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In Uganda, the energy sector like the rest of the economy has suffered severe setback during the 1970s and l980s, the years of political problems in that country. It has been seen that middle class households and even the upper class are reverting from the more efficient and cleaner fuels i.e. electricity and gas, to woodfuel in form of charcoal due partly to the unrealiability of the clean fuels and partly to their high prices and that of the appliances required in their utilisation. This report is a result of a Minor Field Study to evaluate the energy situation in Uganda with the aim of establishing the possibilities of introducing biogas systems in the countryside. It came out during the study that the country faces fuel shortage in the urban areas and some parts of the rural areas and the situation is deteriorating with time. Factors contributing to this situation include inefficient use of fuelwood and charcoal, the rapid population increase without corresponding technological development, rapid growth of the urban areas and the intensive exploitation without replanting of forest products for other purposes. The report gives a general description of biogas production, its characteristics, and its use for cooking, lighting, heating, driving of engines, generating of electricity and curing of tobacco. There is an outline of safety precautions during the production and use of the gas. Conditions for the introduction of biogas systems in the rural areas of Uganda are also outlined and these include, energy needs, availability of technical know-how, availability of building material and availability of organic materials for biogas production. It is pointed out in the report that all these conditions are fairly satisfactorily fulfilled as it concerns the Ugandan situation. The Chinese Pilot Project consisting of seven plants in the eastern part of Uganda is examined. Some plants have managerial problems but the biggest problem is that the project has no technical backup in terms of repairs and servicing, whenever problems arise. There is hardly any data being collected from the plants and no visible follow-up. The local extension staff do not have knowledge about the functioning of the units and therefore they are not useful to the unit owners in terms of advice and repairs. Some differences in basic conditions as relates to biogas technology transfer are briefly examined It turns out that the pilot plants are very expensive. There is an observation on the likely effects of introducing biogas systems in rural Uganda. It is likely that if care is not taken, the project can increase the labour burden on some members of the society. The health conditions in the society should improve and the environment conservated. There then comes an economic analysis which points out that research is needed to produce a cheaper design.

In the late 19th century it became possible to utilize electricity in lighting, industrial processes and for traction. To Sweden, which at that time was gradually being transformed from an overwhelmingly agrarian country into an industrialized nation, this was of great advantage because Sweden was a country well furnished with hydro-electric power, but almost completely lacking in other sources of energy. Beginning in the 1890's a number of privately-owned powerstations were built almost all over the country. During the early 20th century, the Swedish Government became increasingly involved in hydropower development. In 1906 the Government decided to make its debut as a power producer. A government bill proposing the building of a power station at Trollhättan was submitted to the Swedish Parliament, and Parliament approved this bill the same year. Two years later the State Power Board was formed, and in 19 10 Parliament approved plans to build a great power station at Porjus, on the Lule River in the north of Sweden. This power station is the main object of my study. The questions 1 shall try to give an answer to in my study are the following. Why did the State build a power station at Porjus? What happened to the industrial visions that initiated this project? On a more general level my dissertation intends to contribute to the understanding of the establishment of modem technological systems in Sweden. 1 shall try to achieve this by means of a model elaborated by Thomas P. Hughes, Professor of the History of Technology at the University of Pennsylvania. In Hughes' model technical systems are regarded as a part of a "socio-technical" or "technological" system. The core of the theory can be expressed in these words: "They are both socially constructed and society shaping." In my study, which consists of four parts, Part 1 is a study in which energy conditions in Sweden at the turn of the century are discussed in order to ascertain whether the prevailing sources of energy and power transmission methods are to be regarded as promotors of, or obstacles to a continued industrialisation. In Part 11 the following question is put in focus. Why did the State build one of its first big power stations in an area of wilderness in the north of Sweden? The answer to that question is given through a discussion in three steps. It starts with a discussion about why the Railway Board wanted to electrify the State railway. When the Railway Board made that decision they had intended to carry out the largescale trial electrification of a railway line in the western part of Sweden. In 1908 these plans were changed and the Railway Board decided to choose the Riksgräns Railway in the north of Sweden instead. The reasons for this change are discussed in a second step, and after that a discussion follows in which the choice of the Porjus Falls is explained. In Part 111 the dimensioning of the Porjussystem is discussed - i. e. the preliminary work that were needed to build the station, the power station, the transmission system and the locomotives. In the discussion problems connected with the locality of the Porjus Falls are emphasized. Part IV contains a discussion on the following theme. What happened with the industrial expectations which were once the main reason for the decision to build a power station at Porjus? ; Godkänd; 1994; 20070426 (ysko)

The objective behind this article is to study the proliferation of the politics of information technology (IT) in Sweden, 1994-2003, based on a discourse analysis. The article argues that the Swedish IT political discourse is characterised by a guiding rule according to which there exist an autonomous & inevitable historical path towards the "information society." Swedish citizens are defined as dependent subjects, without any means to influence the advent of this new society. Instead they have to comply with new requirements in terms of swift social adaptation & life-long learning. In addition, the IT-political discourse is distinguished by nationalist optimism, as well as democratic ambitions. This also gives rise to peculiar contradictions within the discourse, for instance in the educational arena where there is a clash between individualist pedagogical doctrines & collective compliance to the information society. The author concludes that Swedish IT politics have hitherto mainly focused on affecting definitions & perceptions through the persuasive use of a model of steering which the author labels "visionary governance," ie, the establishment of an authoritative definition of the future by certain experts or "visionaries." Discursive power within such a model consists in making all actors addressing the political issue unanimously. 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

In a review of Mikael Sundstrom's Connecting Social Science and Information Technology. Democratic Privacy in the Information Age, Sundstrom's account of a theoretical framework that may serve to simplify information technology environments, with a particular emphasis on the importance of privacy (as defined in liberal democratic societies) is critiqued on the grounds that it is reductive in some ways: the concept of a 'grand base' for information technology innovation that attends to access time, information sequentially, interactivity, pervasiveness, real-time transfer, recipient anonymity, sender anonymity, recipient transfer cost, recipient enabling cost, recipient verification of sender authenticity, & search & retrieve ability, while laudable, is not matched by an attention to practicality or cost of implementation. In his response, Sundstrom claims that he has been misunderstood, particularly in his account of the 'grand base,' whereas the author, in his reply, disputes this. 4 References. A. Siegel

This study in contemporary history describes the transformation of the public sphere in Sweden during the period 1969-1999, and analyses the role of information technology and politics in the process. The overall aim of the study is to explain how, and why, the public sphere in Jürgen Habermas sense has deteriorated during a period of rapid technological and political change, when increasing attention has been given to information technology as a new tool for improving democracy and empowering citizens. Theoretical inspiration is drawn from two perspectives within the modern history of technology and sociology of technology; the LTS (Large Technical Systems) and STS (Science, Technology and Society) approaches, as well as from the regime theory concept within political science. This multidisciplinary framework provides the theoretical basis for the study, including terms as socio-technical systems, system builder, technification, interpretative flexibility, stabilization, closing and regime change. In addition, the analysis draws upon previous research in economic history, where focus often has been on the important role of institutions. The term path dependence is central in this tradition. The starting point for the study is the process of a mutual legitimization between citizens and political actors that traditionally has taken place within the public sphere. In return for citizens support and trust, political actors have granted format rights to the public space. Two aspects of this interdependence are addressed: Freedom of speech and citizen's access to public information, and their access to arenas where an exchange of political ideas and opinions is taking place. In the study, the former is a question of the legal system and the limits to freedom of speech in new medias such as the Internet, while the latter concerns citizen's technical means and possibilities to connect to electronic networks. Research interest is concentrated on the formal political system, focusing both actors and structural factors such as technological development, media convergence, ideological change and international integration in the transformation process. Four case studies of institutional changes during formative moments, within what is defined as the legal and the technical infrastructures, are conducted and represent the empirical base of the thesis. The case studies are centered on Swedish governmental commissions, on the government itself and on proceedings in the parliament, and concerns formation and transformation of computer law, as well as the deregulation and privatization of the technical infrastructure. In the latter process Televerket (Swedish Telecom) has been an influential promoter of competition and institutional separation between tele- and data communications, representing a major regime change in favour of market relations in the technical infrastructure. In the area of computer law, the Swedish regime dominated by SCB (Statistics Sweden) was incorporated into a joint European data protection regime, resulting in limitations of freedom of speech on the Internet. These regime changes have also transformed the role of the state, constituting a "net watchers state". Another important finding is that promotion of democracy and improvement of access to the public sphere, never was on the agenda in the political transformation processes studied, although a parallel discourse on democracy and information technology existed throughout the period studied.

Symbolic politics is the degree to which political decision-making is motivated, not by the tangible aspects of the decision, but by the interpretation of what the decision represents symbolically. While symbolic politics is widely recognized as an important aspect of political decision-making, the phenomenon is insufficiently explored in political science. The first aim of the present dissertation is to develop and systematize concepts and mechanisms necessary for the study of symbolic politics. The second aim is to make a preliminary evaluation of the explanatory power of the suggested concepts. This is done by applying the concepts in two case studies of current Swedish policy-making. The first case is a study of the decision in 2000 to give state subsidies to broadband Internet connections. The second case is a study of the decision in 1997 to commence the nuclear power phase-out by closing the Barsebäck nuclear power plant. Symbolic politics is suggested to be defined negatively, as being those aspects of a political decision that are not tangible. The taxonomy of symbolic politics consists of four varieties: categories, principles, examples, and expressions. Categories are ways to create a symbolic connection between political issues by cognitively grouping them together. Principles are ways to give the categorization normative implications: since the issues are alike, they should be treated alike. Examples are instances where a single member of the group is offered as prototypical example of the entire group. An expression is the communicative use of political decisions, a deliberate signal or an unintended symptom of the actor's intentions. The taxonomy of symbolic politics can be incorporated in general theories of policy processes and political decision-making. Categories play an integral part of almost all public policy theories, and can help to explain problem-definition processes. Principles are techniques to expand the scope of a political conflict and mobilize new groups of actors. Examples are important to raise attention, both on an individual level, and on the political agenda. Expressions can be used both to expand and to contract the scope of a political conflict. The first case study, the broadband decision in 2000, reveals a mixture of instrumental and symbolic factors explaining the decision. Broadband connections were used as a prototypical example of Internet and information technology. In order to signal governmental commitment to it, the social democratic government changed their previously demand-based policy towards a more supply-oriented one. The second case study, the decision in 1997 to commence the nuclear power phase-out by closing the Barsebäck nuclear power plant, reveals a similar mixture of motives. It was decided in 1980 that all Swedish nuclear power should be phased-out before 2010. Fifteen years on, the credibility of this decision had successively eroded. By closing one nuclear reactor, and thereby sending a signal reassuring of the government's commitment to the phase-out, it was possible to abandon the 2010-limit without being accused of disrespecting the popular will. The symbolic political taxonomy is concluded to hold enough promise to warrant further elaboration.