Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar Förvaltningshögskolan

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Hållbarhetens mänskliga byggstenar - om betydelsen av engagerade tjänstemän i det lokala miljömålsarbetet
(2009-05-20T14:44:36Z) Bartholdsson, Kerstin
Abstract This thesis focuses on the municipal civil servant’s role in local environmental work. The overall purpose is to increase knowledge about personal involvement in the role of the civil servant and indeed to contribute to existing theory on the significance of enthusiastic persons in carrying out political decisions. The thesis is based on three different sub-studies of the role of the civil servant in local environmental work. The first sub-study is a mapping of municipal environmental management officers. It was found that the majority of these officers are an environmentally aware elite, over 60 per cent are or have been members of environmental organizations. Within this group it was possible to discern three different shades: the gray-green, the light green and the clear green. Sub-study II investigates the actual work with the environmental objectives in six municipalities. The results show that involvement resides in the person. The enthusiastic person, the fiery spirit, is a recurrent theme throughout the interviews and is considered necessary throughout the process. Sub-study III is an intensified study of the results of the two previous sub-studies and indicates that enthusiastic people are important. The enthusiastic person or the fiery spirit is aware that there are risks; they call attention to the importance of balance and of being diplomatic. On the basis of the empirical material presented in this thesis, I am able to add new knowledge and contribute to the development of theory. My contribution can be summarized in two points: • development of the role of civil servant • effects of steering by objectives On the basis of the interviews with the fiery spirits I created two new ideal types: the enthusiastic bureaucrat, who is a person who can take issue and be brave, who does not always show evidence of pragmatic solutions but has a strong feeling for a community governed by law, and the networking balancing act artist, who is a problem-solver that joins the ranks of the new social movements. Management by objectives has given civil servants greater room for action, which widens the space for personal enthusiasm. Management by objectives in public activities does not need to mean that the decision-maker and the executor of policy stand on the same level in a multi-level-democratic system but that there is agreement over goals between decision-makers and executors.
Kommunala satsningar av betydelse – en fråga om identitet, förnuft och tillfälligheter
(2010-11-25) Brorström, Sara
Everywhere we go we encounter buildings and events initiated by local governments, projects which have motives of making the city stand out from the competition and be placed ‘on the map’ in order to create identity and growth. Proponents argue that this type of project ends up attracting visitors, new inhabitants and businesses. But what makes the municipality stand out in contrast to others, is difficult to determine in advance and the concepts of identity and growth are, as motives, vague and broad. The projects are also discussed and criticised because they are risky and their effects are uncertain. Even so, they are carried through. How could this be, and why? But even though there are problems in deciding what the projects lead to, they lead to something - if nothing else they create opinions, which leads to action. Three projects were studied from ideas to establishments and three fundamental questions, why, how and what, framed this study of identity projects. The study has a ‘sense making’ perspective, based on Karl Weicks theories where sense is created retrospectively. The study therefore also has the actors' perceptions in focus and interviews were carried out in three municipalities using forty-one interviews with respondents who, in different forms, had been important in establishing the projects. The results indicate that the projects take place because they grow over time and have the ability to alter motive after where in the process they are. The projects are formed over a long period even if they, once they are established, are described as news. The projects are flexible due to the vague motives and they might not answer to the initial idea. The process is described in seven phases, in one of them an opportunity arises and visionary ideas are here translated into concrete projects. In the next phase the projects are locked in and cannot be withdrawn - but they can still change. The study showed that the projects lead to more projects, because they alter the municipality and then new problems arise. The projects will also sooner or later be considered as good, or at least they will be accepted, and the projects will find an aim to fulfil. In addition, the projects lives on and because they change and evolve during time there is no ‘after the projects’ to consider.
Mental health policy and the welfare state. A study on how Sweden, France and England have addressed a target group at the margins
(2010-12-20) Melke, Anna
Se spikblad
Lokal policydesign. Om hur kommuner skapar policy som klargör ansvarsrelationen mellan kommunen och kommunmedborgarna i krissituationer
(2011-04-15) Ivarsson, Andreas
In Sweden, the policy concerning the public responsibility for the citizens’ welfare and protection during crisis is somewhat ambiguous. Therefore, this responsibility will reveal itself in practice during an actual crisis. Much of the crisis management is delegated to the municipal level and therefore the determination of this responsibility will take place at the municipal level. The determination of such responsibility by municipal actors can be viewed as ad hoc interpretations of the general crisis management policies, as well as other policies. However, a preliminary assumption is made that this kind of interpretations, during the actual implementation of policy in a crisis, in fact might be policy making. The interpretations made during a crisis might be established and function as a local policy guiding municipal decision making in the future. The policy design and social construction theory developed by Schneider and Ingram was chosen as a preliminary theoretical framework in the study. The aim of the study is to develop knowledge on how policy is made during implementation. By empirically examining if local policy is made by the municipalities, how it is made, and the factors that affect the policy making process, such knowledge can be developed. This knowledge can in return be used for developing the policy design and social construction theory since the theory has not thoroughly been applied to policy making during implementation. Three municipalities, two hit by hurricanes and one flooded, were chosen as empirical cases. The conclusion of the study is that policy design is developed in the empirical cases. Further the policy process involves the social construction of target populations, as predicted by the theory, even if other types of social constructions are more relevant in some cases. However, to fully grasp the policy making processes in the cases it is concluded that the policy design and social construction theory are not sufficient. The model of policy making in the theory is too simple. The function of social constructions of target populations is not the same in the empirical cases as in the theory. The concept of occasions for policy making and the concept of incompatibility are introduced to clarify the function of the social constructions of target populations in the empirical cases. The policy making is described as policy making practices for dealing with incompatibility, rather than strategic and goal-based policy making as predicted by the theory. A number of contextual factors affecting the policy making process and type of policy design developed was identified such as the specific decision dilemma, external demands and established social constructions in the municipal organizations. A proposal is made to use the concepts of occasions for policy making and different types of occasions like incompatibility, to empirically ground the future studies of policy making during implementation, even though these studies can be based in the policy design and social construction theory.
Från idé till politisk verklighet. Föräldrapolitiken i Sverige och Danmark
(2011-09-29) Cedstrand, Sofie
The empirical aim of this thesis is to explain why Sweden and Denmark since 1974 has been pursuing divergent parental leave politics. When Sweden in 1974 replaced its maternity leave with a gender neutral parental leave it became the first country in the world to include fathers in this type of institution. In the thesis this change is seen as an example of institutional change, or a path break. On the contrary, path dependency has been prevailing in Denmark with refusals of proposals to include fathers in the existing maternity leave. Therefore, the thesis also aims to answer the question why a path break became a reality in Sweden but not in Denmark. Lately in historic institutionalism ideas have been identified as a necessary, but not sufficient, factor for the ability to explain institutional change and for understanding path dependency. In the light of this, the theoretical aim of the thesis is to contribute with knowledge about the role of ideas in institutional development. The thesis shows that the key explanation for both the diverging political outcome and for the understanding of how ideas can contribute to institutional change lies in the interaction of several factors in which ideas and actors are directly relevant to nstitutional change, while power resources and institutions rather is of indirect importance. The concept of (re)interpretation is introduced in the thesis. Institutional change is made possible through active idea-carriers (re)interpreting an idea in a way that makes it acceptable for a sufficient majority. The ability to make a successful (re)interpretation is in turn dependent of which actors embracing the idea and the power resources of these actors given their institutional positions. The institutional arrangements together with powerful passive idea carriers made it possible for Swedish active idea carriers to (re)interpret the new idea of what is negative with traditional gender roles into a question of gender neutrality. A (re) interpretation which demolished the already institutionalised idea about female specificity and which created political consensus. Danish active carriers of the idea of what is negative with traditional gender roles were incapable of creating such a (re)interpretation. Instead the principle guiding the Danish active idea carriers was that the insurance first and foremost should protect women. The fact that the two countries are still pursuing divergent politics depends largely on the strength of these institutionalised ideas: gender neutrality which since 1974 has been guiding Swedish politics and female specificity which since the early 1900s has been guiding in Denmark. Consequently both the Swedish and Danish development is characterized by path dependence and accordingly the thesis confirms previous research that points out the power of institutionalised ideas. In contrast to earlier claims the thesis also demonstrates that Swedish women were the driving force behind the parental leave. However, the women did not have the power resources to create change on their own. They had to rely on the most powerful actors — men.
Representativ byråkrati. En studie om ledande kommunala minoritetsadministratörers företrädarskap
(2011-12-20) Tahvilzadeh, Nazem
The theory of representative bureaucracy suggests that the presence of underprivileged social groups, such as women and ethnic minorities, within the public workforce will lead to a more responsive political process, reflecting a wider range of interests. This theory posits that the social background of the individual public administrator affects their values and policy-preferences. Because administrative discretion enables public administrators to influence policy-making and implementation processes, these values are considered to have an impact on the decisions being made in politics. In order to expand the understanding of the importance of representation within the public administration, the aim of this study is to focus a national context and a type of administration rarely studied in the field of representative bureaucracy: top-level local government minority administrators in Sweden. The research questions are whether and how ethnic minority administrators in top-level positions in Swedish local government advocate the interests of minority groups. By analyzing the activities of twelve local government administrators in executive and expert positions, the study also aims to examine the circumstances in which minority administrators have the intentions and the discretion to advocate minority groups. The results reveal that the minority administrators are, under given circum-stances, prone to advocate the interests of minority groups through seven practices of advocacy and a symbolic representation. Evolving prior theories, the results advance specific factors at individual, organizational and societal level that activate or de-activate advocacy. Advocacy is contingent upon the individual projects of the minority administrators, their position and power resources, the politicization of the multi-ethnic issues, support-structures and ethnic conflicts in the locality. The results further show that advocacy is contingent upon the racialized construction of “immigrants” and “swedishness” in the informal institutions of the municipal organization. Evolving understanding of the theory of representative bureaucracy, this study provides empirical support of its relevance for European democracies and further indicates the importance of diversity within public administration.
Auditing the African State. International Standards and Local Adjustments
(2012-01-09) Gustavson, Maria
Norms for how to create accountability within the public sector have long historic roots in organizing the democratic society, where auditors are particular public servants controlling the rest of the public sector performance. Significant divergent understandings of the establishment and development of such accountability mechanisms within states in Sub-Saharan African countries however exists within two different bodies of literature. Due to negative historic experiences and failures of public administration reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa, several scholars within the development literature argue for the necessity of developing unique administrative structures that encompass the specific character of their societies. Due to lack of legitimacy and due to significant differences between Western countries and Sub-Saharan Africa, Western models are regarded to not be appropriate in these contexts. In contrast, in a strand of the organization literature, scholars claim that an observed behavior among organizations is their desire to become legitimate within their field of similar organizations, which in turn leads to homogenization among organizations, in structure and in practice, regardless of the geographical location. The thesis presents a study of the public audit arenas in Sub-Saharan Africa and of the Supreme Audit Institutions in Namibia and Botswana, where the above presented theories are tested. The results reveal a strong professional identity among African auditors, where they constantly reform their organizations to better encompass the requirements in the internationally described norms for auditing. Local circumstances were regarded by the auditors in general as obstacles, which they strived to overcome in order to achieve more legitimacy within their organizational field. The results of the study contrasts to much in the contemporary development literature describing African public sector organizations, and provides new insights on how to understand public sector reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Anteciperande förvaltning: tjänstemäns makt i kommunala policyprocesser om vindkraft
(2012-03-29) Bengtsson, Mats
De granskade. Om hur offentliga verksamheter görs granskningsbara
(2012-10-09) Ek, Emma
During recent decades audits have taken on a more prominent role in governance, in Sweden and in the Western world as a whole. Audit is used in this context as an umbrella designation for control methods such as inspection, auditing, evaluation, accreditation and certification. What these control methods have in common is that they entail external, (presumably) independent authorities or companies inspecting and assessing various phenomena. A number of auditing bodies scrutinise and provide assessments, and in so doing govern organisations at a distance. This dissertation is about audit in the making. It describes what takes place when operations are made the object of auditing and what happens in organisations while being audited. The question that is answered is: how is auditability achieved? In distinction from many other studies on audits, the auditees have a prominent position in answering this question. The auditing that is at the centre of the study is state inspection within schools and elderly care. In the dissertation episodes and events in the realisation of these audits are described. The analysis is based on ethnographically inspired fieldwork. Building on Miller and Rose’s perspective on governmentality, the study has as its starting-point the technologies and the varying contexts in which these are manifested: in reports, on websites, in everyday routines and meetings between the auditors and the auditees etc. The study shows that being the subject of audit requires extensive work. Auditability is achieved through a large portion of predictability where each step in the process is acknowledged. This predictability entails much more than providing advance notification of audits. It is a way of organising and executing the audit, where the auditees are not just a part of the object being audited, but also the extended arm of the audit authority. They supply the representations that the audit authority needs in order to describe and assess the operation. In achieving auditability the auditees do more than deliver information about the organisation. Auditability also entails making the audit meaningful and useful (it is for our benefit). This is done mainly by (re)interpreting the auditing as an educational opportunity which also normalises the process (it is nothing to be afraid of). Technically auditability is a question of how the object being audited and the benchmarks used are made comparable. The study shows that auditability is achieved through the construction of an object that is defined on the basis of benchmarks and is consequently comparable. In the audit studied there is no formalised report that can be e-mailed to the audit authority, printed out, submitted or put in an envelope. Rather, describing and defining the operation is an important aspect of auditing. The description is undertaken for a specific purpose, namely to act as underlying data for the assessment. It is therefore not surprising that the object and the benchmark are comparable, as the object is defined precisely for this purpose. What the study contributes to previous research is, firstly, bringing the auditees into the debate on how auditability is created. The study also contributes to a less static picture of how organisations are made receptive to auditing: that receptibility entails much more than installing systems that continuously supply the information about the organisation that the auditors need. The study also contributes to problematise the division into auditors and audited by showing that the boundaries are by no means always clear-cut. Finally the study shows that how auditability is achieved partially explains what is being auditable.
Företagare eller politiker?
(2016-04-14) Svärd, Oskar
Today municipally owned companies are an established part of the Swedish local organisation. Municipally owned companies are situated in the boundary between the public and private sectors and that leads us to ask what effect this has on the work of their boards. It is not just the operations that is converted into a company, but also the political representation. Company boards are no ordinary political committees and do not act solely according to the public sector's legislation and logic. The work of company boards is regulated by the Swedish Companies Act and is linked to the market as the municipally owned companies are precisely companies which conduct their operations via the market. This provoke the question: what functions do these boards have, and on which grounds do they perform these functions? The first result in the study are that politicians don't usually act as either politicians or businesspeople when sitting on boards. They are neither loyal to their parties nor to the owners, but rather they develop an institutional logic where they instead identify with the company itself. However, certain members do still act as politicians when sitting on boards. The second result is that boards in municipally owned companies perform three important functions: they control the operation, they link the company to important stakeholders and they provide political advice to the CEO. That they perform these functions, but not others, is due both to the fact that they have unique knowledge about political processes, and contacts with important stakeholders. The study simultaneously reveals that these conditions are not sufficient for us to understand what the members do and why they do it. We also need to bring the members' institutional logic into the analysis. To enable the boards to control the operation, constitute a link to stakeholders and provide advice the board also need to consider it appropriate to perform these functions.
Organisering av standarder, certifiering och ackreditering som en global styrregim
(2016-09-26) Gustafsson, Ingrid
En studie över hur standarder, certifiering och ackreditering används som verktyg för att styra organisationer och hur dessa verktyg skapar en global styrregim där alla är styrda men ingen styr alla.
Locked-in collaboration
(2016-12-05) Andersson, Johanna
Collaboration, employed in defining a problem, finding a solution, and implementing it, has been proposed as a solution to a range of problems framed as wicked or complex. Collaboration can be justified based on instrumental, normative, and value-based reasoning. All approaches start in what collaboration is not: it is not demarcated, silo-based organization, but instead endeavours to achieve comprehensive and holistic perspectives and measures of service delivery. This has resulted in a great deal of research taking a normative and evaluative ap- proach to collaboration. In contrast, this thesis contributes to the growing critical stream of collaboration research. The overall aim of the thesis is to explain how collaboration has come to be a taken-for-granted solution and the possible consequences of this. The material was generated through a study of legally regulated inter- organizational collaboration (referred to by the acronym “FINSAM”) in the Swedish public sector implemented through local coordination associations. The coordination associations implement regulated collaboration between the Swe- dish National Employment Agency, the National Social Insurance Office, county councils, and municipal councils. Each local coordination association has a joint board and a pooled budget, which is to be used to finance measures targeting individuals in need of coordinated rehabilitation. The study was conducted through fieldwork in two local coordination associations, as well as in confer- ences and seminars addressing FINSAM in general. The findings indicate that collaboration in local coordination associations is organized in a project-like way alongside ordinary organizational practice. Two different approaches to organization were identified: the coordination association as either an actor or an arena. Depending on approach the coordination association will be more or less demarcated from ordinary organizational practice. De- marcation is strengthened through the construction of accountability. When local coordination associations are held accountable they are treated as hierarchical organizations with only vertical, but no horizontal, responsibilities. Horizontal practice and outcome are downplayed when accountability is constructed. The findings also indicate that the values attributed to this collaboration, together with its ordering narratives and its impact on legitimacy, create a dynamic result- ing in reduced need and latitude to problematize collaboration, which is taken for granted as the solution. This perceived decreased need for problematizing is connected to the pooled budget and the way the collaboration is understood: as something unique and better suited to handling the identified problems. The conclusion is that collaboration has become locked in within project-like organizations and organizing, and locked in as a solution through the rationalized myth of collaboration. The law governing FINSAM and specially allocated reources in pooled budgets strengthens this lock-in.
Cross-Sector Strategists. Dedicated Bureaucrats in Local Government Administration
(2017-11-29) Svensson, Petra
It is argued that political-administrative organizations are becoming increasingly complex with more horizontal governance required. In Swedish municipal administration, there is a group of administrators assigned the task of monitoring and promoting strategic topics that should be integrated horizontally within the organization. Examples of strategic topics are sustainability, safety/security, diversity, children/youth, public health, human rights, and gender equality. In the thesis, these administrators are called cross-sector strategists. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how cross-sector strategists become a part of the political-administrative organization when representing, enacting, and reflecting on values in the undertaking of their formal posts. They are situated between the tradition of vertical governance, with formal procedures and hierarchy as its foundation, and the tradition of horizontal governance, with informal networks and deliberation as its foundation. Previous research has shown that this is likely to give rise to value conflicts, and the question is if cross-sector strategists experience value conflicts, and if so, how they cope with them. The cross-sector strategists are studied in this thesis from the perspective of situated agency – focusing on both the contextual expectations of the cross-sector strategists and on their internal reflections to solve value conflicts – in order to explore their process of becoming a part of the local government administration. A mixed-methods design is applied, containing analysis of job advertisements for cross-sector strategists, public managers, and social workers; in-depth interviews with cross-sector strategists; and a survey of professional networks for cross-sector strategists. The results show that cross-sector strategists are subjects to ambivalent and often-contradictory contextual expectations. Cross-sector strategists use the ambivalence of their work for their strategic purposes, and such ambivalence allows them to reframe their topics, their methods, their arguments, and their identity according to current situation in order to increase the impact of their assigned topics and diminish the inner conflict of wanting to be both a responsive bureaucrat and an active lobbyist. Combining these two dedications requires them to be highly reflexive and flexible actors. The outcome of cross-sector strategists’ coping with value conflicts can be interpreted in two ways: 1) as if the cross-sector strategists are a formal tool to safeguard crucial democratic and ethical values due to the cross-sector strategists’ method of sneaking the strategic policy areas into the organization. Or 2) as a to democracy risky administrative behavior in the long-term due to the disguising of value conflicts and diminished possibilities to process these value conflicts.
(R)evolutionära idéer: Förändring i svensk sjukförsäkringspolitik 1995-2015
(2018-12-12) Börjesson, Angelica
Since the post-war period, the Swedish welfare state has largely been based on the principles of emancipation and economic security for individuals. Some refer to this as the idea of progressive individualism. However, major changes in the Swedish sickness benefit system came about in the noughties. Reforms were implemented that weakened the ‘loss of income’-principle, which meant that a large proportion of the population lost their right to economic compensation. The sickness benefit system changed from being a sort of social insurance system to more of an adjustment insurance system. Formerly based on the idea of progressive individualism – where the state should liberate the citizens from the market – the system came to rely on the idea of morality paternalism with a new paradoxical purpose: the state should save the citizens from the state. This change did not occur as a result of a new political regime and the implementation of the change was not characterized by compromises or conflicts. The initial proposals were introduced by the Social Democratic government but most of the reforms were brought into effect by the center-right government in 2007. How then did this retrenchment policy in the Swedish sickness benefit system come about? In this study a theoretical argument is put forth on how to understand and conceptualize how social policy can be changed from within and occur without any critical junctures. The study will illustrate how gradual but profound institutional change of the Swedish sickness benefit system occurs through an ideational evolutionary process. The book especially calls our attention to the manner in which previously dominant ideas are never entirely supplanted by newer ideas that gain traction. Indeed, it demonstrates that previous ideas play a considerable role in the process of limiting the scope of new ideas that may be candidates for adoption and in the process of social policy change. Ideas consist of different components in the form of norms and values, linked through events, concepts and information. This means that ideas may rely on their own contradictions as the world around them changes and has to be dealt with. However, when ideas end up contradicting, this does not always create a lacuna ready to be replenished with new “fresh” ideas, as is often stated in previous research. Instead, this study show that it is the very complexity, ambiguity and composite nature of ideas that enable them to lead directly to the next idea. Norms and values that previously had lower priority, or were taken for granted, are reactivated and repeated. Therefore, ideational change can come about without the occurrence of a major crisis and without political regime changes or major structural transformations. On the contrary, change can be triggered by what seems to be rather minor events. At the same time the study also highlights how social policy institutions are primarily building on normative rather than distributional tensions. In the studied case, the state institutionalizes an idea of quid pro quo: material benefits should be offered in exchange for moral behaviour and the obedience of common norms. Therefore, to understand how and why social policy change we need to investigate the ideas that have been institutionalized in earlier phases, and how such ideas create norms and moral expectations which, in a higher degree than interests and structural factors, are the guiding forces in creating new social policy.
Political conflicts - Dissent and antagonism among political parties in local government
(2019-01-09) Skoog, Louise
Political conflicts arise out of, or are at least nourished by, divisions and tensions in society over how resources are distributed between citizens and social groups. In the parliamentary arena, these conflicts are manifested by political parties representing the interests of their voters. However, even though we may agree that political conflicts are essential for politics and democratic systems, there is no consensus on what political conflicts are, what causes conflict and what their effects are. This thesis develops a theoretical framework for political conflicts that is productive in relation to studying causes and effects of political conflicts in local governments. A multi-method approach is applied in the studies. The first three papers and a literature review that is included in the introductory text focus on causes of political conflicts. The literature review, as well as the first paper, centres on structural and organisa-tional explanations. The literature review focuses on the research question: How did Swedish local governments develop into party politicised forms of government, with the first paper dealing with the research question: What are the causes of political conflicts identified by earlier scholars and what effects do they have on local politics? The second paper focuses solely on organisational explanations and examines the research question: How does the organisation of political systems affect how and where political conflicts are expressed? The third paper uses explanations at the individual level and deals with the research question: How do ideology, partisanship and trust affect how political conflicts are perceived? The fourth and final paper focuses on the effects of conflicts and answers the research question: To what extent does party political conflicts affect the influence of political leaders? The findings show that there are at least two forms of political conflict of relevance for parliamentary arenas – political dissent and antagonistic behaviour – and that it is important to distinguish between them. They have different characteristics, are caused by different factors and produce different effects. Manifestations of political dissent clarify differences between political actors and are thus of great importance to a democratic system. However, an overinflated amount of antagonistic and disrespectful behaviour, on the other hand, will create a problematic political working environment. When antagonism turns ugly, democratic institutions and the actors working within them may lose their legitimacy.
Jämställdhetspolitik och styrformens betydelse. Europeiska socialfonden i svensk och spansk förvaltning
(2019-02-06) Carlsson, Vanja
The EU´s regional policy is one of the world's largest in terms of budget size and geographical range. The regional policy promotes project activities across Europe funded by structural funds, of which the European Social Fund (ESF) is one. Its goal is to increase employment, competitiveness and growth, as well as gender equality. Throughout the history of the EU, there has been a tension between formulation of gender equality policy and economic and social issues. However, scholars make the case that the Commission approaches ESF gender equality from a neoliberal perspective. The ESF’s gender equality policy is implemented through administrative processes in national and regional public administration. While public administration plays a central role, scholars know less about how these processes are being played out in practice, and what their significance is for defining a gender perspective in the member states. Variations in member states’ implementation have not been extensively studied. Drawing on the debate of the last decades on changes in public sector governance, and a conceptualisation of ideological processes in implementation, this dissertation analyses differences in implementation of the ESF’s gender equality policy in Sweden and Spain. A network-oriented model was applied in Sweden, whereas in Spain a hierarchical/bureaucratic model was applied. The empirical material is based on interviews and policy documents at EU-level as well as at national and regional level. Through analysis of the relationship between governing and substantive interpretations of political objectives, the purpose of this dissertation is to analyse whether organisational and working practices in Sweden and Spain reinforced or challenged the EU's interpretation and implementation of gender equality. The theoretical research questions are I. Under what conditions do forms of governance reproduce or change substantive interpretations of policy objectives? II. Under what conditions do substantive interpretations of policy objectives affect forms of governance? I argue that there are mechanisms inherent in administrative processes which have ideological consequences, i.e. which affect local interpretations and set limits for discretion in multilevel governance. Unlike previous feminist studies of bureaucracy, I argue that, in comparison with the network model, the bureaucratic model is beneficial for potential policy change in relation to issues of informal power structures, gender equality for example. The paper will also contribute to a discussion on ideological consequences of gender equality policies when private actors are involved in the implementation process, as in the network-oriented model. The results also highlight the need to distinguish between organisational forms and management techniques when operationalising the concept of governing. Such a distinction contributes to a nuanced discussion of the consequences of governance. One conclusion is that, as an organisational form, the network tends to be dominated by bureaucratic management techniques in cases where there is no substantive definition of policy.
När idéer får liv - Om intraprenader i tre kommuner
(2019-04-04) Carlsson, Julia
In the early 2000s an idea regarding how to organise the Swedish public sector, called internal contracts, attracted attention from many different public authorities in Sweden. Organising in the form of internal contracts means that units within a public authority are given more autonomy to run their own affairs. A distinct feature of the internal contracts model is that it is said to combine characteristics from both public and private organisations, combining the best of both worlds. However, the popularity of internal contracts was short-lived, and just a few years later it seemed to be out of fashion. A few municipalities, however, constitute examples of where internal contracts were subscribed to and supported for a longer period of time. These municipalities showed that theories relating to fashions for ideas, and what causes fluctuations in fashions, are not sufficient to explain variations in the lifecycles of ideas. There are variations in the life cycles of fashionable ideas, with some seeming to disappear as soon as they arise while others remain influential over a longer period of time. Why is this? The popularity and use of ideas is not only the result of gaining legitimacy in an institutional environment, as has long been suggested, but also the result of individual interpretations of ideas, in the context in which they are introduced. Ideas are changed and modified, or translated, as they travel in and between organisations. In turn, translations affect the ways in which ideas are perceived and whether or not they are considered legitimate and supported by the people who receive them. The fate of ideas thus lies in the hands of people, each of whom may accept, modify or deflect them, as well as add to them or let them drop. The study suggests a model for how the life-cycle of ideas can be understood based on how, by whom, when and where they are translated. It illustrates how (1) the receiver of ideas, (2) the carrier of the ideas and (3) characteristics assigned to ideas affect translations and thereby, whether their life-cycles are to become short or long. The study also highlights the fact that ideas are often revivals of earlier ideas rather than new ones, suggesting that ideas seldom die, but are instead given more or less attention in different times and spaces. In addition, in studying the process, not just the ups and downs in popularity, the study shows that what makes ideas come to life, and stay alive, is the result of continuous work. People need to be convinced on a continuous basis that ideas are attractive. Finally, the study contributes to further understanding institutionalisation. What affects translation also affects whether actions are repeated, and over time become taken for granted in an organisation.
New Public Professional Organisationalism Towards new professional, managerial and cliental roles as exemplified in Swedish schools
(2021-08-26) Eklund, Sanna
This thesis aims to deepen our understanding of public professional organisationalism. Whereas new professionalism is an established concept used to describe changes in the roles of professionals, there is a lack of studies on organisationalism that include the roles of managers and clients. In this thesis, it is argued that new roles for professionals in the studied organisations are accompanied by new roles for managers and clients. To capture this ‘newness’, insights from this thesis are abstracted into the ideal type of New Public Professional Organisationalism (NPPO), which consists of seven components: the interconnectedness of domains, hybridisation of logics, de-hybridisation of tasks, dispersed autonomy, distributed control, co-constructiveness and interrelational trust. NPPO serves as a contrast to how relations between professions, managers and clients are often portrayed in the literature by emphasising harmony rather than conflict between actors. Empirically, this thesis focuses on school organisations in Sweden where first teachers have been introduced. This, it is argued, has led to elite positions for some teachers, which has created a hierarchy in the profession where first teachers are involved in more domains and engaged in managerial work to a larger extent. In this thesis, such stratification is considered to have intensified a movement where professional, cliental and managerial roles are evolving. The thesis is part of a larger research project studying the “first teacher reform” and consists of a compilation of the introductory chapter and four published papers. The first paper addresses how the introduction of elites affects the division of labour. The second paper centres on how first teachers inhabit their new role and highlights their agency in shaping this role in relation to their managers and colleagues. The third paper elaborates on various first teacher types and outlines how these affect the teaching profession from a wider perspective. The fourth paper investigates the role of first teachers in strengthening professional control vis-à-vis clients. Since first teachers are connected to different domains within their organisations, the relationships between professionals, managers and clients can be illuminated by focusing on this group. Based on the findings of the aforementioned papers this thesis concludes that professional, managerial and cliental roles generally became more intertwined, which is an observation that has not been coherently captured in the existing literature and motivates the creation of NPPO. The thesis uses a qualitative approach and is based on in-depth studies of seven different schools in three municipalities in Sweden. The research techniques used include interviews, observations and shadowing.
The Profit of Prevention. A study of Social Investments in a Swedish Region
(2022-03-08) Lagström, Cristian
This thesis aims to deepen the understanding of the use and implications of accounting technologies in the governing of public services. It explores social investments, a proliferating public sector management technology based broadly on the idea to govern long-term public goals “by numbers”. The core of social investments is to calculate the socio- economic profitability of preventative measures. As such, it reflects the complexities and capacities of governing towards long-term goals in a changing public landscape. Building on a view of accounting and economic ideas as mutually constitutive, the thesis focuses the processes and practices of rendering social investments operable in practice. The research question which guides the study is: How is social investments realized in an organizational setting? The study is carried out in a Swedish region. Guided by Actor Network Theory (ANT) and its constructivist approach to study things in the making, the study follows the actions and actors by which social investments is created as a management technology. Field material consists of interviews, observations and documents and was generated between 2014 and 2018. The findings of the study are presented in four papers. The first paper takes the long-term thinking associated with the social investment perspective as its empirical focus. The second paper focuses the role of calculative practices in a changing public landscape and analyses the process by which social investments was introduced as a means of handling the wickedness of social problems, and turned into practice. The third paper engages with the concepts of hybridity and hybridization arguing for a deeper understanding of the constitutive role accounting play in the formation of hybrid settings. In particular the paper suggests acknowledging processes of de-hybridization. The fourth paper develops further the theorization of hybridity and introduces the concept of multiple translation points in order to understand how social investments was translated differently across different nodes of the actor-network. Based on the findings of the papers this thesis concludes that social investments went through multiple transformations in order to be rendered operable in an organizational setting. Calculations of long-term impact came to play a marginal role, still an inter-organizational space for dialogue about the profit of prevention was created.
Translating grand challenges into municipal organizing: Prevention of terrorism, extremism, and radicalization in Scandinavia
(2022-04-25) Andersson Malmros, Robin
This thesis investigates why and how municipalities organize to address grand challenges. Previous research shows that municipalities have increased their policymaking and organizing in relation to grand challenges, often without any national regulations forcing them to do so. The rationales, processes, and mechanisms underpinning this type of municipal voluntarism are understudied. The research is based on the case of Scandinavian municipalities and their efforts to prevent terrorism, extremism, and radicalization (TER). From playing a miniscule role in Scandinavian counter-terrorism policies until the 2010s, municipal employees such as teachers, social workers, and youth workers have in current practice become the backbone of the fight against TER. Municipalities generally have little or no strategic or practical experience of preventing TER, resulting in extensive uncertainty and ambiguity as to how to organize the relevant efforts. In this thesis, the process leading from grand challenge to municipal organizing is framed as a translation process. The analysis uses concepts from sociological institutional theory and social movement studies, and is informed by data from newspaper articles, municipal policies, interviews, and observations. The findings are presented in four papers. This thesis shows how the decentralization of a grand challenge from being an international or national to a municipal responsibility is a multi-layered, highly discursive translation process that is dependent on reframing a challenge as a local one. Regarding TER, the local frame was based on a new institutional vocabulary, triggered and legitimized by critical events, which elite actors used to localize the grand challenge. Once localized, institutional pressure was exerted on municipalities to organize preventive efforts. While institutional pressure caused rapid organizational activity, it also led to the ambiguous translation and editing of concepts and preventive approaches with unintended, paradoxical, and problematic consequences. Many of the observed organizing activities centered on rhetorical efforts to legitimize the challenge and its associated concepts and practices. This was a consequence of the grand challenge being contested locally, since it introduced a new institutional logic that conflicted with those dominating the local institutional context.

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