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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.

Today's society is often characterized as a knowledge society, in contrast to the earlier industrial society. Historians however know that all societies are and have been knowledge societies. Without the ability to create, transfer, and use knowledge, between individuals and groups, power areas would neither have been built nor maintained. This edited volume reflects how historical actors, both those in power as well as laymen and officials, have produced and utilised information and knowledge from the Middle Ages until today. It acommodates research into census, urbanisation, history of kings and queens, exercise of public authority, social and political movements, disciplining and formation of opinion.
In Kunskapens tider. Historiska perspektiv på kunskapssamhället ("The knowledge society. A historical perspective") nine researchers from the Department of History at Stockholm University contribute with examples of the need for and use of knowledge, in different historical situations and periods. - Dagens samhälle karaktäriseras ofta som kunskapssamhället, till skillnad från det tidigare industrisamhället. Historiker vet dock att alla samhällen är och har varit kunskapssamhällen: Utan möjligheter att skapa, överföra och använda kunskap, såväl individer som grupper emellan, hade maktområden varken kunnat byggas eller vidmakthållas. Antologin speglar hur historiska aktörer, såväl makthavare som lekmän och tjänstemän, har producerat och utnyttjat information och kunskap från medeltiden till idag. Här ryms forskning om folkräkning, urbanisering, kungars historieskrivning, myndighetsutövning, sociala och politiska rörelser, disciplinering och opinionsbildning.
I Kunskapens tider bidrar nio medarbetare från Historiska institutionen vid Stockholms universitet med exempel på hur behovet och användandet av kunskap sett ut i olika historiska situationer och tidsperioder.

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 ...

-Sustainable landscapes require evidence-based knowledge about multiple goods, services and values, as well as integrated place-based collaboration among actors and stakeholders at multiple levels. -EUROSCAPES is an international network of researchers, journalists and practitioners that supports sharing of knowledge about how to maintain and develop sustainable landscapes. --Euro. is about the diversity of places in the European continent's East and West - from the Ural Mountains and Caucasus to the Atlantic Ocean. --.scapes links to the word landscape, which has biophysical, anthropogenic and perceived dimensions. -EUROSCAPES gathers and communicates knowledge using three series of publications: --EUROSCAPES News with short texts and illustrations that can be used by journalists. --EUROSCAPES Communication with popular summaries of peer-reviewed publications and reports. --EUROSCAPES Report with longer peer-reviewed comprehensive text. -EUROSCAPES uses the web site www.euroscapes.org to disseminate these publication series using five themes: People, Places, Practices, Projects, and Publications.

This chapter provides an overview of the status and trends in biodiversity and ecosystem function through assessment of key species and habitats, and summarizes the ecological status of selected Nordic regions. Important habitats across the Nordic coastal region include sea grass beds, kelp forests, blue mussel beds and soft sediments. Declines in sea grass have occurred since the 1970's, most likely due to eutrophication and overfishing. Norwegian kelp forests are recovering following severe losses in the 1960–1970's, most likely due to increased water temperature and changes in grazing pressure. Seabird populations have declined significantly during the last decades, reaching historical lows. Knowledge gaps are identified and a common biodiversity indicator system across the Nordic region is suggested. An indigenous local knowledge perspective is also presented.

This dissertation addresses party-culture in political parties represented in the Swedish parliament. Party-culture is investigated by studying collective self-images and norms in Swedish parliamentary party-groups (PPG). The aim of this investigation is to contribute to understanding of the conditions under which parliamentary work is carried out. In order to expand our understanding of these conditions this dissertation looks beyond the formal processes by which party-groups deliver their political message and make decisions, and instead highlights the cultural aspects of these party organizations in the parliament. The method of analysis is qualitative and the material for the study consists of 53 interviews with members of parliament from all represented parties. The parties studied are thus the Social Democratic, Moderate, Liberal, Christian Democrats, Left, Centre, and Green. In addition, some participant observation for the 1998-2002 mandate period in used. The empirical investigation shows that party-culture is revealed via four basic themes: political ability, feelings of political responsibility, the importance social fellowship, and the party's strength in relation to individual party members. The party's culture based on the four themes noted above provides a theoretical structure for interpretation that combines an Aristotelian idea about basic knowledge types, sophia and phronesis, with cultural theorists Mary Douglas' grid-group-analysis. Based on this interpretation method it is shown that party-cultures distinguish themselves from each other in a way that diverges from the left-right spectrum that dominates Swedish politics. At the same time as the parties demonstrate differences in party-culture, there are also some similarities between the parties, and these similarities suggest that the parties have adjusted themselves to a more general culture within the parliament, most visibly the focus on factual knowledge and a certain requirement for modesty from party members. ; Konverterat ISBN: 978-91-554-5882-9

Public libraries are one of several institutions that uphold Swedish democracy. The representative liberal democratic model, expressed in the Library Act, is increasingly being questioned and challenged. Political actors, mainly from the radical right, advocate ademocracy focused on the will of the people at the expense of the rights of individuals. With the notion of plural agonistics, public libraries can be seen as important arenas for debates and meetings between people, offering ways to handle conflicts within democratic institutions. Methodologically, this study employs the perspective of institutional ethnography, and the aim of this paper is to develop knowledge about public libraries' experiences of political pressure and how this is enacted in a time of political turbulence. This paper reports findings from the first stage of a survey study directed at public library managers in 77 municipalities from the six southernmost regions of Sweden. Based on replies in these surveys, interviews were conducted withseven of the participating library managers. Findings show that the interplay between libraries and the local political level, and between national and local political levels, generally functions without notable opposition. Illegitimate political pressureis uncommon, but when it occurs, it is primarily triggered by issues connected to cultural diversity. Results further indicate that local public libraries tend to respond to illegitimate political pressure by development and use of professional policy documents, but also, in some cases, by avoiding certain activities.

In this chapter, essential ecological and societal aspects of the Nordic coastal environment are highlighted. These show that local communities and stakeholders need to be more involved in decision-making because their needs and their ecological knowledge are essentialto this process. This also relates to Aichi targets 14, 15, 16 and 18 (see Lucas et al., 2015). There is the need to improve the monitoring of all types of NCP or ecosystem services and to critically review existing indicators that may be used to track the development of biodiversity and NCP. Only by actively analysing data and creating syntheses, is it possible to understand changes in the ecosystem linking biodiversity and NCP.

This study examines what happens when contentious lay citizens harness the technical-ecological repertoire of experts as means of challenging nature conservation policy. The causes, manifestations, and implications of this phenomenon are elucidated through a critical discourse analysis. The case study is based on the wolf reintroduction project in Europe, with particular focus on Sweden, using illegal hunting discussions as a point of entry within the hunting community. It reveals the deployment of three topoi, which are defined as stock arguments situated within a discourse. Analysis shows how while some topoi often incur short-term gains in the debate because of their scientific guise, they are fundamentally relegated as folk science (or barstool biology) by government experts and, in some cases, contribute to the further marginalization of other knowledges. Acquiescence to this discourse is shown to greatly impede the debate. Finally, the study shows how lack of trust in the public dialog, which hunters openly recognize to be colonized by ecological expertise, results in increasingly noncommunicative forms of resistance toward policy.

This thesis explores the human-environment interaction within the climate-sensitive socio-ecological system of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. It uses the livelihoods framework to analyse various coping strategies to resource scarcity due to lake recessions. The main aim is to understand the processes by which decision-making takes place and the influence of various agents of change on coping with environmental shocks, i.e. water recessions. Lake Chilwa undergoes periodic water recessions with up to twelve incidents recorded between 1900 and 2012. While the lake and its wetland is an economic aquatic agriculture system in between recessions, it is unclear how households around the system survive during the periods of water recessions. Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted between March 2012 and December 2013 on Chisi Island of Lake Chilwa to evaluate the coping strategies and their major drivers in responding to the periodic lake recessions. Using interpretive analysis, the findings show that people from the Lake Chilwa socio-ecological system have lived in anticipation of periodic environmental shocks due to their deep historical knowledge of the lake level and its fluctuations. This knowledge has been passed from generation to generation. Results further show that the main coping strategies that have stood the test of time for every recession are based on reciprocity and redistribution. These include sharing through kinship ties, hunting wild birds and farming. In many cases coping strategies for each specific recession are driven by political, social and economic factors prevailing at that particular period. Given these conditions, different agents (individuals or communities) make choices designed to maximise their own interests as they scramble to access scarce resources. Although natural resources in these systems are fundamental assets in rural livelihoods, accessing them in times of scarcity requires better governance systems that consider social, political and economic contexts.

In 1991, the Swedish Social Democratic government established the Pensioners' Council at the Ministry of Social Affairs. The Council's purpose and structure were spelled out by the Government in a Commission of Inquiry Directive. According to this, the Council is to be a forum for deliberations between the Government and pensioners' organizations. At the municipal level, Senior Citizens Councils have existed since the 1970s. They fill a similar purpose to that of the Pensioners' Council at the central level, namely to be an arena for political discussions between representatives from pensioners' organizations and the municipality. The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold. First, I describe the influence of pensioners' organizations on the establishment of the pensioners' councils and their political influence – potential as well as actual – in these councils. Second, I seek to explain the influence of pensioners' organizations from a power resources perspective. By doing so, I hope to contribute to our knowledge of the relationship between the welfare state and organized interests. Does this relationship imply the existence of a corporatist or pluralistic power structure? Finally, I also hope to contribute to our understanding of the future development of the welfare state in the light of a global economy and aging population. The empirical investigation on the central level suggests that pensioners' organizations influenced the decision to establish the Pensioners' Council. Moreover, they had actual as well as potential political influence through the council since the early 1990s. There success in influencing government policy is due to the fact that pensioners' organizations represent an important voting group and their employees have expert knowledge. At the local level, the empirical investigation suggests that pensioners' organizations had influence on decisions made by municipalities to establish Senior Citizens Councils. However, opportunities to influence vary at the local level, and pensioners' organizations actual political influence is limited. This limited influence can be explained as a consequence of pensioners' organizations lack of an important power resource at the local level – employed expertise. It is argued in the dissertation that the empirical results do not suggest an existence of a corporatist power structure in social issues. Rather, they point to a pluralistic power structure – i.e. along side producer organizations, other organizations (such as those for welfare consumers) also have an important power position. This, in turn, limits the ability of politicians to cut welfare spending. The case of pensioners' organizations therefore suggests that we cannot expect any drastic downsizing of the Swedish welfare state due to factors such as the globalization of the economy. In light of the aging population, the empirical results suggest that politicians will have to seek other solutions to be able to meet the challenge of financing welfare programs targeting the elderly than making drastic cutbacks in those programs.

At Ifpra's World Congress in Hong Kong, the decision was taken to set up a new Scientific Task Force (STF). One of the main activities of this Task Force is to provide state-of-the-art knowledge on different aspects of parks. A major challenge is of course to find scientific proof for the benefits provided by urban parks, benefits that we often take for granted. In order to make sure that parks are part of political agendas at different levels, sound evidence of park benefits has to be provided. This need can be met by a review of existing scientific literature (best external evidence), carried out in a systematic way. By applying a systematic method the usefulness of such a document will increase, since the findings will meet the standards for evidence-based decisions.

Since the late 1960's, the Green Revolution introduced high yielding varieties in association with agrochemicals to address increasing food demands across Southeast Asia. Indonesian government extended these "technological packages" through political incentives replacing traditional farming methods to stimulate agricultural productivity and economic growth. Besides contributing to Indonesian economic development and reducing food insecurity, the adoption of those technological packages led to many negative externalities, such as soil degradation, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, destruction of natural habitat, increased dependence on artificial inputs and non-renewable resources, and more importantly loss of local control over agricultural production. Different farming approaches internalizing socio-ecological aspects of food production have increasingly been recognized by the FAO as better alternatives. Agroecology is a transdisciplinary farming approach, bridging social, biological and agricultural sciences while including traditional farmers' knowledge. Despite extensive evidence in favor of agroecology, the various interests of actors of the agrifood system hinders its large adoption. Although small-scale farmers (>2ha) represent the majority of the world's food production, their influence on the production system is limited. The island of Bali represents an accelerated version of a global problem: increasing pressure on limited land-based resources along with liberal policies. Rapid urbanization due to mass tourism is causing 1000 ha of arable land to disappear every year and heightening water shortages, crippling Balinese centuryold food sovereignty. This thesis explored through an agroecological lens the multiple challenges Balinese farmers are facing in the transition to agroecology. An important factor identified was the loss of traditional farming knowledge as younger generations were abandoning farming activities because of low profitability. Furthermore, inadequate political support and enforcement have been reported to hinder the development of sustainable agriculture in Bali. The study also identified that growing awareness, a good access to markets and how social networks to spread sustainable farming techniques can potentially make farming more attractive and viable. Policies that will better adapt to Balinese context from small-scale farmers' perspectives were also shared and discussed.

In the wake of an emerging knowledge society, universities around the world have come under severe institutional pressure from changing national research policies, financing organizations´ new strategies and turbulent research dynamics. This study examines how Lund University in Sweden manages these institutional pressures. The study explores how the university leadership ? rector and the governing board ? have (1) articulated the normative foundations of the university, (2) experimented with and structured the research organization, (3) explored new internal governance structures and steering strategies, and (4) developed institutional structures for closer integration with industry and commercialization of research results. The study develops a conceptual framework focusing on processes of institutional change and on how organizations react on these processes. Especially, I elaborate on the notion of institutional evolution developed within the tradition of historical institutionalism, and the processes and mechanisms behind different evolutionary paths. In the empirical parts of the study, I first analyze processes of institutional change within modern science. The study departures from and criticizes three popular frameworks of contemporary science and research dynamics: the ?Triple Helix? framework, the concept of ?post-academic? science and the transition from a ?Mode-1? to a ?Mode-2? type of knowledge production. The study then continues by analyzing international research policy trends, the developments within Swedish research policy and the governing structures within the field of higher education. The analysis of Lund University over more than two decades reveals an organization using a growing number of different normative foundations and organizational models and structures in its daily operations. The study also demonstrates the gradual transformation of the internal governance structure with recurrent attempts to strengthen the steering core at the central university level. The analysis also points to the successive integration with regional industry, as well as the building up of technology transfer structures and mechanisms within the university during the last 10 to 15 years. The case study demonstrates how the university loyally tries to adapt to a complex and changing environment by elaborating its hybrid character. In conclusion, the analysis in this study shows, on the one hand, the emergence of a ?post-academic? research system containing new institutional logics, governance structures and borders. On the other, hand the case study of Lund University illustrates the evolutionary transformation of a Swedish ?Humboldtian? university. This is a transformation where elements of the ?Entrepreneurial University? are added on to and fused with classical European university norms and structures.

In recent years evaluation has become a very important element in the public administration. The Swedish state administration to a significant extent both evaluates and is evaluated. This means that the evaluating state is at the same time the evaluated state. In this dissertation the institutionalization of evaluation is studied in a field within which this development has been particularly lively and interesting, namely the field of higher education. The dissertation focuses on evaluation activity that has been carried out in conjunction with central public authorities within higher education: the Office of the Chancellor of the Universities and Colleges in Sweden, the National Swedish Board of Universities and Colleges, and the Office of the University Chancellor, and encompasses the period 1964-1995. A newly revived research tradition within political science – historical institutionalism – is used as a perspective and a methodology. Since the application of this tradition has not yet been fully tested, another purpose is to examine the practical utility of this analytical tool and the kind of knowledge that it produces. The dissertation thereby combines the fields of education policy, evaluation research and institutional theory. The beginning of the institution has been dated to the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. In the dissertation the forces behind the initiation of the institution are taken up. Events and developments in the field that have influenced the further development of the institution have been identified and analyzed. Developments reveal that the institution has been stable during the entire period of time under study, despite some changes. The use of historical institutionalism as a perspective and methodology has proven satisfactory on a general level. However, special solutions have been required as problems and ambiguities have arisen. The dissertation concludes with reflections on the practical utility of historical institutionalism in political science research.