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This study looks at the adaptation and implementation of the E.I.T.I principles in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and assesses whether governance through transparency and accountability practices in its extractive sector have improved. It relies on 18 interviews with stakeholders implicated in the E.I.T.I implementation, a literature review, and reports from various stakeholders. The analysis of data is based on Michel Foucault's theory of governmentality as well as a review of key concepts such as transparency, accountability and governance. The study uncovers that a culture of transparency and democratic debate is gradually gaining ground, although there is still too much resistance that prevents the E.I.T.I from leading to profound changes in policies in the extractive sector. In line with the previous studies, the E.I.T.I institutional and operational goals are progressing at the macro level of institutions but progress is almost inexistent at the micro-level. It concludes that in the DRC, E.I.T.I's development goals are far from being achieved because all stakeholders do not fully understand the standard's objectives. The study proposes that government sticks to E.I.T.I's guidelines in administrating mining revenue's, setting clear and measurable targets, implementing efficient data collection systems, put together a review system mechanism, and set up a punishment/reward mechanism that works. In sum, this study contributes to the field of natural resource management by pointing out that internal motivation, internal capacity, and external pressure appear to facilitate or limit the success of the global standard in solving the resource curse in poor countries that are rich in natural resources.

Innehåll -- Sammanfattning -- Inledning -- Om KreaNord -- Om uppdraget -- Metod och genomförande av utvärderingen -- 1. Utvärderingsmodell: KreaNords programlogik -- 1.1 Resurser -- 1.2 Planering av aktiviteter och förväntade resultat -- 1.3 Förväntad "impact" för KreaNord -- 1.4 Analys av programlogiken i KreaNord -- 2. KreaNords policy-rekommendationer -- 3. Samarbeten och kunskapsutveckling -- 3.1 Samarbeten, konferenser och möten -- 3.2 Rapporter och analyser -- 4. Projekt inom KreaNord -- 4.1 Aktörsnätverket -- 4.2 KreaNord Investors -- 4.3 EntreNord

"This book grew out of the RIPE@2002 conference about broadcasting and convergence.....Re-Visionary Interpretations of the Public Enterprise [RIPE] is an initiative to strengthen collaborative relations between media scholars and practitioners. The focus of this initiative is the contemporary relevance of the remit for public service broadcasting, and public service media more generally."--P.7

Roses and other cut flowers from Kenya can be found in innumerable European and Asian supermarkets, floristry shops and online mail-order firms. The importance of the floricultural sector is fundamental for the Kenyan economy. However, during the last two decades, international media and scientific reports have pointed out the problematic working conditions and negative environmental impacts of the industry. In response, at the beginning of the 21st century, the international Fairtrade initiative came into the picture to improve the problematic production impacts of the sector. The Fairtrade initiative has a broadly positive reputation and quantitative data show an improvement in production manners. Nevertheless, it remains unclear if and how Fairtrade is perceived and experienced by ordinary workers on a subjective level. This study examines whether Fairtrade initiatives are an attainment for general workers or if they are considered as more of a top-down development approach. Through a qualitative, phenomenological inspired research design, a comparison of working conditions on a Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade cut flower farm is done on a local micro level. Results show that the Fairtrade initiative on the examined farm is perceived and experienced as rather negative and inhuman while, on the contrary, workers on the non-Fairtrade farm reported their conditions as positive in comparison. Also, the empirical data shows that this specific Fairtrade farm might not be an individual case in Kenya. Due to weak compliance with international Fairtrade standards and national legislation, workers and worker's unions point out lacks in the Fairtrade system in the cut flower business in general. Therefore, starting from this study's results on worker's subjective negative experience of their working conditions, a broader, mixed method study on a meta level is required. Meanwhile, the Fairtrade initiative should re-evaluate its standards and inspection systems to prevent the dilution of its own standards and reputation.

This thesis investigates the deliberative potential in two communicative initiatives resulting from the 2001 government policy in Swedish nature conservation, A coherent nature conservation policy. The two initiatives, which constitute the empirical material in the thesis are, (1) a national competence development programme that the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency ran 2008-2011, Dialogue for nature conservation, and (2) the nature interpretation at naturum, visitor centres at national parks and nature reserves. Data was generated through qualitative interviews with nature conservation administrators at county administrative boards; participant observation at dialogue courses and workshops with researchers and nature interpreters; video analysis of recorded nature interpretation sessions at naturums; documentation from naturum exhibitions; and document and literature studies. The thesis draws from critical theory and clarifies rationales behind communicative practices in nature conservation. The analysis shows that the communicative initiatives are dominated by the instrumental state rationality, circumscribing space for communicative rationality. The 2001 nature conservation policy emphasised communication, but the communicative initiatives did not sufficiently integrate democratic aspects. By identifying the role of meaning-making as a central phenomenon in a communicative process, the thesis indicates how to include democratic dimensions in communicative work. The theoretical contribution of the thesis draws from an analysis of modernity, nature alienation and reconciliation. In the thesis, naturum is identified as a communicative forum with an underdeveloped potential for reconciliatory activities, more precisely deliberations on nature in nature. The thesis contributes to the field of environmental communication through highlighting how communicative practices of nature conservation depend on both communication and materiality.

This thesis aims to explain how small states, in this case Sweden, security politics adapts to new circumstances after great conflicts in the 20th century. The analytical model is built by a combination of the opposite theories of international politics, realism and idealism, combined with actor based and structure based perspectives and thus creating a four field analytical matrix. The empirical foundation constitutes of three post conflict periods; post-first world war, post-second world war and post-cold war periods. For every period three cases are analyzed; one foreign politics initiative, one association to an international organization and one defence politics decision. In the post-first world war period the focus is on the Swedish intervention of the Åland archipelago, the association to the League of Nations and disarmament decision in 1925. In the post-second world war period the focus is on the association of Sweden to the United Nations, the Swedish initiative to a Scandinavian defence alliance and the defence decision of 1948. In the post-cold war period the focus is on the Swedish association to the European Union, the Swedish participation in the NATO led IFOR operation in Bosnia and the defence decision in 1996. The main conclusions of these investigations are that small states, like Sweden, both are restricted in their foreign and security politics by international structures and able to use the same structure to promote their interests. Time is a key element for analyzing both structural and actor based aspects of a small states capacity. Also, in the case of Sweden, there tends to be a tension between an idealistic dominated politics and a realistic dominated politics when it comes to foreign and security politics, and that idealism seems to have increased in the latter period.

What are the causes for political party membership? And why do some members take a further step and candidate for political parties in local parliament elections? We evaluate these questions using a Swedish survey of local politicians. The article reports three main findings. First, the results do not support that social status, career ambitions and material rewards are causes behind participation in political parties. Rather, sense of civic duty has a strong impact. Second, many representatives refer to the fact that they were recruited as a main factor influencing their participation. Third, our results show that active local party members describe themselves as 'reluctantly active altruists', driven by civic duty and recruited by others. A minority became active by their own initiative, and a majority got involved in party politics after being recruited. Adapted from the source document.

Sustainable approaches for waste management and sanitation are key to deal with the environmental and health challenges that growing urbanization is creating around the world. Implementing systems that allow to reuse resources contained in the organic waste streams (OWS) is an approach that can bring many benefits, especially in low-medium income areas as the Latin American and Caribbean region, where excreta, wastewater, and waste are not properly managed. The transformation towards these systems requires not only technological changes, but also changes in the way that urban waste and wastewater are governed. The aim of this study was to assess the capacity of the town of Chía (Colombia) to govern the transition towards resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems. The Governance Capacity Framework (GCF) was used as a method to evaluate the governance capacity of the town to implement these systems. The assessment revealed that the capacity of Chía to govern the implementation of resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems was low. Furthermore, governance factors that could be hindering the implementation of these systems were identified. Low level of knowledge of resource recovery from OWS in the public spheres, insufficient collaboration and communication across sectors and institutions that had competences on waste management and sanitation, short-term vision within the local decision-making processes and insufficient incentives to support local entrepreneurship on circular economy. Despite these challenges, analysis also revealed the existence of public-private partnerships and entrepreneurs working in successful initiatives linked with resource-oriented systems in Chía and other towns of Cundinamarca county. The study concluded that in Chía there was a gap between local initiatives of resource recovery from OWS that brought environmental, economic, and social benefits at small scale and its inclusion in the local and regional governance systems. Findings of this study touches upon many governance aspects such as knowledge, legislation, financing and even culture. Further research is needed to look closer to each of those and make concrete, feasible and effective proposals that bring change with a long-term sustainability vision. Finally, when analysing the results of the evaluation and making future proposals, strengths, and shortcomings of applying the GCF as an analytical tool for a specific case study like Chía need to be considered.

[The late-Soviet social mobilization: the neformaly movement during the perestroika]The late-Soviet social mobilization was characterized by a mass grassroots organization of groups with numerous ideological orientations and political preferences. One of the significant influences came in the form of the informal or neformaly movement. Since 1987 the term is usually associated with socially oriented and political groups (from democrats to anarchists, from monarchists to social-democrats) that cooperated with each other in a broad spectrum of (often apolitical) initiatives in education, culture, environmental protection, sports, etc. They distanced themselves from the state and state-affiliated structures as well as from the new "democratic leaders" emerging from the old party elites. They relied upon horizontal organizational processes and aimed to saturate existing political structures with a new democratic content. Aleksandr Šubin's article describes the process of how the neformaly movement became a driving force for the establishment of political pluralism and the foundation of civil society in Russia.Publication history: Published original.(Published 8 February 2017)Citation: Šubin, Aleksandr V. (2017) "Den sensovjetiska sociala mobiliseringen: neformaly-rörelsen under perestrojkan", in Från perestrojka till Bolotnaja. Utvecklingen av ett ryskt civilsamhälle, special issue of Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, issue 7, pp. 27–55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.7.1 ; Den sensovjetiska sociala mobiliseringen karakteriserades av omfattande gräsrotsorganisering av grupper med olika ideologiska inriktningar och politiska preferenser. En av de mest inflytelserika miljöerna var den informella rörelsen, eller neformaly-rörelsen, som bestod av sociala och politiska grupper (med allt från demokrater till anarkister, monarkister till socialdemokrater) som samarbetade med varandra inom ett brett spektrum av initiativ inom utbildning, kultur, miljöskydd, idrott etc. De distanserade sig både från staten och andra officiella sammanhang, och från de nya "demokratiska ledarna" som kom från de gamla partieliterna. De skapade horisontella organisationsprocesser och syftade till att mätta de existerande politiska strukturerna med ett nytt demokratiskt innehåll. Aleksandr Šubins artikel beskriver hur den informella rörelsen etablerades som en drivande kraft för utvecklingen av politisk pluralism och lade grunden för det civila samhället i Ryssland.Publiceringshistorik: Originalpublicering.(Publicerad 8 februari 2017)Förslag på källangivelse: Šubin, Aleksandr V. (2017) "Den sensovjetiska sociala mobiliseringen: neformaly-rörelsen under perestrojkan", i Från perestrojka till Bolotnaja. Utvecklingen av ett ryskt civilsamhälle, specialnummer av Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, nr 7, s. 27–55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.7.1

The concept of civil society has lately become fashionable in political as well as scientificcontexts. This article critically discusses the 'politics of truth' in A Persistent Democracy!, thefinal report of the Swedish Commission on Democracy. The argument in the article is that thereport over-stresses the importance of civil society and the role of individual responsibilitiesand initiatives against public arrangements and interventions, referred to in the report as statepaternalism. The report is making specific 'technologies of government' visible, as it is creatingcitizens as primarily 'moral human beings'. The problem with strategies to 'roll back theState' for the benefit of a civil society of this kind, is that they necessarily open up for inequalitiesand conflicts in-built in civil society. To deepen democracy presupposes a continuouslong-term struggle for changing predominant power structures and unequal distributionsof vital resources, material and non-material. In this perspective, the report of the Swedish Commission on Democracy does not offer an adequate answer to challenging questions forthe future of a vitalized Swedish democracy. ; Reprint ur Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift 2000 (http://www.statsvetenskapligtidskrift.se/section.asp?id=552)

In 2017, the Swedish government took the initiative to conduct a country­wide information campaign with the aim of informing the citizens on what to do in the event of a serious crisis or war. In this article the effects of this information campaign are studied through a unique panel survey with identical surveys sent out immediately prior to the campaign and two weeks after the campaign. Concerning the effect, the level of responsibility for civil preparedness ascribed to different actors increased after the campaign, including the responsibility of the citizens. This effect is significant. However, the study reveals no significant effect on the lev­ els of trust with the trust in different authorities and their civil preparedness remaining on a mid­level before as well as after the campaign. Moreover, we do not see any general proof of higher risk perceptions or higher fear of threats as a result of the campaign, with the im­ portant exceptions of fear of measures to destabilise democracy and severe power cuts. In the article it is argued that despite current trends of strong individualisation with effects on media consumption and respect for authorities, the Swedish campaign illustrates that it is still possible to reach the greater part of the population with vital information and also, to at least some extent, affect attitudes.

This study reflects on the recognised need for more joined-up, high-quality research on phytotherapy that addresses the current societal challenges in finding alternatives to the use of antibiotics. The study applied a multidisciplinary participatory approach in an expert workshop exercise within the FP7 EU IMPRO project. Prior to this study, a literature review was elaborated on research in the field of phytotherapy as applied to farm animals, cooperation between research bodies and initiatives to reduce the use of antibiotics by using phytotherapeutic remedies. The review was delivered to the participants of the workshop so as to receive feedback on it and enrich the discussion. Different expertise, background in research or veterinary practice, and varying positions regarding phytotherapy were the criteria in targeting participants. A structured workshop was subsequently organised, with questions to experts addressing scientific validation of phytotherapy, effective treatment under farm conditions and necessary developments for the future. Challenges identified by the experts were as follows: poor study designs, lack of reproducibility of studies, poor standardisation of products, cost-benefit concerns, lack of veterinarian training and poor data availability. To overcome obstacles, the need for improved study designs for clinical trials was given priority in order to prove the efficacy of remedies and to implement a monitoring system which enables the assessment of the effectiveness of treatments in farm practice. Reflections in this report are intended to be a resource for scientists, policy makers and end users for an effective use of phytotherapy at farm level.