Suchergebnisse

This thesis is about some Swedish organizations that are connected to the labour movement and their actions to cope with the new hegemony around market liberalism. After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 90-ties, the liberal order, meaning market economy and democracy reduced to the election of elites, has become totally domineering both in the western and in the former communist world. Even left wing oriented organizations have adopted their operations and activities accordingly, especially in their internal governing structure. The organizations that I have studied, mainly the Swedish Tenants organization at its local level of Stockholm, developed during the 70-ties and the 80-ties a participatorier member structure. The "Swedish model" of consensus/corporative decision-making and agreement, used by them on the national level for decades, was during that period introduced also on local and regional levels. In the 90-ties these organizations, according to earlier studies, have instead adapted a more costumer-oriented and elite-democratic way of operating and governing. These later changes could be seen as contradicting both the development of the 80-ties and the basic values of those organizations. My questions are therefore how these changes became possible and my aim is to study how the active members have contributed to this development. Using a constructionist theoretical perspective and discourse analysis, I am showing how this potential conflict between a participatory and an elite-democratic model can be reconciled by a discursive construction. The active members have in fact been able see these changes just as a modernization of their organization. From their point-of-view their organization still works in a participatory democratic way. My analysis shows how this ambiguousness and potential paradox became possible thru internal discourses and under influence from the liberal hegemony.

The important role played by the army in the pol'al life of Latin America is revealed by the history of these nations. To begin with, the military conquistadors were quickly replaced by a civil bureaucracy which was under the complete control of the Spanish crown. The financiers were constantly seeking to sell military titles while the need for a defense against Indians & pirates called for the creation of a militia. The wars of liberation brought the generals to the fore, though Spanish customs had already given the military the benefits of a privileged class. These soldiers now found that they had no outlet for their military prowess because South America was far removed from the area of major conflicts. The generals entered into an alliance with the large landowners to form a pol'al system resembling the Spanish one, a type of caudillism, that is to say a dictatorship depending upon the army. Toward the end of the 19th cent, modifications in the recruitment of soldiers & in the formation of officer corps tended to do away with the influence of the military on pol'al life. It was the crisis that followed WW1 that brought back the influence of the military, but this time in a diff fashion. The officer corps had become much less conservative & had been seriously affected by doctrines inspired by Fascism & Communism. The army also tended to intervene indirectly to support particular pol'al views by allowing the leaders who had the army's support to maintain order. In several states, then, the police, frequently organized with the help of the US, began to play a role formerly held by the army. The Gov's therefore began to depend for their existence on an equilibrium between the army, police, & militia. Frequently, also, the various armed forces were at odds, with the navy & the Air Force generally being more liberal than the Army. Military careers appeared to be instruments of soc promotion & made it possible, in nations where marked diff's in class existed, for individuals to achieve a fair degree of success. Tr by J. A. Broussard from IPSA.

The European Union (EU) is committed to conserving biodiversity, both in terms of natural and cultural legacies, and also to limiting biodiversity loss. Relevant policies have underlined the importance of considering ecological and social issues, as well as the complex relations between the two spheres in conservation of biodiversity. These policies have clear implications for all sectors responsible for planning for biodiversity conservation. In order to be consistent with international legislation, it is necessary to move beyond protected areas and include biodiversity conservation considerations in planning activities of various sectors, and also to involve relevant stakeholders in the planning process. This is in line with the landscape approach to planning that has recently been advocated in research and practical planning. The landscape approach has a holistic perspective that encompasses both ecological and social considerations. This thesis focuses on the implementation of policies regarding biodiversity conservation and public participation; that is, the ecological and social dimensions of spatial planning in landscapes. In particular, I examine the role of people, such as planners implementing policies and other stakeholders who might influence biodiversity conservation. The studies within this thesis concern Poland and Sweden, and three sectors: regional, road and forestry planning. The thesis is comprised of four papers. Paper I deals with planners working to implement biodiversity and public participation policies. Paper II concentrates on the issues of stakeholder involvement in the Environmental Impact Assessment of road planning. Paper III investigates a specific conflict that influenced the conservation of biodiversity in an important biodiversity hotspot. Paper IV is a conceptual paper that discusses the tools used to integrate ecological and social dimensions when implementing the European Landscape Convention. The studies included in this thesis reveal that successfully implementing biodiversity conservation and public participation policies may require more than just ecological knowledge about how biodiversity should be maintained, and more than just formal guidelines regarding how the public should be treated in the planning process. In addition, the role of people who may influence the planning and decision making processes is crucial. Accordingly, there is a need for two key developments. Firstly, planners and the general public should be properly educated about conservation-related issues. Secondly, various incentives should be introduced that influence the behaviour and, in the longer term, the attitudes of the people who may affect biodiversity.

Den här avhandlingen undersöker vilken inverkan styrning som "governance" och interorganisatorisk samverkan har på lokala integrationsprogram inom det svenska flyktingmottagandet. Fokus ligger på att studera hur organisationer på lokal nivå förhåller sig till ett institutionellt förändringstryck om att etablera ett interorganisatoriskt och arbetsmarknadsinriktat program. Syftet är också att bidra till den teoretiska förståelsen av "governancemisslyckanden" och den mångfald av processer som styrning genom icke-tvingande mekanismer och decentraliserat beslutsfattande kan ge upphov till på lokal nivå. Den empiriska studien bygger på intervjuer med företrädare för myndigheter och andra aktörer på olika nivåer inom integrationsområdet. Fallstudier av lokalt utvecklingsarbete har genomförts i fyra kommuner. Avhandlingen visar att styrningen baserad på icke-tvingande mekanismer hade svårt att få genomslag när den stod i konflikt med etablerade arbetssätt och professionella normer. Den har också inneburit vaga och svårförenliga riktlinjer för arbetet på lokal nivå. Inom det lokala flyktingmottagandet har utvecklingsarbetet karaktäriserats av erfarenhetsutbyte, jämförelser och en vilja till gemensamt lärande inom ramen för professionella nätvek. Denna typ av samverkan har bidragit till ökad likformighet, eller isomorfism, inom de lokala insatserna, vilket står i kontrast till målet om ett mer differentierat och flexibelt program. ; This thesis examines the impact and significance of governance and inter-organizational collaboration in the policy area of local refugee reception and immigrant integration in Sweden. The study focuses on how local actors respond to institutional pressures to engage in collaborative efforts in order to make service provision more differentiated and more orientated towards employment. The aim also is to contribute to the theoretical understanding of 'governance failure' and the multiplicity of outcomes that are possible when non-coercive mechanisms are applied rather than formal 'command-and-control'. The empirical study is based on interviews with representatives from agencies involved at different levels. At the local level, case studies of integration programme development were carried out in four municipalities. The analysis shows that the governance strategies, based on non-coercive mechanisms, had a limited significance because they were in conflict with professional norms and practices at the local level of service provision. They also failed to provide more detailed guidance on how the differentiated services should be realized in practice. Instead, programme development at the local level was characterized by collaborative learning and imitation in professional networks, or 'communities of practice'. This type of collaboration contributed to processes of increased homogenization, or isomorphism, which stands in contrast to the goal of a more de-standardized and flexible programme.

Mellan 2002 och 2018 utvecklades Sverigedemokraterna från ett marginellt parti till en politisk kraft att räkna med: partiet fick cirka 18 procent av rösterna i riksdagsvalet 2018. Björn Fryklund och Sigrid Saveljeffs artikel är en analys av Socialdemokraternas och Moderaternas förhållningssätt till Sverigedemokraterna under denna period. En utgångspunkt är den amerikanska statsvetaren Bonnie Meguids PSO-teori (position, salience, ownership), vilken urskiljer tre huvudsakliga strategier som dominerande partier kan tillämpa mot nischpartier: avvisande, konvergerande och divergerande. Författarna visar att trovärdighet och demokratisk legitimitet har haft stor betydelse för vilka strategier S och M har valt. Det finns ett demokratiskt dilemma: väljarnas efterfrågan på partier med högerpopulistisk dagordning skapar motsvarande tillgång, och förr eller senare uppstår en konflikt med den liberala demokratins grundläggande värden. Det skapar ett strategiskt dilemma för de etablerade partierna: de tvingas balansera mellan att sträva mot sina egna mål och att hantera det demokratiska dilemmat. I Sverige har det demokratiska dilemmat blivit allt mer underordnat det strategiska dilemmat.Publiceringshistorik: Originalpublicering.(Publicerad 20 mars 2019)Förslag på källangivelse: Fryklund, Björn & Sigrid Saveljeff (2019) "Det politiska etablissemangets strategier gentemot högerpopulistiska partier", i Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, nr 10, s. 33–70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.10.2 ; [The political establishment's strategies towards right-wing populist parties]Between 2002 and 2018, the Swedish right-wing populist party Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats) developed from a marginal party to a political force to be reckoned with: the party received about 18 percent of the votes in the parliamentary election in 2018. Björn Fryklund and Sigrid Saveljeff's article is an analysis of the Swedish Social Democratic Party's and the liberal-conservative Moderate Party's approach to the Sweden Democrats during this period. One starting point is the American political scientist Bonnie Meguid's PSO (position, salience, ownership) theory, which distinguishes three main strategies that dominant parties can apply to niche parties: dismissive strategy, converging strategy or diverging strategy. The authors show that credibility and democratic legitimacy have been of great importance to which strategies the Social Democrats and the Moderates have chosen. There is a democratic dilemma: the voters' demand for parties with right-wing populist agenda creates the corresponding supply, and sooner or later a conflict arises with the fundamental values of liberal democracy. It creates a strategic dilemma for the established parties: they are forced to balance between striving for their own goals and dealing with the democratic dilemma. In Sweden, the democratic dilemma has become increasingly subordinate to the strategic dilemma.Publication history: Published original.(Published 20 March 2019)Citation: Fryklund, Björn & Sigrid Saveljeff (2019) "Det politiska etablissemangets strategier gentemot högerpopulistiska partier", in Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, issue 10, pp. 33–70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.10.2

This study was made with the purposes of characterizing milk supply and marketing chains, postproduction losses of milk, and evaluating the potential of supply chain management approach to reduce milk losses in Ethiopia. Primary data were collected by semi-structured survey questionnaire and interview of key informants. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel sheets. Mapping, characterizations, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the collected data. Both quantitative and qualitative-narrative methods were used in analysis. The finding revealed that farmers, cooperatives/unions, traders, and catering institutions were the major chain actors in milk chain in the study area. With 73% of milk sold by farmers passing through cooperatives/unions to the next chain actors, cooperatives/unions were the focal firms in this supply chain. Production was characterized by smallholders with few numbers of cows and low productivity of milk per cow per day. Cow breed and lack of access to credit were identified as critical resource and the most constraint that hinder production improvement. Marketing relationships among the chain actors were characterized as lacking long-term market orientation and were mostly on the spot and transaction based. The assessment on the enabling environment indicated further need of support from governmental and non-governmental stakeholders to build the capacity of chain actors, particularly the farmers. The study indicated existence of significant amount of milk losses in the milk chain. With 39% of the total losses happening at cooperatives/union stage, cooperatives/unions were identified as loss hotspot point in the chain. Poor milk handling practice at the collection points, lack of immediate acceptors, milk carrying tools used, means of transport used, and ineffective communication with other partner in the chain were identified in order of severity as important problems causing milk losses in the study area. Based on the study results and review of others' work in similar contexts, this study argued for SCM to be part of solution in improving this dairy chain. The study showed cases where effectively implemented SCM approach converted dairy chains from chains characterized by dismantled, high conflicts of interests among the chain actors, and high losses of food in the chain to chains with mutual interest trying to maximize the profit to the whole chain actors. Integrated and collective actions by all chain actors aiming at reducing costs, improving quality, and minimizing food losses in the chain were central to these efforts. Therefore, SCM approach needs to be part of the solution in increasing profitability and reducing milk losses in Ethiopia in general and in the study area in particular. However, the needs for detailed further study, some of which are recommended by this study, are worthwhile.

The change in regional governance in Sweden is regularly understood in terms of a shift from 'government' to 'governance', from a redistributive policy to a policy that aims to encourage regional innovation, competitiveness and growth. This shift also includes the adoption of global policy models, such as 'clusters'. In the literature on the global spread of policies it has been argued that a market for global policies has developed. This is not least evident through the expansion of global consultancy firms, international policy organisations as well as a cosmopolitan elite of travelling policy technocrats. Theoretically and methodologically this study contributes to scholarly discussions of how new forms of governance can be analysed, and especially how governmentality studies can be utilised and combined with analyses of the messy political practices of specific policies and programs. The study analyses the discursive shift in regional policy in Sweden: contested elements erased, conflicts concealed and the political order produced. By empirically departing from a 'cluster policy network' lodged within a Swedish region, cluster policy is analysed as an assemblage of global circuits of knowledge, expertise and local relations of power. A broad range of materials for analysis have been generated through interviews, participant observations and documents. The production of policy knowledge is an overarching political rationality of contemporary forms of regional governance, translated into technologies such as benchmarking, regional comparisons, competitions, evaluations and best-practice. Based on the empirical analyses it is argued that the lack of power critique and a hyper-rational representation of knowledge produce an international market for legitimacy. It is further argued that five characteristics of the policy regime ('the regional cluster orchestra') contributes to the reproduction of the policy regime, and relations of domination. ; Baksidestext Avhandlingen tar sin utgångspunkt i vad som har beskrivits som en marknad för globala policymodeller. I Sverige har klusterbegreppet, med ursprung i ekonomisk och geografisk teoribildning, fått stort genomslag i regionalpolitiken. I den samtida regionalpolitiken har också produktionen av olika former av policykunskap utvecklats till centrala styrningsteknologier: benchmarking, best practice, utvärderingar, uppföljningar, mätningar och konkurrensutsatta tävlingar om regionala utvecklingsmedel. Genom kunskap och ständigt lärande ska Sveriges regioner frälsas. I avhandlingen studeras den scen där ett regionalt förankrat policynätverk agerar och den kunskap som produceras. Regionalpolitikens rationalitet innebär att det blir centralt för regionerna att agera som enhetliga aktörer och visa upp en lyckad och framgångsrik fasad. Det argumenteras för att bristen på maktanalys, och en hyperrationell syn på kunskap i regionalpolitiken innebär att regionalpolitikens styrningsteknologier producerar en internationell marknad för legitimitet som i sin tur reproducerar ordningen och döljer dominansrelationer.

With the industrial revolution, the human utilization of the forest took a new turn as wood became a commercial product (Östlund & Zackrisson 2000). Since then, economical considerations have pervaded the public perspective on forest and forestry. However, the awareness of the need for sustainability in the use of the forest resource has also grown, and during the last decades other values have entered the discussion and the practice of forestry. Today, sustainable forest management (SFM) where economical, ecological and social values are all satisfied, is a core element in the development of acceptable forest management practices. Public participation is strongly related to SFM. In some industrialized countries, e.g. Canada, demands for participation in natural resource management have subsequently been incorporated into the legislation (Chambers and Beckley 2003), but in most countries there is no legal demand for participation. In Sweden for example, the only demand for participation in the Forestry Act is consultation before clear cutting in certain areas of reindeer herding. Forest certification, which is now covering extensive areas in several countries, plays an interesting role in the promotion of SFM. However, its main purpose is not public participation and the integration of social values into forestry (Angelstam et al. 2004). Internationally, there is the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. This convention has been ratified by Sweden amongst other countries, but it is difficult to make a strict interpretation of it. New approaches and methods are obviously needed in forest management planning to incorporate forest values other than timber production and to help solve conflicts of interest. There have been some attempts made by different types of projects. The Canadian Model Forest concept promotes participation in the work for SFM, and has been tried out in Sweden in the Vilhelmina Model Forest project (Svensson et al. 2004). Some of the LIFE projects sponsored by the European Union are also applications of participation with SFM as the objective; the project "Local Participation in Sustainable Forest Management based on Landscape Analysis" is a Swedish example of a LIFE project sponsored by the European Union (http://www.svo.se/minskog/templates/svo_se_vanlig.asp?id=8001, 2007-01-12). A potentially powerful tool in the work for sustainable forest management (SFM) and participation is multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA), an approach which can make it possible to handle complex decision situations involving conflicting interests and several stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to clarify concepts related to participation and present methods that are applicable in participatory planning. More specifically the following questions will be dealt with: • What is meant by participation? What methods and techniques are available to participatory planning processes? • What is MCDA and what phases do this approach require? In order to illuminate the state of art of participatory planning in forestry, an analysis of a number of case studies is presented.

During the 2000s, Sweden has pursued an active foreign and security policy. This has meant participation in several international military operations and has left many Swedish soldiers and officers with combat experience. Thus, the Swedish parliament decided in 2010 on a political reform of the veterans area, with more extensive societal support, war decorations to express the government recognition of personal sacrifices made in the service and a new medal for courage in combat. Considered as a reward system, it functions as an immaterial and emotionally established incentive, in contrast to the financial and bonus reward systems that are otherwise common. From a governance perspective, this setting is fundamentally interesting. The complexity of military operations and the demands for efficiency in armed combat are in contrast with the democratic state's need to guarantee the rule of law, even from a distance and under difficult conditions. Traditional government is not sufficient because the situation is characterized by high contextual uncertainty and therefore requires more situational adaptive control. Organizing in a professional model implies autonomy for military officials, and this means that there is a form of gap in terms of civilian control. In the dissertation, a concept and an analytical model are formulated to understand this phenomenon, entitled soft norm governance, that also form one of the main results. The model combines four levels of analysis to describe the dynamics of the steering mix: organizational metagovernance, rule control, policy work and professional ethics. One conclusion is that professional ethics has a two-way function in the chain of implementation steering, both as a decisive factor for concrete decision-making, but also as an objective for the government's soft norm governance. Thus, this control gap does not mean absence of control, but that other value-based norm systems govern our actions. In this way, soft norm governance also reaches beyond the scope of the law. The theoretical framework is metagovernance, the idea that the modern state is steering at a distance and with subtle methods, such as by organizational measures. It opens for the importance of soft law, social norms and ethics in governmental steering. The case study of the veterans policy and medal of courage contributes empirically to the specification of these theories. Furthermore, new institutionalism adds an explanatory value with a rationality of action for the officials, a so-called logic of appropriateness based on the professional role and on adaptation to the situation at hand and to applicable rules. Theoretically, the thesis contributes by supplementing with a logic of values, which takes into account the profession's ethical and moral rationality of action, which is particularly important in situations such as armed conflict. The methodological approach combines a structural statistical perspective with a qualitative and understanding-oriented perspective and can, with the support of the analytical model, illuminate both pattern and function. The material base is a total selection from the medal preparation of eight contingents in Afghanistan during the years 2008-2012, i.e. FS16-FS23. It consists of the archive material from the nominations as well as in-depth interviews with responsible commanders at the international units and at the national headquarters, including the Commander-in-Chief.

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)

Based on a poststructural discourse-theoretical perspective, the aim of this thesis is to critically examine the construction of the Swedish compulsory school's democratic education and its consequences for the teacher subject, in educational policy texts. Set against the backdrop of what is commonly referred to as a crisis of democracy, the study takes its point of departure in changes in educational politics in recent decades and the new national curriculum for the compulsory school in 2011. The thesis uses the poststructural discourse-theory of the political philosophers Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as its theoretical and methodological framework. Their main objective has been to revive socialist politics by suggesting a radical, plural democracy as an alternative for a new left. A number of national policy texts were chosen for the analysis. The selection covers official reports and government bills on the Education Act and on the Teacher Education Reform Act, the Education Act, the National Curriculum and a selection of documents from the Swedish National Agency for Education, ranging from 2008 to 2018. The main results show that democratic education rests on a notion of the democratic society which creates relations between a democratic universalism based on individual rights and an unspoken national homogeneity. Democratic education is constructed as a broad and complex task aiming at the fostering of democratic competence, assuring equivalent education and counteracting abusive behaviour. The impact of neoliberal policy and new public management philosophy is evident in the empirical material analysed. The study concludes that democratic education is constructed as part of a management perspective where democracy becomes the means of achieving a goal – the governed subject – which relates to pupils and teachers alike. In addition, the focus on consensus and rational thinking as well as the tendency to locate conflict resolution in the legal sphere contribute to the notion of a school free from abuse. ; I många demokratiska samhällen har skolan ett ansvar att förbereda unga människor för sin roll som demokratiska medborgare. En vanlig utgångspunkt tas i att utbildning om, genom och för demokrati är avgörande för demokratins fortlevnad. I en tid där högerpopulistisk retorik, desinformation och hot mot folkvalda hör till vardagen förefaller det viktigare än någonsin att utbilda för demokrati. Avhandlingens syfte är att kritiskt granska konstruktionen av grundskolans demokratiuppdrag och vilka konsekvenser den får för lärarsubjektet. Baserat på de politiska filosoferna Ernesto Laclaus och Chantal Mouffes poststrukturella teorier om diskurs, hegemoni och radikal demokrati konstrueras ett ramverk för att analysera ett urval av nationella utbildningspolitiska texter mellan 2009 – 2018. Tidigare forskning visar att debatten om det demokrati- och medborgarfostrande uppdraget närmar sig en marknadsliberal position och flera diskurs- eller textanalytiska studier indikerar diskurser och språkbruk som influerats av nyliberal ideologi. Resultatet från studien visar hur uppdraget tar form i relation till mål- och resultatstyrning, dokumentation och kvalitetssäkring där demokratiuppdraget tar form som en del av ett managementperspektiv. En särskild form av styrning i skärningspunkten mellan en juridisk reglering av mellanmänsklig samvaro, deliberativa samtalskvaliteter och betoningen av konsensus resulterar i att demokratiuppdraget konstrueras som den kränkningsfria skolan. Avhandlingens bidrag består i att ställa nya frågor om skolans demokratiuppdrag och belysa hur uppdraget tillskrivs mening och vilka konsekvenserna av detta blir.

This study takes as its point of departure the theorizing on citizenship and globalization. Today it is common to discuss a "flexible" citizenship beyond the paradigm of the nationstate, which, besides its legal aspects of rights and obligations, also includes identification with and participation in various communities, primarily political ones. "Politics", in this context, is considered to be constituted on the micro-level, discursively between individuals (e.g. Laclau and Mouffe 1985). The aim of the study is to, through the study of collective meaning making, contribute to the theory building about citizenship and globalization. The study consists of three cases, each of which attracted much media attention, with varying degrees of proximity and distance. The construction of political community, on various levels on the globalization scale (subnational, national, transnational) within the collective meaning making, is studied. The aim of the study also includes the analysis of the discursive resources that are used for the making of meaning. "External" discourses such as media messages and interpersonal communication are analyzed as well as "internal" ones: e.g. values, norms, identifications and experiences. In addition, the study aims at localizing the construction of meaning and community within the structural context , and relating it to current structures of power. The thesis is concluded with a suggestion of how to relate the discursive construction of political identity to deliberative democracy theory. The empirical material is collected by means of focus-groups interviews, including 2–5 people, with a total of 133 respondents. The transcribed material is analyzed by means of critical discourse analysis, CDA. The study identifies two different types of identity constructions: processes of nationalization, where the experienced Swedish identity and community function normatively in the making of meaning, and processes of subnationalization, among those groups that somehow felt excluded from and mistreated by the national (Swedish) environment. The thesis concludes that the collective making of meaning within an assumed national community contains ideological elements and works to a large extent in the service of power. However, the subnationally compressed communities create meaning in an oppositional manner, compared with the nationalized community and in relation to structures of power. Active citizenship is thus best located in conflict, among groups that experience exclusion and oppression in different situations (Mouffe 1995b). If this is right, the focus must shift from consensus to communication, efforts to open up discursive bridges between the hegemonic community and dissident voices should be made (c.f. Aronowitz 1995). An important space for transgressing communication is of course the media. However, the study shows that the media must deal with some problems before they are ready to serve as discursive bridges, for instance the tendency to make the factual antagonisms subordinate to homogenizing emotional reporting. In addition, there seems to exist a need for the political institutions to move beyond the paradigm of the nation-state, and find other frameworks for the democratic processes, not least at the subnational level. Thus, instead of discussing either a global or a national citizenship one could, with Habermas (2001), reflect on a postnational citizenship relating to the reflexive transformation of national civic sovereignty into subnational and supranational citizenship.

This study analyses the history of a large hydroelectric scheme – the Great Ruaha power project in Tanzania. The objective is to establish why and how this specific scheme came about, and as part of this to identify the key actors involved in the decision-making process, including the ideological contexts within which they acted. Although the Tanzanian actors and the World Bank (IBRD) are discussed, main focus is on the Swedish actors on project level.Kidatu, the first phase of the Great Ruaha power project (constructed between1970-1975), became the first large-scale hydropower station in Tanzania. As such, it paved the way for Tanzanian entrance into the Big Dam Era and significant changes within the Tanzanian landscape. As well as the dry river bed at Kidatu, and the small reservoir that precedes it, the Great Ruaha power project also involved the creation of a huge artificial lake, the Mtera reservoir. The Kidatu hydropower station was the first large undertaking within Swedish bilateral aid, and implied the takeover of control of hydropower construction in Tanzania by Swedish enterprises, replacing the enterprises of the former colonial power. A hydropower plant is a complex technoscientific artefact. The construction of a hydropower plant is preceded by a large number of technological choices, scientific prestudies and estimations of costs and revenues. A hydropower plant is also a complex social creation, and is as such filled with social actors engaged in conflicts, compromises and power structures. The decision to construct Kidatu hydropower station was a result of negotiations and activities within what is called "development assistance". This brings in yet another dimension, the political one, involving export and import of technology, foreign capital, and foreign influence in decision-making processes, as well as ideas about how to bring development and progress to a people supposed to be living in "poverty and misery". The study is divided into three main parts. The first part analyses the context of Swedish development assistance in the support to the construction of hydropower plants. This part discusses Swedish state-supported hydropower exploitation of indigenous people's territory within Sweden's borders in the 20th century and the background of Swedish development assistance, from the 1950s to the early 1960s. The second part analyses the event of Swedish development assistance entering Tanzania and the Great Ruaha power project, with the main focus being on the period 1965 – 1970. The third part is an analysis of the technoscientific basis for the decisions taken to implement the Great Ruaha hydropower scheme. Main focus is on the period 1969-1974, discussed against the backdrop of precolonial and colonial studies. While focus is on the 1960s and 1970s, in both part two and three events in the 1980s and 1990s are discussed. The study shows that although Sweden was not a colonial power in Tanzania, colonial imagery, and relations to the colonial era, as well as Sweden's background of internal colonialisation, exerted an influence on the decision-making process and the actors involved in the Great Ruaha power project.The study is mainly based on archival sources, complemented with oral sources from Tanzania and Sweden. Recognizing the complexity of large-scale hydropower and the attempts to control watercourses that large scale hydropower necessitates, in the specific context of decolonisation and development assistance that the decision-making process behind the Great Ruaha hydropower scheme reveals, the analysis of the actors involved is based on feminist and postcolonial perspectives.

The global growth in energy demand continues, but the way of meeting rising energy needs is not sustainable. The use of biomass energy is a widely accepted strategy towards sustainable development that sees the fastest rate with the most of increase in power generation followed by strong rises in the consumption of biofuels for transport. Agriculture, forestry and wood energy sector are the leading sources of biomass for bioenergy. However, to be acceptable, biomass feedstock must be produced sustainably. Bioenergy from sustainably managed systems could provide a renewable and carbon neutral source of energy. Bioenergy systems can be relatively complex, intersectoral and site- and scale-specific. The environmental benefits of biomass-for-energy production systems can vary strongly, depending on site properties, climate, management system and input intensities. Bioenergy supply is closely linked to issues of water and land use. It is important to understand the effects of introducing it as well as it is necessary to promote integrated and synergic policies and approaches in the sectors of forestry, agriculture, energy, industry and environment. Biofuels offer attractive solutions to reducing GHG emissions, addressing energy security concerns and have also other socio-economic advantages. Currently produced biofuels are classified as first-generation. Some first-generation biofuels, such as for example ethanol from corn possibly have a limited role in the future transport fuel mix, other ones such as ethanol from sugarcane or biodiesel made from oils extracted from rerennial crops, as well as non-food and industrial crops requiring minimal input and maintenance and offering several benefits over conventional annual crops for ethanol production are promising. Sugarcane ethanol has greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoidance potential; can be produced sustainably; can be cost effective without governments support mechanisms, provide useful and valuable co-products; and, if carefully managed with due regard given to sustainable land use, can support the drive for sustainable development in many developing countries. Sugarcane ethanol - currently the most effective biofuel at displacing GHG emissions - is already mitigating GHGs in Brazil. Jatropha curcas L., a multipurpose, drought resistant, perennial plant has gained lot of importance for the production of biodiesel. However, it is important to point out that nearly all of studies have overstated the impacts of first-generation biofuels on global agricultural and land markets due to the fact that they have ignored the role of biofuel by-products. However, feed by-products of first-generation biofuels, such as dried distillers grains with soluble and oilseed meals are used in the livestock industry as protein and energy sources mitigates the price impacts of biofuel production as well as reduce the demand for cropland and moderate the indirect land use consequences. The production of second generation biofuels is expected to start within a few years. Many of the problems associated with first-generation biofuels can be solved by the production of second generation biofuels manufactured from abundant ligno-cellulosic materials such as cereal straw, sugar cane bagasse, forest residues, wastes and dedicated feedstocks (purpose-grown vegetative grasses, short rotation forests and other energy crops). These feedstocks are not food competitive, do not require additional agricultural land and can be grown on marginal and wasteland. Depending on the feedstock choice and the cultivation technique, second-generation biofuel production has the potential to provide benefits such as consuming waste residues and making use of abandoned land. As much as 97-98% of GHG emissions could be avoided by substituting a fossil fuel with wood fuel. Forest fertilization is an attractive option for increasing energy security and reducing net GHG emission. In addition to carbon dioxide the emissions of methane and nitrous oxides may be important factors in GHG balance of biofuels. Forest management rules, best practices for nitrogen fertilizer use and development of second generation technologies use reduce these emissions. Soils have an important role in the global budget of greenhouse gases. However, the effects of biomass production on soil properties are entirely site and practice-specific and little is known about long-term impact. Soil biological systems are resilient and they do not show any lasting impacts due to intensive site management activities. Land management practices can change dramatically the characteristic and gas exchange of an ecosystem. GHG benefits from biomass feedstock use are in some cases significantly lower if the effects of direct¹ or indirect (ILUC²) land use change are taken into account. LUC and ILUC can impact the GHG emission by affecting carbon balance in soil and thus ecosystem. To understand carbon fluxes in an ecosystem large ecosystem units and time scale are critical. Mitigation measures of the impact of land use change on greenhouse gas emissions include the use of residues as feedstock, cultivation of feedstock on abandoned arable land and use of feedstock by-products as substitutes for primary crops as animal feed. Cropping management is the other key factor in estimating GHG emissions associated with LUC and there is significant opportunity to reduce the potential carbon debt and GHG emissions through improved crop and soil management practices, including crop choice, intensity of inputs, harvesting strategy, and tilling practices. Also a system with whole trees harvesting with nutrient compensation is closely to being greenhouse-gas-neutral. Biochar applied to the soil offers a direct method for sequestrating C and generating bioenergy. However, the most recent studies showing that emissions resulting from ILUC are significant have not been systematically compared and summarized and current practices for estimating the effects of ILUC suffer from large uncertainties. Therefore, it seems to be delicate to include the ILUC effects in the GHG emission balance at a country level. The land availability is an important factor in determining bioenergy sustainability. However, even though food and biofuel/biomass can compete for land, this is not inevitably the case. The pattern of completion competition will e.g. depend on whether food security policies are in place. Moreover, the great potential for uncomplicated biomass production lies in using residues and organic waste, introduction of second generation biofuels which are more efficient in use of land and bioresources as well as restoration of degraded and wasted areas. Agroforestry has high potential for simultaneously satisfying many important objectives at ecosystems, economic and social levels. For example, as a very flexible, but low-input system, alley cropping can supply biomass resources in a sustainable way and at the same time provide ecological benefits in Central Europe. A farming system that integrates woody crops with conventional agricultural crops/pasture can more fully utilize the basic resources of water, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and sunlight, thereby producing greater total biomass yield. Overall, whether food prices will rise in parallel to an increase in biofuel demand will depend, more on trade barriers, subsidies, policies and limitations of marketing infrastructure than on lack of physical capacity. There are plant species that provide not only biofuel resources but also has the potential to sequestrate carbon to soil. For example, reed canary grass (RCG, Phalaris arundinacea L.) indicates the potential as a carbon sink. Harvest residues are increasingly utilized to produce energy. Sweden developed a series of recommendations and good-practice guidelines (GPG) for whole tree harvesting practices. Water has a multifarious relationship to energy. Biofuel production will have a relatively minor impact on the global water use. It is critically important to use low-quality water sources and to select the crops and countries that (under current production circumstances) produce bioenergy feedstock in the water-efficient way. However, local and regional impacts of biofuel production could be substantial. Knowledge of watershed characteristics, local hydrology and natural peak flow patterns coupled with site planning, location choice and species choice, are all factors that will determine whether or not this relationship is sustainable. For example, bioethanol's water requirements can range from 5 to 2138 L per liter of ethanol depending on regional irrigation practices. Moreover, sugarcane in Brazil evaporates 2,200 liters for every liter of ethanol, but this demand is met by abundant rainfall. Biomass production can have both positive and negative effects on species diversity. However, woodfuel production systems as well as agroforestry have the potential to increase biodiversity. A regional energy planning could have an important role to play in order to achieve energy-efficient and cost-efficient energy systems. Closing the loop through the optimization of all resources is essential to minimize conflicts in resource requirements as a result of increased biomass feedstock production. A systems approach where the agricultural, forestry, energy, and environmental sectors are considered as components of a single system, and environmental liabilities are used as recoverable resources for biomass feedstock production has the potential to significantly improve the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of biofuels. The LCA (life cycle analysis) approach takes into account all the input and output flows occurring in biomass production systems. The source of biomass has a big impact on LCA outcomes and there is a broad agreement in the scientific community that LCA is one of the best methodologies for the GHG balance calculation of biomass systems. Overall, maximizing benefits of bioenergy while minimizing negative impacts is most likely to occur in the presence of adequate knowledge and frameworks, such as for example certification systems, policy and guidelines. Criteria for achieving sustainability and best land use practices when producing biomass for energy must be established and adopted. ___________ ¹ Direct land-use change occurs when feedstock for biofuels purposes (e.g. soybean for biodiesel) displace a prior land-use (e.g. forest), thereby generating possible changes in the carbon stock of that land. ² Indirect land-use change (ILUC) occurs when pressure on agriculture due to the displacement of previous activity or use of the biomass induces land-use changes on other lands.