The inquiry is focusing on why island autonomy occurs. Our point of departure considers four possible conditions such as geographical distance, ethnicity, GDP/capita and size according to population leading towards island autonomy. We use two sample groups in our study: one encompassing autonomous islands deriving from different parts of the world, with three main islands illustrating what we mean by island autonomy. These consist of the Azores, the Faroe Islands and Isle of Man. The second group consists of so called non-autonomous islands scattered around the world. The analysis is carried out with a specific technique within the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) family and that is Multi-Value QCA (MVQCA). MVQCA is an extension of the Crisp-Set QCA (CSQCA) and withholds a dichotomous dependent variable, while the possible explanatory variables (independent variables) can have multi-values. As a second technique Fuzzy-Set QCA (FSQCA) is employed as a control technique only. While assessing these techniques we receive combinations of conditions leading to the outcome in question. Results show that with MVQCA we receive four different paths towards island autonomy. Ethnicity as the only explanation is one route towards the outcome. A second path is small or large size. Long geographical distance combined with no ethnic diversity is a third way towards island autonomy. The fourth path is long geographical distance combined with the lower or upper middle income group. All the paths are equally valid.
En betraktelse över folkomröstningar och deras betydelse.
Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att ta reda på om skillnader finns i hur stora miljöhänsyn som tas vid offentliga upphandlingar i kommuner där en aktiv miljöstrategi finns integrerad i förvaltningarna än i kommuner där de inte integrerats.
Jag har utfört en fallstudie på tre kommuner i Sverige där jag kvantitativt samt kvalitativt jämfört förfrågningsunderlag från tre typer av offentliga upphandlingar. Den kvantitativa undersökningen har utgått från Miljöstyrningsrådets och Vägverkets kriteriedokument som ger rekommendationer för hur miljökrav kan ställas vid offentliga upphandlingar.
Utifrån tidigare teorier om hur institutioner över tid formar normer och värderingar samt påverkar individers handlingar har jag utformat tre hypoteser där slutsatsen kunde dras att en av hypoteserna stämde. Jag kom fram till att oavsett om kommunen hade integrerat en aktiv miljöstrategi eller inte syns inga större skillnader i hur stora miljöhänsyn som tas vid offentliga upphandlingar.
Network management has become important in flood risk management in Sweden. Previous studies on flood risk management groups has shown variations in focus among the groups (see Olausson & Nyhlén, 2017; Petridou & Olausson, 2017; Hedelin, & Hjerpe, 2015). Some of the groups has a societal focus while others has a more technical approach which means that different actors are participating depending on focus of the group. More knowledge is needed to understand the implications this has on network cooperation and the networks capacity to meet expected increase in flooding and high flows because of climate change. The study aims at explaining the consequences of the different approaches on cooperation within the network and the multilevel coordination of flood risk management. The theoretical approach of the study depart from theories of policy networks with an emphasis on the interaction between public and private actors. (see Rhodes 1996, 1997; Sörensen & Torfing 2005, 2007; Enander et.al. 2015; Wimmelius & Engberg, 2015) Two case studies are conducted of two river groups, Indalsälven/Ljungan and Ljusnan. While Indalsälven/Ljungan has a societal approach, Ljusnan has a more technical approach.
Valsystemet har stora effekter De senaste årtiondena har präglats av stora politiska förändringar på många håll i världen. De nya demokratierna har aktualiserat debatten kring de politiska institutionernas roll i allmänhet och deras betydelse för demokratins konsolidering i synnerhet. I Effekter av valsystem. En studie av 80 stater (SNS Förlag) kartlägger författaren Carsten Anckar huvuddragen i valsystemen i den demokratiska världen genom att jämföra 80 olika stater. Den centrala frågan är vilken betydelse som olika valsystem har för tre centrala element i politiken: representationens proportionalitet, fragmentering av partisystemet samt regeringsstabilitet. Vid en första anblick verkar Sverige ha ett optimalt valsystem. Graden av representativitet är extremt hög. Partisystemet är tillräckligt fragmenterat för att garantera att de viktigaste åsiktsinriktningarna är representerade, men inte så fragmenterat att det frambringar täta regeringsskiften. Denna bild är emellertid en schimär. Undersökningen leder för Sveriges vidkommande till tre slutsatser: Sverige har en mycket låg grad av disproportionalitet beroende på utjämningsmandaten. Graden av fragmentering av partisystemet ligger nära medelvärdet för länder med proportionella valsystem. En ändring av rösttröskeln eller en radikal ändring av valkretsstorleken skulle troligtvis ändra partisystemets struktur. Graden av regeringsstabilitet är hög i Sverige.
Uppsatsens syfte är att söka förklara politiska våldet i Indien utrifrån tre perspektiv; territoriell odelbarhet, nationalism och fundamentalism. Avgränsningen är de etniska minoriteterna; assameser, bodo, kashmirer, muslimer, naga, sikher, tripura och ursprungsstammar. Åren som uppsatsen har fokus på är 1985-2000. Uppsatsen är en fallstudie av Indien där åtta olika etniska minoriteter är studieobjekt. Maryland Universitys MAR-databas, Uppsala universitets UCDP-databas samt South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP-databasen) fungerar som huvudsakliga källor.
Resultatet visar att den territoriella odelbarheten har stark förklaringskraft i de flesta av fallen (sju av åtta) i Indien. Nationalismen är en förklaring i vissa av studieobjekten medan fundamentalismen i endast i fåtal av fallen. För muslimernas del ger dessa perspektiv ingen förklaring för det politiska våldet.
The Swedish parliamentary election of 11 September 2022 led to the removal of a Social Democratic government and the installation of a right-of-centre coalition. The change was made possible by the mainstream right’s abandonment of the previous cordon sanitaire around the radical-right Sweden Democrats (SD). The new government, consisting of the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals, concluded a comprehensive agreement with SD. In this article, we sketch the background to the election; describe how the campaign unfolded; and interpret the results and outcome.
In the Swedish parliamentary election of 7 September 2018, the biggest parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderates, both lost votes compared to their scores in the previous election, but not as many as they had feared. Commensurately, the radical-right challenger party, the Sweden Democrats (SD), which had seemed certain to profit from Sweden's dramatic experience of the European migration crisis, did well, but not as well as it had hoped. The result left the array of parliamentary forces fragmented and finely balanced. Only after months of negotiations could a government be formed. Eventually, the incumbent coalition received a renewed parliamentary mandate. At the same time, the party system was transformed.
There are various reasons to expect Swedish parties to demonstrate a high degree of intra-party democracy. However, data collected by the Political Party Database Working Group suggests that Swedish parties do not actually outperform most other Western democracies in this respect. What is more, we know that Swedish party leaders are chosen in a way that observers in many other countries would regard as profoundly undemocratic. In this paper, we look more closely at this particular aspect of intra-party democracy in Sweden. We describe how the leader-selection process works, focusing on three recent instances. An important objective is to develop a set of fine-grained, qualitative indicators that can be used in cross-national, comparative studies of how parties delegate to their leaders and hold them accountable.
Political parties shape politics, and the most important person in a party is usually the leader. Party leaders make the political weather. Take a recent example from Britain. In 2015 the Labour Party, somewhat unexpectedly, lost a national election. Its leader resigned and a new one was needed. “Jeremy Corbyn is not going to win the Labour leadership election”, insisted one of the country’s shrewdest political commentators (Rentoul 2015). But Corbyn did win, and by a comfortable margin. Labour thus took a big stride to the left.
In this article, the aim is to enhance our understanding of who has power over leaderselection in political parties. To this end, we apply an analytical framework in which theselection process is divided into three phases: gatekeeping, preparation and decision.The focus is on determining the extent to which each of these phases is influential for theoutcome and thereby locating the distribution of intra‐party power. Underpinning theanalysis is the conviction that the comparison of leader selection is too limited if it reliessolely on information about formal procedures, including the composition of theselectorate. We should also take the preselection phase of leader selection into account.Empirically, we examine a sample of recent selection processes in Europeanparliamentary democracies. In contrast to previous research on intra‐party politics,which has suggested an ascendancy of the party in public office, our results suggest anenduring strength of the party on the ground and the party in the central office.
The question of how party leaders are selected has recently, and belatedly, come under systematic comparative scrutiny. If it is the location of intra-party power that interests us, however, it might be that some of the more observable indicators in such processes, such as the identity of the selectorate, are not actually the most revealing ones. Using a delegation perspective, we thus present a framework for analysing prior steps in leader selection and relate it to various ideal-typical constellations of intra-party power. The framework encompasses, first, what we call precursory delegation, with focus especially on an agent that, formally or informally, manages the selection process before it reaches the selectorate. Second, the framework takes account of the degree to which the process is managed rather than left open to free competition between leader candidates. We illustrate the framework primarily with instances of leader selection in two Swedish parties.
This book explores the varying ways in which political parties in Europe make arguably their most important decisions: the selection of their leaders. The choice shapes the representation of a party externally. It also influences the management of internal conflict, because there will always be some disagreement about the party’s direction. The rules of selection will naturally affect the outcome. Yet there is more to it than rules. Sometimes the process is open and fiercely contested. Sometimes the field of potential leaders is filtered even before the decision reaches the selectorate – the organ that, according to party statutes, formally makes the appointment. The selectorate might have only a single candidate to ratify, a so-called ‘coronation’. The book presents a framework for analysing both the formal and informal sides of leader selection, and hones the framework through its application in a series of case studies from nine European countries.
The Swedish Liberal Party chose a new leader in 2019. It was, in some ways, typical of leader selection in Sweden. It featured an elaborate, institutionalised and yet only semi-public form of “precursory delegation,” in which aspiring leaders are filtered by a “steering agent” on behalf of the party's main power centres. In other ways, though, the process was unusually conflictual and produced an unexpected result, which had considerable consequences for the party and for Swedish politics. Moreover, the selection involved the breakdown of a long-established procedure for leader selection in the party. We seek to explain this deviant case. We emphasise an unexpected cascade of decisions by regional party branches to hold membership ballots on the leadership candidates. This event, we argue, was critical for the outcome. We also suggest a causal mechanism, a shifting perception of procedural legitimacy, that facilitated the outcome—a mechanism that could be useful in understanding leader selection and moments of party change more generally.
The international trend towards more inclusive leader selection (Cross and Blais in Party Politics 18: 127–150, 2012) seems to have gone largely unnoticed by Swedish parties. At least on the surface, the process works as it has done for decades. Almost exclusively to Sweden, it centres on a valberedning, a selection committee. This committee is typically chosen by the formal selectorate of the party, the party congress. The job of the valberedning is to consider candidates and then to propose one of them as the new leader.
The parliamentary election of 14 September 2014 induced decidedly mixed feelings in the Swedish Green Party (Miljöpartiet de gröna). It led to the ejection of the centre-right government and the installation, for the first time, of Green cabinet ministers. However, the party also experienced a small but unexpected loss of votes compared to its score in the previous election. Moreover, partly because a far-right party built impressively on its breakthrough into the national parliament in 2010 the new government rests on a precariously narrow parliamentary base.
Under senare tid har fler och fler forskare betonat det sociala kapitalets betydelse för samhället. Men vilken betydelse har välfärden i denna aspekt? Det finns en stark koppling mellan trygghet och socialt kapital, vissa går så långt som att säga att trygghet är en fundamental faktor för att undvika sociala fällor. Men kan man då skapa socialt kapital genom välfärden? Detta skulle innebära att en generösare välfärd mer är en investering för samhället än en välgörenhet.
New political parties are an important source of change in the party systems of modern democracies, but these parties often struggle to gain and retain parliamentary representation. This article addresses the question of which of the parties that were successful in European Parliament elections also enter national parliaments, and why. FsQCA analysis show that a combination of experienced leadership, membership in a European Parliament political group and an electoral system without high barriers for new entrants explains most cases of parties that are successful in entering the parliament at the national level. It does not, however, explain why others are not successful, indicating that the causation is asymmetrical.