Suchergebnisse

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.

Stratagems adopted by democratic leaders to try to insinuate, or anchor, a preferred course of action into the larger collective will have a variety of repercussions. Beyond the apparent success of the venture itself, the long-term integrity of the democratic fabric may be at stake if simmering rancour and discontent is left unheeded. These questions would seem particularly pertinent when studying the national side of the evolution of the European Union. The periodic shunting of competencies to European institutions is highly complex, so much so that popular legitimacy for the momentous changes is in effect something of an ephemeral commodity. The referendum, with its unique potential to determine the prevailing vox populi, has from time to time been employed to offset these problems, and lend continued credence to the relinquishment of sovereign power. The political entities that will be the powerhouses in this contest for the hearts and minds of the public are, inevitably, national political parties. They, too, are likely to pay whatever political price will be exacted as a consequence of this unusual form of battle – including the exposition and potential widening of internal rifts. Noticing a dearth of investigative tools that can help us unravel these processes, the author develops a structured framework of analysis specifically designed to "parse" strategic or tactical action, with the aim to gauge likely party-democratic fallout. She makes a first-level distinction between "convincing" strategies (basically conceptualised as compatible with deli¬berative-democratic tenets), and "persuading" strategies (closely associated with a subset of negotiation theory principles focusing on strategic action). While both strategies may lead to the desired short-term outcome – where leadership preferences are duly propagated – a convince/persuade analysis is shown to yield improved understanding of the concomitant, longer-term effects. The author studies the Swedish Social Democratic Party's internal handling of the debates leading up to two pivotal referenda – the EU membership referendum of 1994, and the EMU referendum of 2003. Reviewing a wealth of secondary sources and conducting more than 40 interviews with high-level party officials and other centrally positioned actors (representing both sides of the two issue divides), she is provided with a unique material, which is parsed through the framework (which at this point also proves to be a sound analytical instrument). The study is primarily qualitative in nature, but an entire chapter is devoted to a complementing quantitative analysis where an existing Discourse Quality Index (DQI) is used to determine the level of deliberation prevalent in four party congresses (two preceding the EU referendum; two preceding the EMU referendum). One "convince" sub-dimension, respect, proved to be the one most easily affected by external events, not to mention deadline imposed by the referendum. The qualitative analysis revealed a generally higher level of justification (another "convince" sub-dimension) in the EMU case than in the EU case, and the reverse was true for the respect dimension. In both instances, the party leadership acted to pacify [persuade] the debate, notably by prohibiting government ministers from being active in the respective no-campaigns. A preliminary hypothesis that "deliberative space" shrinks as the final deadline looms was in part corroborated, as turned out to be valid for the respect dimension.

The European Commission adopted the European (EU) Forest Strategy in 2021, where forests and forest management practises such as closer-to-nature forestry (CNF) are identified as a key in solving the two crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. This interview study analyses the attitudes of different forest stakeholders towards CNF and their preferred regulation method of it. Seven stakeholders participated in the interviews, representing three stakeholder groups: forest owners, environmental organisations, and industry organisations. Two environmental organisations and one of the forest owners' organisations had their own definition of CNF, which entailed mainly natural regeneration and an avoidance of clear cuts. Their perceived purpose of CNF was the same as that of the EU Forest Strategy, as a forest management method aiming to promote climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation and timber production. Those who did not have a definition, two of the forest owner's organisations and two industrial organisations, explained that the definitions of CNF varied depending on the purpose of using it. The three organisations that had a definition of CNF, were also in favour of an EU regulation of CNF. The four organisations that were opposed, argued that the conditions across Europe vary too much to have a common regulation. Instead, they preferred market solutions and other ways of reaching the same goals. The results might depend on a larger inclination of believing in legislation if you have a clear definition of it, but also on the attitudes towards legislation varying in general between stakeholder types. During the finalisation of this study, the European Forest Institute released a report with seven principles of CNF, which calls for further research.

Föreliggande enkätstudie är en del i ett forskningsprojekt som handlar om möjligheter och hinder i inspektörers yrkesroll med särskilt fokus på livsmedelsinspektion. Den övergripande målsättningen med projektet är att bidra med ökade kunskaper om inspektörernas arbete för att det på sikt ska kunna ske en förnyelse och utveckling av yrkesrollen för de som arbetar som inspektörer. Ambitionen i det här delprojektet var att försöka nå samtliga kommunala livsmedelsinspektörer i landet. Ca 800 heltids- eller deltidsarbetande livsmedelsinspektörer fick enkäten skickad till sin arbetsmail och 504 enkätsvar kom in. Svar har kommit in från kommuner i samtliga län. Flest svar har kommit från storstadslänen Västra Götaland, Stockholm och Skåne där det arbetar många inspektörer. Resultatet visar att tre av fyra livsmedelsinspektörer är kvinnor. Livsmedelsinspektörer som arbetar i kommunerna är alltifrån 20-årsåldern till drygt 65 år. Två tredjedelar är födda under 1970- och 1980-talen det är alltså en ganska ung yrkeskår. Närmare hälften av alla livsmedelsinspektörer har arbetat kortare tid än 5 år som livsmedelsinspektörer. Det finns en stor variationen på tjänstetitlar. De livsmedelsinspektörer som har svarat på enkäten har 19 olika slags titlar. Många livsmedelsinspektörer arbetar inte enbart som livsmedelsinspektörer. Resultatet visar att stor spännvidd finns representerad från heltidsarbetande till de som arbetar endast några procent i sin tjänst med livsmedelskontroll. I olika grad utför många livsmedelsinspektörer förutom livsmedelskontrollen även övriga förekommande arbetsuppgifter som finns på ett miljökontor. Livsmedelsinspektörerna är i högre grad nöjda med hur kontakterna brukar fungera med stora och medelstora livsmedelsföretag jämfört med de mindre livsmedelsföretagen. När det gäller interna kontakter är livsmedelsinspektörerna mest nöjda med kontakterna med sina inspektörskollegor. Minst nöjda är inspektörerna i kontakterna med politiker som arbetar med övergripande frågor i kommunen. Fyra av tio livsmedelsinspektörer anger att de i varierande grad har varit utsatta för hot eller våld på fältet. Arbete ute på fältet t ex. vid livsmedelskontroller ökar riskerna för att bli utsatt för hot eller våld i tjänsten men arbetsplatsen inne på kontoret är inte heller riskfri när det gäller hot eller våld. En fjärdedel av livsmedelsinspektörerna har angivit att de i någon grad har varit med om försök till otillbörlig påverkan från någon verksam inom livsmedelsföretag. En av tio har varit med om försök till otillbörlig påverkan från annan anställd vid kommunal förvaltning. En fjärdedel svarar att de har stöd från arbetsgivaren i mycket hög grad för att kunna utföra sina arbetsuppgifter på bästa vis. En av tio svarar att de i liten grad eller inte alls får stöd från arbetsgivaren för att kunna utföra arbetsuppgifterna på bästa vis. Tre procent av livsmedelsinspektörerna har svarat att de inte har tillgång till mobiltelefon i tjänsten. Tio procent saknar tjänstelegitimation. Drygt tio procent saknar visitkort i tjänsten. Sex procent har inte tillgång till funktionella arbetskläder i tjänsten från arbetsgivaren. Åtta av tio livsmedelsinspektörer upplever att verksamhetsutövare som de möter i tjänsten oftast upplever kontrollbesöket positivt. Tjugo procent av livsmedelsinspektörerna saknar eller har bara delvis genomgått grundläggande utbildning i tillsynsmetodik. Fyrtio procent har inte alls eller bara delvis haft möjligheter att gå utbildning på avancerad nivå i tillsynsmetodik. En dryg tredjedel instämmer helt med att de känner stolthet över att de arbetar som livsmedelsinspektör. En dryg fjärdedel uppger att de helt instämmer med att de upplever att omgivningen möter dem med respekt i yrkesrollen som livsmedelsinspektör. Sju av tio svarar att de helt instämmer med att inspektörens yrkesroll är komplex. Livsmedelsinspektörer som har svarat på enkäten är relativt välutbildade. Fyra av tio har en magister- eller masterexamen. Tre av tio har en kandidatexamen. Det är en stor bredd på utbildningsnivåer från gymnasium (oftast i kombination med praktisk yrkeserfarenhet från livsmedelsbranschen) upp till doktorsexamen. Det är också en bredd på olika slags utbildningar främst inom naturvetenskapliga områden. Många har en inriktning mot livsmedel i sin utbildning medan andra har en mer bred utbildning som t ex miljö- och hälsoskyddsinspektör. Behörighetskrav för att få tjänstgöra som livsmedelsinspektör är en fråga som väcker diskussion bland inspektörerna. Knappt hälften instämmer helt med att det bör finnas behörighetskrav för att få arbeta som livsmedelsinspektör. Av flera enkätsvar framgår att livsmedelsinspektörer upplever sig vara den inspektörsgrupp som känner sig ha lägst status bland de olika typer av inspektörer som arbetar på ett miljökontor. Inspektörerna utdelar både ros och ris till det interna ledarskapet. Fyra av tio instämmer helt med att miljöchefen gör ett bra arbete för verksamheten. Sex av tio instämmer helt med att de med förtroende kan prata med sin närmaste chef. Sex av tio instämmer helt med att miljöchefen bemöter medarbetarna på ett trevlig och professionellt vis. Mindre positiva kommentar finns kring chefer som av olika skäl är frånvarande. Många livsmedelsinspektörer efterlyser ett större engagemang från ledningen för livsmedelskontrollen. Konflikthantering internt är ett annat område som bör utvecklas. En av fem uppger att miljöchefen inte alls eller i liten grad har förmåga att hantera interna konflikter. Drygt tio procent svarar att de i liten grad eller inte alls känner sig sedda och uppskattade av chefen. Slutligen kan konstateras att livsmedelsinspektörerna är en viktig länk i livsmedelskedjan för att konsumenten ska få säkra livsmedel. Bra stöd från ledning och organisationen är viktigt för att livsmedelsinspektörerna på bästa sätt ska kunna genomföra sitt uppdrag inom livsmedelskontrollen.

The current agricultural policy in the European Union aims at stimulating and facilitating a wide range of agricultural functions besides the production of food and fiber. It goes hand in hand with an increased demand for new services in the agricultural landscape such as nature and history conservation. This new role for the farmer needs to be defined and measured to clarify its significance both to the individual farmer and to the public whose tax money pay for the services. The aim of this thesis is to discuss the new role of agriculture based on material gathered through a special accounting method. All the resources spent on managing agricultural landscapes have been registered continuously on two Swedish farms. On a third farm the same information has been gathered in a farmer's diary and then secondarily transcribed into the same accounting method manual as on the other two farms. Also semi-structured interviews have been performed on these three farms focusing on how and why the farmers manage the agricultural landscape. This thesis shows that the special accounting method is applicable if only a few basic assumptions are made. One such assumption has to do with the division of resources for producing biological and historical value and the resources for producing food and fiber in the agricultural landscape. The evaluation of the method is the main theoretical contribution of this thesis. Another result is that the management practices are relatively time consuming. Moreover the compensation for managing pastures and meadows on the farms within the agri-environmental scheme seems to compensate the extra input of resources in many cases, and factors affecting the degree of compensation are identified in the thesis.

This report is based on the results obtained from two questionnaire studies carried out during 1999 and 2007. The aim of the studies is to increase our knowledge about the attitudes and approach of the police to traffic safety work and how these attitudes have changed with time. In the first study 729 randomly chosen police officers completed the questionnaire and in the second 1,022. The results show that the basic attitude among the police towards traffic surveillance has become more positive. The attitudes towards the directives from the governing bodies and their ability to participate in decision making have improved slightly from the first measurement to the second measurement. However, it is characteristic that a fairly large proportion still is dissatisfied with the same. The attitude of the police towards their own reporting of accidents has not changed appreciably at all. On the other hand, the understanding that a certain amount of statistics shall be reported is slightly greater in 2007 than in 1999. The attitudes towards automatic surveillance have strongly improved although a well-visible policeman is still advocated. The need to reinforce the surveillance of professional traffic is considered to be greater in 2007 than in 1999. According to the police, the attitude amongst the public towards speeding offences has become more negative than it was before. Nevertheless, a relatively high proportion still believes that it is a relatively minor offence. In 2006, the tolerance level for speeding offences was lowered at the same time as the fines for traffic offences were raised markedly. The results of the questionnaire show that the police are neutral towards whether or not these measures will influence the public's acceptance of the traffic safety work, which could indicate that they have not yet defined their attitude regarding the question. More than half of all police officers in 2007 do not believe that the public are aware of the possibility of having a time for consideration with respect to the acceptance of a fine for a breach of regulations. Finally the results show that in 2007, more controls were carried out than before. The most important conclusions that can be drawn from these results are that the police have developed a more positive attitude towards the traffic safety work and that, at the same time, more traffic controls are being carried out. But there are also many who still do not feel that they are able to influence their work. Furthermore, many are dissatisfied with the governing body's directives regarding traffic safety work. Such a dissatisfaction can influence the psycho-social work environment and the motivation for carrying out good work, but concretely the results show that such a dissatisfaction influences, both directly and indirectly, how many traffic controls one carries out.

How is a hybrid state maintained? Today, several countries undergoing democratic reforms are also backsliding towards greater authoritarianism. This article draws on election data from Macedonia and Albania to show how a country can display elements of democratic improvement and democratic deterioration within the same policy field. The Albanian case shows how the political parties, with an anchoring in legislation, work to make the electoral administration politically dependent. This enables the political parties to exert control over central aspects of the distribution of power. By contrast, the case of Macedonia shows how undemocratic behaviors can become institutionalized and gradually accepted, even as other features of the electoral process undergo improvement. Common to both countries are patterns of patronage that serve to maintain a unique organization of power: the democratic façade is improved, but the undemocratic behavior remains.

In Politis and Romano (1993), different block resampling estimators of variance of general linear statistics, e.g. a sample mean, were proposed under the assumption of stationarity. In the present paper such estimators of variance of sample means, computed from nonstationary spatially indexed data {Xi : i E A}, where A is a finite subset of the integer lattice Z2, are studied. Consistency of estimators of variance will be shown for the following kind of data: Observations taken from different lattice points are allowed to come from different distributions, and the dependence structure is allowed to differ over the lattice. We assume that all observed values are from distributions with the same expected value, or with expected values that decompose additively into directional components. Furthermore, it will be assumed that observations separated by a certain distance are independent.

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.

Evaluation is an institutionalized practice in the western public sector with several applications and uses. At the same time, the effectiveness and use of evaluation is seldom demonstrated. This evaluation paradox is due to the fact that evaluation is constrained and shaped in relation to, among others, a political context. In this dissertation, the political context is examined from the assumption that governance shapes evaluation. The aim is to analyze the relationship between governance and evaluation, by studying the translation (i.e. inter­pretation) of the European Union evaluation approach ongoing evaluation in Sweden, in the context of Cohesion policy 2007-2013, which in Sweden aims at reinforcing competitiveness and employment. The relation­ship is examined through documents and interviews on a European union and a Swedish level, and in the translation process in between. With key concepts such as steering logics, participatory evaluation and translation through framing, the formation of evaluation in relation to governance has been mapped. This is particularly interesting in Sweden where the approach puts forth ideals of learning and interaction that seem to depart from ongoing evaluation. Results show that governance cannot fully explain the shape of evaluation. Instead, Swedish agencies and other implementing actors have promoted their evaluation norms while at the same time fulfilling the Swedish ministries' learning frame. It is an actor perspective comple­menting the relation­­ship between gover­nance and evaluation previously presented. The evaluation approach in Sweden has been translated to a practical participatory evaluation approach within a larger group of collabora­tive inquiry. In conclusion, evaluation on both levels has functioned as a relatively un­critical supportive resource for decision making within predetermined boundaries, more connected to the object of evaluation than to a larger gover­nance context. Evaluation in Sweden is being separated from questions of accounta­bility, and participation in evaluation is for goal fulfillment rather than for critical examination of basic assumptions underpinning projects and programs. Results made possible through the lens of trans­lation show that the Swedish approach was made possible by the vague borders of the field of evaluation, the rhetorical use of evaluation terminology in translation, skilled institutional entrepreneurs using legitimizing strategies, and the framing by the Commission and state ministries that opens up for national variation.

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.

The aim of this study is to investigate the 1993 reform and the process where control and management philosophies, systems of rules and regulations are assumed to apply both to the centuries of academic tradition of specific characteristics of organisation and cultural norms. Based on documents, educational political intentions and the plans of action which hereby arise I attempt to analyse the impact of the reform. New planning and control systems and goal and achievement-related allocation of resources are being introduced at the same time as the country's seats of learning are becoming independent authorities with the right to create their own internal organisation. The new government wants to achieve a decentralisation of decisions-making, responsibility and authority, and to follow up and evaluate operations and results. A particular enquiry has been set up, RUT-93, with the aim of studying the position the individual establishments of higher education take in practice towards the aims of the reform, intentions and to the new possibilities for freedom that are provided. From a qualitative point of view I analyse how the country's seats of learning react and act in relation to these new preconditions on the basis of a questionnaire and a referral from the RUT-93 enquiry, as well as my own additional empirical material in the form of personal interviews. I reach the conclusion that the state authorities use the concept of freedom to explain a moving away from a centrally controlled system at the same time that strengthened central control is perceived at the country's seats of learning, as connections are made between allocation of resources and demands for achievement, follow-up and results attained. The strategy behind the RUT-93 enquiry is to ensure that a process of reform survives even if the right-wing government were to lose power after one mandate period. The activities for which initiative is taken, however, acquire the nature of predictability as the aims of the reform and the directives of the report are viewed as being indeterminate and unclear for the country's seats of learning. I feel I have discovered at least four different horizons of interpretation for how the country's seats oflearning view the reform: the discourse of tradition, an organisational perspective, a power perspective and an undergraduate education perspective. It also appears to be the case that the traditional academic exercise of power is expected to be replaced by a model of control and management of a 'top-down' nature which applies to society as a whole and where control of aims, economy and results is the guiding principle. There also seems to be a connection between the concepts of fraternity, management and democracy, where the concept of classic academic is often associated with and even used synonymously with concepts such as fraternal, democratic, nonhierarchical and 'bottom-up' -Ollented, while the concept of management-oriented is often used as an explanation of a hierarchy or a 'top-down' philosophy of some kind. I have tried to describe how the 1993 reform of higher education must be understood on the basis of the existential, societal, historical and gender-dependent fabric so that it does not hang loose and floating. A summarising conclusion contains the plausible fact that both state authorities and tax-payers have an interest in the fact that the operations which are run at higher education establishments is in concord with what is happening in society in general, which, however, does necessarily mean that operations must be run or controlled on the basis of the same principles or rules as other state authorities and even less on the basis of what applies to organisations and companies. ; Licentiatavhandling framlagd vid Lärarhögskolan, Stockholmsuniversitet den 12 mars, 1997. Opponent: Agneta Linné, Lärarhögskolan i Stockholm.

This article aims to examine participation and influence of pensioners' organizations in a context of marketization within local elderly care. The literature on New Public Management (NPM) points out different views on the effects of marketization on the participation of organized interests within the decision-making process. One view states marketization implies less of participation by organized interests since this stands in conflict with inherent values of NPM, such as efficiency and the citizen as customer on a market. An opposite view states that marketization does not cause this effect, i.e., organized interests participate in the same manner as before. The empirical investigation consists of interviews and official documents from four Swedish municipalities with a marketized elderly care. The result is that marketization does not cause any major crowding out effect on organized interests from the decision-making process. However, concerns can be raised about the extent and quality of participation since procedures of contracting out are not always compatible with democratic values such as transparency and participation. ; En ren affärsangelägenhet? Om pensionärsorganisationernas deltagande och inflytande i en marknadsanpassad äldreomsorg

Regional politics is changing; it is transforming from being mainly a responsibility of the central state to a concern that is more for the regional or local governments. At the same time, there are signs of a transformation of the political system in general. The development indicates a decreasing hierarchy as the power of the state is challenged and the political agents are increasing in number. This indicates that the political agents are changing but there are also indications that the political forms are transforming. The politics is increasingly characterised by project and process politics, networks, cooperation and partnerships. This transformation is generally described as the transformation "from government to governance". New governance is one of the most frequently discussed issues in contemporary political science literature, and this has led to a wide variety of conceptualizations. Considering the changing regional politics and general changes as the political forms and agents, this thesis studies who governs the regional politics and how regional politics is governed.The purpose of this thesis is to provide empirical contributions in order to increase the understanding of changes in regional politics at the local level. This is done by dividing governance modes into typologies. Four political processes at the local level in the municipality of Åre between the years 1973-2007 are analyzed. The thesis is based on qualitative semi-structured elite interviews. The informants have been selected by snowball sampling. The interviews have also been complemented by documentary studies. The documents that have been studied are the protocols from the municipal assembly from 1973, when the municipality was created, to􀂒􀂟2007. The documents also consist of the parish archives (sockenkrönikor) governmental reports and official documents of the local and state-level government. The material has been analyzed by using process tracing.The main results of the study are that there have been changes in the regional politics at the local level in relation to the political agents and the forms of politics. The 1970s were characterized by strong state power and hierarchy. The political processes have increasingly been characterized by the typology of the new governance. The study has shown that in practice the regional politics in Åre is characterized by both traditional governance and new governance at the same time there has not been a paradigmatic shift. The elements of new governance are increasing but there are still significant signs of the traditional bureaucratic system such as hierarchy and ordered rule. As the signs of new governance increase, the political entrepreneurs play a bigger role in the processes being analyzed. The study also shows that the critique of traditional forms of governance relating to participation and influence has not become irrelevant as the signs of new governance increases.

The study conceptualizes economic forest sustainability as "the forest-related income and economic well-being sustained over time" and then compares Lithuania and Sweden at different scales. Sweden adopts a holistic perspective of the forest sector, where forestry and forest industries are perceived as a well-integrated economic branch. Forestry is expected to deliver raw material to forest industries, at the same time creating good preconditions for profitable forest management. Forest owners are given large freedom to act according to market signals and their own household needs, while the resulting intensive forest management cumulatively leads to a significant contribution to the country's welfare. Lithuania, in contrast, lacks an integrated sector perspective, forestry and forest industries being regarded as two separate realms. Private forest property rights are severely constrained by numerous legislative stipulations, leading to a significant reduction of economic value in production forests. On top of that, thirty percent of private owners face additional restrictions through forestland zoning, leading to further substantial loss of economic value. We suggest several measures for improving the economic forest sustainability in Lithuania, where a genuine national forest program could serve as a suitable bearing medium.