Mid Sweden University

This paper studies the introduction of an innovative way of organizing local politics, through a new system for management and governance system in the Swedish municipality Timrå. The study is focused on the process for producing budgets and operational plans. In contrast to the traditional representative model of democracy, the new system instead draws on deliberative notions of democracy. As the process includes politicians from all parties, together with representatives from the administration, it is an example of elite deliberation at the local level. The aim is to answer the question of whether this process lives up to the ideals of a deliberative and consensus-oriented model for decision making. Additionally, it addresses the relationship between elected officials and senior civil servants in a deliberative setting. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, combining documentation and data from observations of deliberative meetings with a survey of the participants. The results show a process that largely lives up to deliberative ideals such as openness and respect, as well as positions being justified in terms of the common good. Omnipresent economic constraints as well as the perception that participants had to some degree already made up their mind and were bound by partisan considerations lowers the potential for constructive solutions. The civil service played a dual role; rarely actively participating in the deliberative process while controlling the organisation and preconditions for it explicitly.

Das Kapitel bietet einen Überblick über das politische System Schwedens, einschließlich Verfassung, Parlament und Verwaltung. Die Autorinnen analysieren zentrale Politikfelder wie Wohlfahrt, Migration und Gleichstellung. Trotz des sicherheitspolitischen Wandels durch den NATO-Beitritt und der Erosion des Wohlfahrtsmodells bleibt das Land institutionell stabil und von starkem gesellschaftlichen sowie politischen Vertrauen geprägt.

This paper studies the introduction of an innovative way of organizing local politics, through a new system for management and governance system in a Swedish municipality. In contrast to the traditional representative model of democracy fueled by competition between parties and interests, the examined system instead draws on deliberative notions of democracy. Even though such features are far from unique for scholars of democracy, the studied case provides rare elements that seldom have been scrutinized in combination before. First, the deliberative aspects are far-reaching within the municipal organization as they include politicians, from both ruling coalitions and the opposition, together with the representatives from the administration. Second, the new system also goes against prevailing trends of increased polarisation between incumbents and opposition at the local level. With this backdrop, ambitions for a truly consensus-oriented system for management and governance appear as atypical and thereby worthy of scientific interest. 

In practice, we study the new process for producing budgets and operational plans for the municipality, using a mixed-methods approach. Documentation and data from observations of deliberative meetings between politicians and public officials are combined with a survey of the participants of the process, with the aim of gauging the extent to which the process lives up to deliberative ideals as well as any effects on the relationship between elected officials and senior civil servants.

The results show that although many preconditions for a deliberative process are present, and that there are signs of deliberation, the logic of representative democracy still overshadow the decision making, illustrating the difficulty in combining these two philosophies within a political system. Furthermore, the results illustrate the importance of the civil servants for maintaining such processes at the municipal level. Senior officials are responsible for the organization of the process and for the production of relevant information and drafts of the text, giving them several opportunities to influence the outcome. It is thus vital that they are perceived as competent and impartial by the other participants in the process. Although this case study departs from a single Swedish municipality, its conclusion of challenges with deliberative processes and the crucial role played by public officials may be valid for other contexts.

Projektet har undersökt demokratiska innovationer på kommunal nivå, med fokus på nya sätt att organisera, utveckla och förankra den lokala politiken. Undersökningen har riktats mot två fall, kommunerna Timrå respektive Örnsköldsvik som under tidsperioden arbetat med deliberativa processer för att stärka den lokala demokratin. Projektet har drivits av kommunerna i fråga i samverkan med den statsvetenskapliga miljön vid Mittuniversitetet.

Timrå kommun genomförde 2019 en reform av hela kommunens styr- och ledningssystem, med mål att komma bort från en allt för detaljerad ekonomistyrning och för istället etablera en verksamhetsstyrning med mål att skapa större värde för medborgare, företag och besökare. Föreliggande projektet har följt, analyserat och utvärderat detta arbetssätt. Örnsköldsviks kommun genomförde under 2021-2022 ett pilotprojekt med ett nytt sätt att engagera medborgarna mer direkt, det så kallade Tillsammanskontraktet, inom ramen för SKR-nätverket Utveckla lokala Samhällskontrakt. I projektet har denna process följts och analyserats.

Den ryska invasionen av Ukraina i februari 2022 har lyft upp utrikes- och säkerhetspolitik som ännu viktigare politiska frågor än tidigare. Den har även bidragittill att aktualisera frågor kring Sveriges relation till övriga Europa generellt och tillden Europeiska unionen (EU) specifikt. Sverige har varit medlem i EU i nästan tredecennier och under denna tidsperiod har opinionen gått från att vara högst deladifråga om EU-medlemskapet till att under senare år kunna beskrivas som mer EUpositiv. Syftet med detta kapitel är att undersöka om – och i så fall hur – den svenskaEU-opinionen har påverkats av kriget i Ukraina. I kapitlet analyserar vi förändringeni EU-opinionen baserat på data från de nationella SOM-undersökningarna 2021och 2022, det vill säga tiden innan och efter den ryska invasionen. Därtill kommervi även se närmare på åsiktsförändringar inom olika grupper, samt placera in densvenska EU-opinionen i en europeisk kontext och se hur förändringen i Sverige skiljersig från övriga medlemsländer.

Despite the continued electoral progress of the radical right, there are reasons to believe that its full electoral potential has yet to be revealed. Previous research suggests that it suffers from a stigmatisation effect and that many voters will find its proposals less compelling compared to if they were presented by a mainstream party even for policy issues they agree upon. This study employs a unique survey design, with two experiments conducted seven years apart, on a panel of Swedish voters. The aim is to evaluate whether proposals are assessed differently dependent on who the sender is and whether the effect diminishes as the cordon sanitaire of the party weakens. The results show that proposals are less liked if the sender is the radical right. This effect persists even after a weakening of the ostracisation of the radical right as well as for different types of political issues.

Identifying a crisis for representative democracy in Western European party systems, this essential book studies the widening gap between political parties’ ideological economic Left–Right rhetoric. Combining in-depth theoretical analysis with empirical research, it addresses whether political party ideologies are converging or diverging, and whether these changes are initiated by the parties themselves, aligned with voter demand, or forced by economic globalization.