Suchergebnisse

This dissertation concerns Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (SKP) [the Swedish Communist Party] – in 1967 renamed Vänsterpartiet kommunisterna (VPK) [the Left Party – the Communists] and in 1990 renamed Vänsterpartiet (V) [the Left Party] – and the Party's process of coming to terms with history and its communist legacy. The aim of the study is to describe and analyse the SKP/VPK/V's process of coming to terms with history for the period 1956-2006, and to set out and problematise the driving forces and constraining mechanisms of this process. The theoretical framework of the study consists of Gunnar Sjöblom's theory about party strategies of political parties in multi-party systems and Michael Freeden's conceptual approach to ideology analysis. During the period of study the SKP/VPK/V has, like no other political party in Sweden, been ascribed historical guilt regarding its own party history but also regarding the effects of world communism. The Party has thus found itself in a situation where it has had history as an adversary. The process of coming to terms with history has mainly revolved around three issues: independence (1956-1977), international ties (1977-1989) and a broadening beyond the communist tradition (1986-2006). The internal debate within the Party has linked these issues to calls for change aimed at ridding the party of what is considered undesirable elements of the Communist legacy. By analysing the arguments pursued in favour of these calls, it is possible to pick out a number of the driving forces behind the Party's process of coming to terms with history, namely an ambition to obtain vote maximisation, programme realisation and maximisation of parliamentary influence. The urge to distance the Party from certain aspects of its communist past has thus been related to fundamental goals that political parties in multi-party systems seek to obtain. The results of the dissertation show that it is possible to pick out five main constraining mechanisms in the Party's process of coming to terms with history. 1) The safeguarding of Party cohesion. 2) The safeguarding of the distinctive character of the Party. 3) The need to resist external pressure. 4) The desire to avoid unfair apportioning of blame. 5) The safeguarding of the right to define the substance of one's own ideology. The existence of these constraining mechanisms help to explain why the process of coming to terms with history lingered on for several decades, and also why it seems to have been a process of such complexity for the Swedish Communist and Post-Communist Party.

This dissertation analyzes the concept of democracy as it was used in the official rhetoric of the Swedish SocialDemocratic Party (SAP ) between 1919 and 1939. Theoretically, the dissertation relies on German Begriffsgeschichte, as put forward by Reinhart Koselleck, and Michael Freeden's theory of ideologies. Together, by supplementing each other, these theories offer a perspective in which concepts are thought of as structures that are under contestation and change due to socio-political circumstances. However, the formulation of this change takes place in relation to the linguistic praxis of each time-period, and renegotiates the relative constraints of established relations between concepts in language. The analysis shows that the profound changes in society provided impetus for a continuous renegotiation of meanings, allowing concepts to retain their explanatory power under changing circumstances, at the same time the SAP needed new ways to express what kind of society the party strived to realize. The SAP had been one of the leading forces in the struggle for universal suffrage, and when the bill, giving universal suffrage to men andwomen, was passed in the Parliament 1919 this meant a temporary cessation to a long and intensive political debate. However, the SAP did not consider the introduction of suffrage reform as the end of full societal democratization. Rather than seeing the reform as a terminal point, the SAP saw it as the starting point for the struggle for full democracy. The SAP did not limit itself to only one concept of democracy but instead used a number of composite concepts, such as political democracy and economic democracy. The use of composite concepts can be understood as a changing temporalization of democracy. Since parliamentarism and suffrage were seen as central components in democracy, the realization of these institutions meant that the concept of democracy lost its future dimension. Thus, the usage of composite concepts should be seen as a re-temporalization of democracy. The composite concepts pointed forward in time, toward political goals that the SAP envisaged realizing in the future. Concepts should not be thought of as having cores but rather, as suggested by Freeden, ineliminable features. An ineliminable feature is not of logical nature but has a strong cultural adjacency. By analyzing the ineliminable components of the concepts of democracy that the SAP used, it is possible to discuss whether the composite concepts should be understood as subsets of a whole or as separate concepts. The analysis shows that the composite concepts that the SAP used during the first half of the 1920s shared a number of ineliminable features, but that the commonality of these features started to disintegrate during the latter half of the decade, leading to a rather diversive concept of democracy. During the 1930s the disintegration ceased as the party was faced with new circumstances, for example the growing threat of international war and national clashes between different social groups. There has always been a close relation between language and society. However, the relationship does not follow a simple and clear-cut logic but a complex mixture of various factors at different levels, both within language itself and of society. When society develops, language also has to change if the ongoing process is to be understood. As this study shows, new circumstances require new argumentsand thus revised concepts.

Den här avhandlingen undersöker utvecklingen av en elektronisk förvaltning ur ett legitimitetsperspektiv. Det övergripande syftet är att analysera den reella och potentiella förändring som e-förvaltning innebär för den offentliga förvaltningens legitimitetsgrunder, både i form av hur e-förvaltning har formulerats som idé, och hur det konkret har gått till när e-förvaltning har implementerats i praktiken. Avhandlingen består av fem artiklar som undersöker olika aspekter av syftet, från idéerna bakom e-förvaltning på internationell nivå, till implementeringsprocessen på lokal nivå. Den övergripande analysen använder sig av så kallad pragmatisk institutionalism, samt perspektiv på hur legitimitet skapas och upprättshålls i förvaltningen. En fallstudie av en svensk kommun utgör det huvudsakliga empiriska materialet. Detta material kompletteras med en mindre studie av ytterligare en svensk kommun, samt dokumentstudier av den Europeiska Unionens policy för e-förvaltning. Avhandlingen lyfter fram fyra huvudsakliga slutsatser: (1) e-förvaltningsreformer bidrar till skapandet av en ny praxis, där den praktiska utvecklingen och tillämpningen av IT blir ett allt viktigare inslag i den studerade kommunens organisering och serviceutövning, (2) detta bidrar till en omorganisering av aktörsroller- och förhållanden. Ledande tjänstemän i kommunen övertar den strategiska styrningen av utvecklingsprocessen från lokala politiker, medan kommunens närbyråkrater kringgås genom att medborgaren förväntas ta ett större eget ansvar för interaktionen med förvaltningen, (3) legitimitetsgrunder såsom brukarinflytande och kundanpassning placeras därmed i förgrunden medan den politiska styrningen och bedömningen hamnar i bakgrunden, (4) dessa förändringar tyder på allt starkare inslag av en gör-detsjälv-logik, där legitimitet i genomförandeprocesser främst grundar sig i individens möjlighet till självbetjäning och självförvaltning via elektroniska kanaler. ; This thesis explores the development of an electronic government from a legitimacy perspective. The overarching aim is to analyse the actual and potential processes of change and impacts of e-government on bases of legitimacy within public administration – both with regards to how the ideas behind e-government have been formulated as well as how e-government in practise has been realised. The thesis consists of five articles that examine different aspects of the overarching aim; from the ideas behind e-government on an international level, to the practical implementation process in local government. The overarching analysis uses an institutional perspective and perspectives on the creation and maintenance of legitimacy in public administration. An in-depth case study of a Swedish municipality provides the main empirical material for the analysis. In turn, the material is supplemented with a smaller case study of another Swedish municipality, as well as document studies of the e-government policy of the European Union. The analysis arrives at four overarching conclusions: (1) egovernment reforms contribute to new practises, in which the development and application of IT is becoming increasingly central for the local organisation and the provision of public services, (2) this contributes to a reorganisation of actor roles and relationships. Leading public officials shoulder the strategic steering usually confined to local politicians, whilst street-level bureaucrats are circumvented by citizens since citizens are expected to shoulder greater individual responsibility in their interaction with administrations, (3) in turn, certain bases for legitimacy are placed in the foreground, in particular user influence and customer adaptation, whilst political steering and evaluation are downplayed, (4) these developments point at the emergence of a do-it-yourself-logic, in which legitimacy is mainly based on creating sufficient preconditions for individual selfservices and self-government through the electronic channels of administrations.