Suchergebnisse

The Swedish Social Insurance Agency is an important part of the Swedish welfare state. The Agency has recently made a number of major changes, such as establishing a new internal organization and reforming processes for decision making. Many of these changes have been controversial. Critics have complained that the Agency shows a lack of efficiency, has failed to make payments on time, and has been too harsh in its application of eligibility rules. The changes have put the agency at a number of crossroads, many of them recurring from earlier reforms, in dealing with problems such as regional differences in the application of rules. In this article, some of these choices are discussed. The discussion departs from four dichotomies: uniformity-local adaptation; centralization-decentralization; specialization-generalist approaches; and closeness-distance. These dichotomies are illustrated with examples from the agency. The general conclusion is that although the change process has taken a rocky road, there has been a great deal of internal consistency in the combination of measures taken.

The size of a country's police force is of great public and political concern. In the 2006 national election campaign the opposition coalition promised that if they would be elected the number of police officers in Sweden would increase from about 17 500 to 20 000 by the year 2010. The coalition was elected and the political goal was achieved. The main question in this report is: What impact will such an increase of the number of police officers have on the crime rate? In this report previous research, mainly from the United States, is reviewed and thoroughly analyses of the relationship between police strength and domestic burglary, robbery, homicide and car related offences in Sweden are made. The data consists of a random sample of 145 municipalities studied between the years 2001 and 2008. A complementary data set consists of all 21 police forces in Sweden between 1995 and 2009. Through panel data analysis it is concluded that an increase of the local police by 10 percent would possibly reduce domestic burglary by 3 to 4 percent. No impact is found on robbery, car theft or homicide, however. More police officers also means that more drug offences are being registered and more crimes in general being cleared-up. The allocation of police officers is also briefly investigated in this study. About 30 percent of all police officers in Sweden are allocated to Stockholm County. This proportion has been fairly stable over the last 15 years. However, the population in this metropolitan area has increase by 20 percent since 1995, compared to about 3 percent in the rest of the country. One consequence is that the surplus of police officers per capita in Stockholm in relation to the number of officers per capita in the rest of the country has decreased substantially.

Studien redovisar den tredje mätningen som följer upp förändringar av trafikanternas hastighetsval och hastighetsefterlevnad på det kommunala huvudvägnätet i tätort. Resultaten visar att de genomsnittliga reshastigheterna ligger under gällande hastighetsgräns, men att bristande hastighetsefterlevnad fortfarande är ett problem. År 2009 fattades ett riksdagsbeslut som innebar ett mål att antalet dödade i vägtrafiken skulle halveras mellan åren 2007 och 2020. En av indikatorerna för att följa utvecklingen är "hastighetsefterlevnad på det kommunala vägnätet". Ett delmål är att minst 80 procent av trafikarbetet ska ske inom gällande hastighetsgräns. År 2012 var startår för mätserien och under 2015 genomfördes den tredje uppföljande mätningen. ; In 2009 the Swedish Parliament passed a resolution stating that by 2020 the number of fatalities from road traffic crashes should be reduced to half the level in 2007. This corresponds to a maximum of 220 deaths in 2020. In order to monitor progress toward this goal, yearly national follow-up studies are conducted to examine trends in the numbers of people killed and severely injured, along with a number of indicators. One of these indicators is speed limit compliance on the municipality streets; the milestone here is to have at least 80 per cent of all traffic travelling within the speed limit. The aim of the present study is to report the changes between the years 2014 and 2015 concerning driver speed levels and speed limit compliance on the main municipality streets. The annual measurement series started in year 2012 and with the measurement series from 2015, this third follow-up was performed.

The grandiose, but failed, attempts to produce silk in Sweden in the past have been largely ignored by historians. This thesis describes the history of sericulture in Sweden, including three periods of practical trials in 1735-1765, 1830-1898 and 1913-1918. For a long time, the secrets of sericulture were closely guarded in China but by the beginning of the 16th century, knowledge of silk cultivation techniques had reached a number of European countries. The pursuit of domestic silk production was often a costly undertaking instigated by royalty. Since conditions in Sweden and Denmark were partly similar, there was some degree of influence and cooperation between these neighbouring countries. The chapters dealing with attempts at silk production during the 18th century and the history of sericulture in northern Europe are primarily based on printed sources and literature. Several of the 18th century silk farmers documented their experiments, allowing us to follow their efforts and ideas on the feasibility of silk farming in Sweden. The descriptions of the two latter sets of Swedish silk production trials presented in the thesis are primarily based on archive materials, mainly consisting of minutes and annual reports. The history of sericulture in Sweden began in the mid-1730s, when Mårten Triewald conducted experiments and exhaustively described and published these. Carl Linnaeus was a significant influence in Swedish sericulture during this early period. Naturalists were hired as plantation managers and were tasked with supplying the silk industry in Sweden with home-produced raw material. The work was prompted by the desire to find an alternative for the huge Swedish imports of raw silk from China and Southern Europe. However, silk farming never became particularly common, despite the financial incentives available for producing silk and planting mulberry trees during the 1750s in the belief that some 'extravagance' was beneficial for society as a whole. When the 'Hats' position of power ended, so did the financial support for manufacturing luxury goods. Founded in 1830, the Swedish Association for Domestic Sericulture was active for nearly 70 years thanks to foreign influences and the notion that silk farming could be a popular livelihood. Members of the Swedish Royal Family served as patrons and several well-known scientists participated in the projects. The Association furnished mulberry plants and seeds, together with silkworm eggs, most of which were distributed to plantations controlled by the Association or county agricultural societies. However, the Association's annual reports show that many private individuals also planted mulberry trees and some pursued silk farming. Sericulture growing trials were carried out at a number of sites across Sweden, on the initiative of Jacob Berzelius, among others. These trials were mainly funded by Government grants, but numerous wealthy individuals also made contributions to the sericulture venture. Some income was generated by the silk products produced, which were almost solely bought by the Swedish Royal Family. The Swedish Sericulture Association was founded in southern Sweden in 1913 but this third brief foray into sericulture produced few results. All three periods of sericulture trials were initiated by enthusiasts with a firm belief that some silkworm host plants would survive the Nordic climate. There were a number of claims that the white mulberry tree had become acclimatised, but an equal number of cold winters and springs proved the opposite. Ultimately, Swedish sericulture was never economically feasible, since the natural conditions were unfavourable and the output from Swedish silk production was modest, and the cost high, in relation to imported silk. The almost 200-year history of sericulture in Sweden provides an important glimpse into the obsessions and culture of the age, but there were far too many obstacles for the dream of Swedish silk ever to become a reality.

Among the literature aimed at students of art science and other image-interpreting sciences are a number of texts that deal with theories and theoretical concepts. However, what is largely missing, and which students often call for, are texts in Swedish that show how theories and concepts can be applied in concrete interpretation situations. The series Theoretical applications in art science aims to fill that gap, with the book Materiality being the fourth in the series.
The book introduces and activates a concept that in recent decades has come to take an increasingly important place in humanistic research. Art scholars - but also archaeologists, anthropologists, literary scholars, ethnologists and other humanistic researchers - are increasingly interested in the material conditions for, and the manifestations of, people's social and cultural life and exchange. But despite its topicality in today's scientific conversation, the concept of materiality can seem elusive and elusive. It moves all the way from the most tangible analyzes of the material components of a cultural artefact, to the somewhat impenetrable theorizations of objectivity, agents and networks that are usually sorted under the label ""new materialism"".
However, the book Materialitet gives concrete examples of how the concept of materiality can open up interpretations of important layers of meaning in works of art and other cultural artifacts. After the initial introduction where different perspectives and conceptualisations of materiality are discussed, six researchers each do their own analysis based on their subject area. The chapters are based on new research and are written specifically for this book. The different chapters together show the multifaceted nature of the concept of materiality, but do not lock it down to a definition, but open the eyes to a number of different interpretive paths.

Assessment tends to be associated with students and learners; however, the term assessment encompasses both teachers and students. To understand the purpose of language assessment instruments, it is key to look for the designers and their preferences. This research aims to characterize 209 assessment instruments created by English teachers. This is a non-experimental and descriptive study that analyzes the types of instruments, the educational level, the language systems and skills, and the type and number of items. Two of the most important findings are related to the preferences Chilean English teachers have towards traditional assessment and the tendency to assess vocabulary and grammar; besides, the participants' preference for tests and fill-in-the gap items.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the implementation of a political aim – formulatedfrom a context of sustainable development. In 2006 both the Swedish national Parliament andthe municipality of Växjö (among others) stated that 25% of publically served food wouldstem from organic production by the end of 2010. The thesis investigates the outcome of theimplementation of this policy in a local perspective - looking at one part of the public sectorby focusing on four differently organized schools within Växjö municipality. School food in Sweden has a specific institutional setting. It holds the almost unique statusas a non-charged, legal right to all pupils in the compulsory school system. School food as apublic good is affected by the EU legislation of public procurement. The thesis studies theoverall institutional framework (i.e. legislation and regulations) fundamental to school food.With the institutional framework in mind the thesis also describes different organizationalactivities connected to school food. Thus the thesis involves four geographical levels: Theregional (EU), the national, the local and the individual level. The latter is defined in theorganized context from a number of individual professionals. Some of these individuals arefurther considered as so called street level bureaucrats – officials sandwiched between superiorsand their clients. The thesis builds a conceptual framework based on institutional, organizational and streetlevel theory together with policy analysis. Methodologically the thesis is formed around andcarried out as a local case study through a number of semi-structured qualitative interviews.The empirical and analytical part of the thesis is further structured around the three theoreticalconcepts. From the thesis´ purpose three guiding questions were outlined. The main implications of the thesis are that a number of factors were found to be involvedin the policy implementation. The most significant factors for the policy implementation arefirstly the formulation of the political goal, and secondly the individual professionals actuallybuying the food for the schools. As long as the policy of the school food is non-forcing (i.e. anaverage aim of the public sector, and not included in the legislation) the final outcome of thefood depends on the decisions made by the buyer. There is disagreement of the policy intention and of whether organic food is more sustainablethan other food. Thus I end the thesis by suggesting a change of concepts if the politicalaim is to reach sustainability. I encourage a system to control the food´s total ecological footprint.This would be achieved by formulating the policy around a suggested level of the ecologicalfootprint. The level would be calculated and set where experts say it´s in accordancewith sustainable development. From this the street level bureaucrats can sum up the componentsof the lunch they buy and serve. No matter if the individual product is labeled organic,local, conventional, or… This would – according to me – improve the chances for Växjö actually to live up to itslogo: the greenest city in Europe. At least this idea could awake a debate. ; Opposition kl. 13.15

In recent years knowledge has been brought forward as an important political issue both in the EU and in Sweden. It is said to be of the uttermost importance not just for education but for society as a whole. As a result of increased globalization and a European striving for economic growth, knowledge has come to be associated with both individual and national competitiveness, and education and learning in schools and workplaces have become a political priority. In this global competition the EU has become an important policy actor in the educational field trying to create a common European education policy field. Despite this development, only a limited number of reports relating the European arena to Swedish educational reforms have been published. Against this background the aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of the knowledge discourses which struggle for legitimacy in Swedish and European education policy and how these discourses relate to each other and change over time. The empirical material consists of a number of fundamental official policy texts produced by the EU and the Swedish state. The study takes its theoretical point of departure in critical discourse analysis using an analytical grid where production, content and communication are seen as three aspects constituting every knowledge discourse. The result shows a process of silent Europeanization in Swedish school reform where European knowledge discourse is being re-contextualised and in many cases re-interpreted without any declaration in terms of explicit references. It also confirms the general trend towards increased focus on learning outcomes and demands for measurability. Furthermore, the result shows how competition rhetoric dominating the EU contributes to an increased sense of crisis in both European and Swedish educational reforms. As a result of this crisis rhetoric the study shows how the proactive reform-perspective is being replaced by a retrospective where solving already existing problems replaces the planning of an ...

During the last decades, the public sector in Western democracies has undergone drastic changes. These changes have meant privatization and a more diverse service provision. Because of privatization, activities that were previously reserved for the public sector can now be conducted by the private sector. This has led to the traditional hierarchical model to be challenged by a new governing style throughmarket mechanisms, which was introduced during the 1980s. Both the hierarchical model and market model have since been supplemented by the network model that was introduced in the 1990s. The new organization has meant that steering is currently done in a complex environment with varying outcomes. In the foreground of the theoretical concepts that captures the development describedearlier is governance. The starting point of the governance perspective is that the traditional bureaucracy model for governing is challenged by new forms of organization and steering. In the early 1990s, it became possible, due to a change in legislation, to startindependent schools with public funding. This legislation change has had a major impact on the Swedish school system in terms of organization and steering issues. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the ideals of hierarchy, market andnetworking appear in the municipal steering of the local school system, and how these ideals affect the development and the intensity of the conflicts in the surveyed municipalities. The focus of the empirical study is three municipalities from the northern parts of Sweden, which are equal in terms of population, number of school pupils, the number of independent schools and with the samepolitical majority. The overall result of the thesis is that different governing ideals affect the levels of conflict in different ways. The municipality governed by marked ideals exhibit thehighest degree of conflict and the municipality governed by the network ideal exhibit lower levels of conflict. The municipality governed by the hierarchical ideal in the middle of the conflict scale.

The aim of this dissertation is to analyse women's political representation in the Swedish parliament 1970-2002, a period during which the share of women parliamentarians increased from 14 to 45 percent, and to assess changes in party rules and party norms in terms of regulative and discursive continuity and change. Inspired by Carol Lee Bacchi's "What's the Problem? Approach," with its focus on the construction of political problems rather than "the problem" as such, this dissertation studies how Swedish political parties have formulated the problem of women's exclusion from parliamentary politics, what causes of women's under representation they have identified and what solutions they have proposed. The dissertation also studies how party rules to increase the number of women have been implemented in the 2002 nomination process. The dissertation is based on party documents from the period 1970-2002, a national survey to all nomination committees in the parliamentary election in 2002 and 70 interviews with nomination committee members for three political parties in two electoral constituencies. The analysis shows how both party rules and party norms regarding women's political representation have changed over time. The analysis also shows that the framing of women's representation changed over time: from an optimistic view of historical development, gender equality as 'equal opportunity' and harmony between the sexes to a critical view on historical development and gender equality as 'equality of results'. The analysis of the nomination process shows that gender is still a key issue in the composition of party lists but that the number of women on party lists in some parties is dependent on women gatekeepers on the nomination committees. It also shows that the ordering of the list is highly dependent on the candidate list from the previous election and that this order of succession also covers non-winnable seats.

Refined baseline inventories of non-indigenous species (NIS) are set per European Union Member State (MS), in the context of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The inventories are based on the initial assessment of the MSFD (2012) and the updated data of the European Alien Species Information Network, in collaboration with NIS experts appointed by the MSs. The analysis revealed that a large number of NIS was not reported from the initial assessments. Moreover, several NIS initially listed are currently considered as native in Europe or were proven to be historical misreportings. The refined baseline inventories constitute a milestone for the MSFD Descriptor 2 implementation, providing an improved basis for reporting new NIS introductions, facilitating the MSFD D2 assessment. In addition, the inventories can help MSs in the establishment of monitoring systems of targeted NIS, and foster cooperation on monitoring of NIS across or within shared marine subregions.

The report examines the issue of the deployability abroad of the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, at present and in terms of future-oriented defence reforms. It notes that the Bundeswehr is growing in terms of GDP spending though not yet in numbers, that there are novel ideas about how to further develop German military doctrine toward its use in international military operations within as well as alongside NATO, and that mechanisms for identifying and closing military capability gaps through procurement are coming into place. At the same time, there are a number of industry-related, legal and political constraints in place, some of which appear poised to continue exert influence over the entire sector for years to come. Absent a very conscious effort on the part of the government and the respective ministries and institutions to alter the status quo, especially in conjunction with aggravated security and defence challenges in Germany's vicinity, it appears unlikely that these modest steps will yield substantive results in the short to mid-term.

This book highlights the diverse roles of the humanities in the history of the Swedish welfare society. This society has often been seen as dominated by an instrumental view of knowledge that rewarded the social sciences, natural sciences and technology, but the contributions in this book show the significant role that the humanities played in the Swedish welfare state. Various forms of humanistic knowledge and knowledge actors were part of large networks and left a clear mark on the public sphere and society at large. A narrative of the marginalization and crisis of the humanities in the postwar period must therefore be problematized. This edited volume brings together some twenty scholars from a number of humanities disciplines (history, history of ideas, media history, literary studies, archaeology, education, etc.). Much of the current research on the history of the humanities conducted in Sweden today is brought together here and put in relation to international discussions in fields such as history of humanities, history of knowledge, etc. The book is a sibling to the monograph Humanister i offentligheten, which was published in 2022.

In this report, we draw several background pictures and discuss a number of scenarios around the challenges of the local government sector in Sweden. The ambition is to raise questions, but also to question certain accepted notions of the local government mission in Sweden. There are no easy answers on the challenges and consequences needed and there is a great need of more research in the field that both can stimulate with new angles and work as a relevant basis for decision-making. The report begins with a description of the demographic development that affects the sector from several important aspects such as investment needs, skills supply and revenue and cost development. Then there is a discussion on how the spread in conditions between local government organizations may affect equality and how these conditions can build a sustainable future local government structure.The sector has its own opportunities to meet future challenges through efficiencies. A lot of work is needed concerning management, governance and organization. The last chapter compiles several issues that requires further research.

The US strategic shift from nation-building to what has been labelled "light footprint" has carried with it a number of changes in the practices used when waging war on terrorism. These activities include covert and clandestine action by special operations and paramilitary forces, and others, operating under a shadowy mandate. It is essential to analyse these changes, due to the nature of the actions taken and the global reach and consequences of US foreign policies. The concept of "global shadow war" has been used by scholars and journalists alike to describe the practices associated with the light footprint framework, although the concept is ambiguous, lacks clear conceptual boundaries and is yet to be defined. This article attempts to resolve the problem of ambiguity through a systematic analysis of how and when the concept is used, in the process establishing its conceptual boundaries and definitional qualities. Using a method for concept analysis developed by Giovanni Sartori, the article provides a conceptual definition which is more clearly delineated, encompasses the characteristics found in the sources studied, and can be used when theorizing about the many practices taking place within the light footprint framework.