Mittuniversitetet

This study takes its vantage point from the increasing decentralisation of welfare by examining the growing trend of welfare states implementing active labour market policies (ALMPs), with a focus on Sweden’s municipal autonomy. Local governments often maintain their own local labour market programmes (LLMPs) despite having no central requirement, yet efforts vary significantly. Research explaining these variations is limited, but this study uses a new dataset to explore the factors driving the scope of LLMPs. It tests whether needs-driven structural characteristics or partisan value motives influence municipal ambitions. However, the findings indicate that neither unemployment levels, education, social welfare needs nor political rule explain LLMP variations. Instead, municipal size, tax rates and organisational factors play a more critical role. These results challenge conventional assumptions, revealing that ALMPs are shaped more by structural and administrative conditions than by local needs or political ideology.

This thesis explores the risk regulation regime related to head injuries in Swedish ice hockey, primarily by utilizing a corpus linguistic methodology. More specifically, three empirical studies were conducted. The first one aimed to cover the media narrative regarding head trauma and its potential long-term effects on the game of ice hockey, including whether and how this has changed over time. The method used a corpus-assisted discourse study, based on the media coverage of concussions in ice hockey from the Swedish media archive. The second study aimed to map information from the Swedish ice hockey community regarding long-term effects on athletes’ health related to head trauma, including possible changes over time. For this study, activity reports from the Swedish ice hockey association were analyzed using traditional quantitative content analysis. The third empirical study aimed to map the contexts surrounding municipal political records that explicitly mention the game of ice hockey. This was achieved through collocation network analysis, where linguistic networks drawn from municipal political records relevant to sports and leisure activities were analyzed. 

The thesis aims to make a methodological contribution by applying corpus linguistics to a given risk regulation regime, as well as a theoretical contribution by adding to the studies of these types of regimes.

The results from the three empirical studies were analyzed using a theoretical framework, in which risk regulation regimes were the central analytical concept. Additionally, the concept of organizational legitimacy, as used in the general assumptions of neo-institutional theory, was used as a supporting framework. This was due to the nature of the risk, which could be assumed to be not only to lacking regulation, but even encouraged by public entities. 

The findings included increased coverage of the risk in Swedish media and an increased tendency to promote the positive societal effects of ice hockey among the ice hockey community. Additionally, the political contexts in which the game of ice hockey was mentioned were mostly related to economics. It was also found to be a crucial part of the general context of sports and other leisure activities for which the benefits are emphasized.  This was thoroughly analyzed by applying the theoretical framework and focusing on the dynamics of the risk regulation regime. The applied methodology, mainly corpus-based methods, was deemed as working satisfactorily in relation to the specific research problem as well as for studying risk regulation regimes in general. 

Experiments have long been recognized as effective tools in teaching natural sciences and, to a lesser degree, in social sciences. However, understanding the role of immersive simulation experiments in undergraduate degree programmes demands more scholarly attention, given the pace of technological advances and research literacy in immersive simulation. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the potential of integrating immersive simulation laboratory experiments in social science education and specifically in a risk and crisis management undergraduate degree programme. Based on the work of Claire Dunlop, we demonstrate how an experiment with a high degree of experimental realism was a fruitful vehicle for initiating conversations about sensitive subjects in a safe environment and made teaching more inclusive, while high mundane realism made teaching risk and crisis management fun, and, we argue, fostered practical aspects of risk and crisis management. 

Due to the progressing knowledge regarding long-term health effects of head trauma in certain contact sports, the question of regulation is likely to be raised. In the case of Sweden, sporting activities are still part of a large civic movement mainly financed through public resources. Explicitly justified through claims of health promotion as well as alleged effects on social capital, the Swedish state and its municipalities spend a substantial amount of public resources in support of sports organizations each year. With numbers of active athletes as well as spectator numbers and public resources spent considered, ice hockey is arguably one of the biggest sports in Sweden. The legitimacy given to the sport through public funding and explicit recognition regarding positive societal effects is likely to be increasingly questioned due to the increasing amount of head injuries happening in the game as well as the aforementioned knowledge on the long term risks of such injuries. With this problem in mind, this PhD-thesis aims to advance the knowledge on the risk regulation regime associated with Swedish ice hockey through three empirical studies. First, a corpus assisted discourse study of the media narrative related to the specific risk. Second, a quantitative content analysis of the information communicated by the Swedish ice hockey association. Third, a network analysis intended to map the organizations involved in the regulation regime and the dynamics between them.

Due to the progressing knowledge regarding long-term health effects of head trauma in certain contact sports, the question of regulation is likely to be raised. In the case of Sweden, sporting activities are still part of a large civic movement mainly financed through public resources. Explicitly justified through claims of health promotion as well as alleged effects on social capital, the Swedish state, and its municipalities spend a substantial amount of public resources in support of sports organizations each year. With numbers of active athletes as well as spectator numbers and public resources spent considered, ice hockey is arguably one of the biggest sports in Sweden. The legitimacy given to the sport through public funding and explicit recognition regarding positive societal effects is likely to be increasingly questioned due to the increasing amount of head injuries happening in the game as well as the aforementioned knowledge on the long term risks of such injuries. With this problem in mind, this PhD-thesis aims to advance the knowledge on the risk regulation regime associated with Swedish ice hockey through three empirical studies. First, a corpus-assisted discourse study of the media narrative related to the specific risk. Second, a quantitative content analysis of the information communicated by the Swedish ice hockey organization. Third, a network analysis intended to map the organizations involved in the regulatory regime and the dynamics between them.

Knowledge about disasters, emergencies, and other extreme situations is produced through outputs from research, lived experiences and social processes. The knowledge, however, is rarely analyzed from a philosophical point of view that is, the kind of knowledge being (re)produced and to what end is unproblematized. This is partly a methodological problem as extreme situations are often hard to study in real time because they are dangerous, uncertain, and complex. By finding new ways of studying extreme situations we can gain insight into new perspectives and produce novel kinds of knowledge.