Suchergebnisse

It is commonly argued in the literature on regional innovation that regions must continuously develop new economic activities to compensate for economic decline. If a region manages to diversify from an existing path, it can sustain long-term economic development. One of the measures taken to increase these types of opportunities and to avoid lock-in is to stimulate a closer relationship and collaboration between universities and industry partners. However, we know little about the formation and investigation of successful university-industry relationships in regions outside metropolitan areas. This paper seeks to fill this research gap by investigating how different dimensions of cognitive, organizational, social and geographical proximity facilitate or hinder innovation processes in collaborations between industry and universities in peripheral regions. We find that social proximity, combined with high organizational proximity, overcomes the barriers presented by low geographical proximity. Social proximity compensates for thin regional structures with few high-tech firms, a lack of knowledge producers and a weak support system. An important policy implication is that stimulating collaboration within areas of expertise possessed by university and industry partners create potential for innovation.

"Same-sex love was forbidden by law until 1944, and in culture it continued to be taboo, but it has always existed there. The prohibition created tensions which art and literature could play with. Narratives about forbidden love show this through well-known authors such as Agnes von Krusenstjerna, Maria Sandel, Karin Boye and Frida Stéenhoff, and less well-known ones like Gertrud Almqvist, Margareta Suber, Lydia Wahlström and the pseudonym Elsa Gille. The book investigates literary narratives about women's love for women and the ideas about the forbidden contained in them. What strategies did the authors use to get round the ban on the mention of the topic? Are there any utopian visions of how everything could be arranged in a different and better way? And how does the literature relate to other theories about same-sex love? Berättelser om det förbjudna: Begär mellan kvinnor i svensk litteratur 1900–1935 ("Stories of the Forbidden: Desire between Women in Swedish Literature 1900–1935") is a free-standing continuation of Kärlekshistoria: Begär mellan kvinnor i 1800-talets litteratur ("Love Story: Desire between Women in Nineteenth-century Literature", 2008). Together the books span over 100 years of Swedish literary history, making them the most comprehensive study available in the field in Sweden and Scandinavia.
Eva Borgström is associate professor of comparative literature and lecturer at the Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion at the University of Gothenburg. She has formerly worked at the National Secretariat for Gender Research and the Department of Gender Studies. - Samkönad kärlek var fram till 1944 förbjuden enligt lag och i kulturen var den tabuerad längre än så, men den har ändå alltid funnits där. Förbudet skapade spänningar som konsten och litteraturen kunde spela med. Berättelser om det förbjudna visar detta genom välkända författare som Agnes von Krusenstjerna, Maria Sandel, Karin Boye och Frida Stéenhoff, liksom mindre kända som Gertrud Almqvist, Margareta Suber, Lydia Wahlström och pseudonymen Elsa Gille. Boken undersöker skönlitterära berättelser om kvinnors kärlek till kvinnor och de föreställningar om det förbjudna som finns i dem. Vilka strategier använde författarna för att komma runt yttrandeförbudet? Finns det några utopier om hur allt skulle kunna ordnas på ett annat och bättre sätt? Och hur förhåller sig litteraturen till andra teorier i tiden om samkönad kärlek? Berättelser om det förbjudna. Begär mellan kvinnor i svensk litteratur 1900–1935 är en fristående fortsättning på Kärlekshistoria. Begär mellan kvinnor i 1800-talets litteratur (2008). Tillsammans spänner böckerna över 100 år av svensk litteraturhistoria och utgör därmed den hittills mest omfattande studie på området som finns i Sverige och Norden.
Eva Borgström är docent i litteraturvetenskap och lektor vid Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion vid Göteborgs universitet. Tidigare har hon bland annat arbetat på Nationella sekretariatet för genusforskning och Institutionen för genusvetenskap. "

This thesis deals on integration of ASEAN. The primary objective of this thesis is to find out the potential of ASEAN to be politically and economically integrated like EU, and the kind of difficulties it may face in a mid way. Since EU is a pioneer and benchmark for any integration and ASEAN takes EU as a reference, I choose EU as a base to compare the progress of ASEAN. As for the theoretical aspect, integration theory and its importance in global scenario is discussed. The research sought after the way ahead for ASEAN. This study is based on a comparative analysis of the development of both EU and ASEAN. The information and literature needed for the thesis will be collected from open source, which is easily accessible to all. After analyzing the historical background, present development and future prospect, I think ASEAN is turning out to be the successful regional cooperation. Even though ASEAN took reference from EU in its development, It don´t need to be like EU. Being the cooperation from different group of differently diversified nations, It can pave its own way forward and can lay good precedent for other upcoming regional co-operations. ; M-IR

The purpose of this thesis is to map and assess the organisational and ideological development of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party, the ELDR. More specifically, it seeks to analyse the degree of integration between the members of the ELDR over time, to identify factors that may or may not generate integration, to relate the development of the ELDR to earlier research about European parties, and finally to contribute to the ongoing debate about whether or not the traditional national party families are about to establish parties at the European level. The thesis is based on the assumption that parties adapt to their environment, in this case, the system of multi-level governance that characterises the European Union. As the European parties are composed of national parties, they are also dependent on the member parties' opportunities and motives for cooperation. If there is integration, we can, however, not only expect the European parties to adapt to their environment. As they become independent actors, they may also influence their environment. In other words, we can anticipate interaction between the European and national levels that leads to mutual adaptation, or Europeanisation. To be able to capture the interaction between the two levels, theories from international relations and comparative politics are combined. Based on interviews, participant observation, documentary research and content analysis of European election manifestos, the analyses shows that the members of the ELDR have over time reached a rather advanced level of integration, both organisationally and ideologically. Although it is possible to identify constraining factors to this development, the ELDR has, at least from what is known from literature, reached about the same level of development as the two other European parties, the Christian democratic EPP and the Social democratic PES. The internal integration of the ELDR is the outcome of a successive transfer of power from the member parties to the ELDR. By now, the ELDR can therefore be defined as a rather independent actor and as a type of party at the European level. This type of party is, however, not comparable to national parties. It is instead adapted to the institutional structure of the European Union, with, at least partly, a different organisation and different functions from those of national parties. ; digitalisering@umu

Agriculture provides the most essential service to mankind, as production of crops in sufficient amounts is necessary for food security and livelihood. This chapter examines the question of whether organic agriculture can produce enough food to meet future demand. This question relates to a moral imperative and any evaluation must therefore be based on objective scientific facts excluding ideological bias, political correctness, economic incentives or environmental opinions. The chapter begins by defining the conditions necessary for a stringent evaluation of crop yields and explains potential pitfalls. Yield data from national statistics, organic and conventional long-term experiments and comparative studies are then compiled and evaluated, followed by a discussion of the main factors behind low-yielding production. In a global perspective, the scientific literature shows that organic yields are between 25 and 50% lower than conventional yields, depending on whether the organic system has access to animal manure. The amount of manure available on organic farms is usually not sufficient to produce similar crop yields as in conventional systems and therefore green manures are commonly used. However, organic crop yields reported for rotations with green manure require correction for years without crop export from the field, which reduces average yield over the crop rotation. When organic yields are similar to those in conventional production, nutrient input through manure is usually higher than nutrient addition in conventional agriculture, but such high inputs are usually only possible through transfer of large amounts of manure from conventional to organic production. The main factors limiting organic yields are lower nutrient availability, poorer weed control and limited possibilities to improve the nutrient status of infertile soils. It is thus very likely that the rules that actually define organic agriculture, i.e. exclusive use of manures and untreated minerals, greatly limit the potential to increase yields. Our analysis of some yield-related statements repeatedly used by advocates of organic agriculture reached the following conclusions: Organic manure is a severely limited resource, unavailable in quantities sufficient for sustaining high crop yields; legumes are not a free and environmentally sound N source that can replace inorganic fertilisers throughout; and low native soil fertility cannot be overcome with local inputs and untreated minerals alone. Agricultural methods severely limiting crop yields are counter-productive. Lower organic yields require compensation through expansion of cropland – the alternative is famine. Combining expected population growth and projected land demand reveals that low-yielding agriculture is an unrealistic option for production of sufficient crops in the future. In addition, accelerated conversion of natural ecosystems into cropland would cause significant loss of natural habitats. Further improvement of conventional agriculture based on innovations, enhanced efficiency and improved agronomic practices seems to be the only way to produce sufficient food supply for a growing world population while minimising the negative environmental impact.

It is rather often assumed that Swedish foreign policy debate is largely characterized by consensus and that foreign policy goals often are material (for example security or economic welfare). Despite this, it is possible to identify disagreement among political parties about ideological goals – i.e. the promotion of values – in Swedish foreign policy debates. This raises questions about the nature and importance of these ideological goals in such debates. To study this closer I investigate foreign policy debates about the military conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq. The purpose of the dissertation is to describe and explain the content and relative importance of the ideological goals expressed by Swedish parliamentary parties in both party and public arenas. Four parties are included in the study: the Left, the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Conservatives. The theoretical framework is made up of two main parts. First, I develop a classification scheme to identify and sort the goals found in the empirical material. This scheme includes four goal types: ideological, security, economic, and other. Second, insights from literatures on foreign policy and the behaviour of political parties are used to analyze the content and importance of ideological goals. The research design used in the dissertation is comparative case studies. The empirical material is composed of documents from the internal party arena (meeting minutes, congress material, etc), the parliamentary arena (debate material) and the official arena (press material). The material has been analyzed mainly qualitatively with the help of ideational and argument analysis. In order to estimate the relative importance of ideological goals quantitative content analysis has also been used. As regards the content of ideological goals during debates about Vietnam, the empirical results show all parties discussed the promotion of humanity, democracy and states' rights to national independence. In the Iraq conflict, all parties expressed goals about humanity, human rights, internal security/safety, democracy and states' rights to national independence. Beyond these goals, individual or a few parties also expressed other ideological goals. However, a central result is that the parties have linked the ideological goals – which they often agree about – to different ways of reasoning. The empirical analysis also revealed that ideological goals have generally been more important than other types of goals (with the exception of the Conservative Party in the debate about Vietnam). Regarding developments over time, the importance of ideological goals was unchanged for the Social Democrats and the Liberal Party. For the Left there was a slight decrease, and for the Conservatives a significant increase. The overall conclusion about what explains the content and importance of ideological goals in the foreign policy debates studied here is that explanations at the systemic level are inadequate. Variables like the international political structure (polarity) and institutional mechanisms in the EU and the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy had little explanatory power. Instead, explanations like type of foreign policy issue, party ideology and party strategy were more useful. Differences in parties' fundamental ideological views were also discussed as an important source of difference as regards the positions and arguments that expressed ideological goals.