics of governance system in Uzbekistan and suggest the notion of 'everyday life governance' as shorthand for providing contextual understanding of good governance. This local Uzbek governance system consists of two important interrelated components: a government that heavily relies on coercive infrastructure for maintaining political stability and interethnic peace, but at the same time induces its citizens to engage in informal practices and networks as an alternative (to the formal) source of welfare. This article explores how this system emerged in the post-Soviet period and its impact on societal transformation, governance and development processes in Uzbekistan. These issues will be investigated with reference to observations and informal interviews from post-Soviet Uzbekistan. This study is based on three periods of ethnographic field research between 2009 and 2012 in the Ferghana Province of Uzbekistan.
This article analyses current trends in the use of anonymity services among younger Swedes (15-25) and focuses on individuals engaging in illegal file sharing in order to better understand the rationale behind both file sharing as well as online anonymity, especially in relation to enforcement of copyright. By comparing the findings of a survey conducted on three different occasions (early 2009, late 2009 and early 2012), we measure the fluctuations in the use of anonymity services among approximately 1,000 15-25-year olds in Sweden, compare them to file sharing frequencies and, to some extent, trends within legal enforcement. The article also suggests that the key to understanding any relationship between copyright enforcement and fluctuations in online anonymity can be found in the law's relationship to social norms in terms of legitimacy by showing a correlation between file sharing frequency and the use of anonymity services. The findings indicate that larger proportions of frequent file sharers (downloaders) also use anonymity services more often than those who file share less. However, in comparison to the earlier surveys, the strongest increase in the use of anonymity services is found in the groups where file sharing is less frequent, suggesting that reasons for actively making oneself less traceable online other than avoiding copyright enforcement have emerged since the initial two surveys in 2009. Further, the overall increase (from 8.6% to 14.9%) in using anonymity services found for the whole group of respondents suggests both that high file sharing frequency is a driver for less traceability as well as a larger trend for online anonymity relating to other factors than mere file sharing of copyright infringing content – for example, increased governmental identification, data retention and surveillance in the online environment. The results are analysed in Merton's terminology as file sharers and protocol architects adapting in terms of both innovation and rebellion in the sense that institutional means for achieving specific cultural goals are rejected. This means, to some extent, participating in or contributing to the construction of other means for reaching cultural goals.