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This paper will examine whether Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has the potential to be a useful tool for empirical socio-legal research. ANT was developed in Science and Technology Studies; however, its interest in understanding the relations between heterogeneous entities - paying attention to the role non-humans and technology play in society and focusing on the relations and interactions between actors - has wider applications, and it has been suggested that ANT may be used constructively in Socio-Legal Studies (Cloatre, 2008, Cowan and Carr, 2008). Here ANT will be deployed in a study of the evolution of divided regulatory responsibility for conventional tobacco products and for Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRTs) in the UK, particularly how NRTs came to be regulated as pharmaceuticals. This paper focuses on the regulatory decisions taken in the UK in respect of the first NRT: a nicotine-containing gum developed in Sweden. This gum, as Nicorette, became available in the United Kingdom in 1980 as a prescription only medicine under the 1968 Medicines Act. It is proposed that utilising ANT to explore the development of nicotine gum and the regulatory decisions taken about it in the UK, will place these decisions into the wider context of ideas about tobacco control and addiction, and help to better understand how different substances such as tobacco, nicotine and nicotine gum were conceptualised, leading to very different systems of regulation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that economic theory should be modified to accommodate the realities of regulation of the electricity sector. Electricity has at least three characteristics that set it apart: it cannot be stored, demands on the system must be consistently balanced with supply, and it is - in the modern world - a necessary infrastructure for many other activities. However, economists managing regulation do not always adjust economic theory to the sectors realities. This paper addresses two problems not sufficiently addressed by the economists driving the liberalizing of the electricity sector in Europe. One is a "compliance assumpiton" in which agencies assumed changing law on the book will be enough to change reality. That is analyzed in the context of preventing incumbents and new entrants from undermining competition by sabotaging consumer transfer. The other is an "efficiency assumption" - assuming efficinecy gains are always positive - analyzed in relation to potential tensions between economic efficiency and security of supply protected through redundancy. The paper draws on the experience of the UK, France and Sweden to suggest possible ways of coping with these two problems, and concludes that they can and should be anticipated by economists and prepared for. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My paper will exam the income tax rules of Singapore, Sweden and the States and compare the "state support" system of Sweden to the "personal responsibility" structure in the States to the "class based" structure in Singapore. The paper will particularly focus on working mothers and how that impacts their ability to compete in the market. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infrastructure for the third generation of mobile telephony, UMTS, is under construction in Sweden. Within three years four operators were to build competing systems to cover 99,98 % of the population. The case of the 3G infrastructure illustrates how sustainability issues are handled in planning and environmental management, with conflicting goals between institutional levels and contradictory legislation. At the national level economic and technological optimism and regional policy is in conflict with environmental and sustainability goals. No comprehensive assessment was made of the entire system; the infrastructure is assessed through one permit for each mast, at the local level, giving the administrative system an extreme challenge, and giving unexpected environmental and social outcomes as a result from the lack of comprehensive assessment. Based on surveys of all local planning authorities, a regional sample of permit processes and examination of legal cases the paper examines the outcomes of the fragmented assessment of the local permit process level, from a sustainability perspective. What are the emerging effects and conflicts? The role of law in central planning with local outcomes in the case of regulating and controlling spatial planning in the case of 3G, will be analysed in this paper ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the reception and the micro-politics of the Open Method of Co-Ordination (OMC) on social inclusion in Sweden. While this OMC has had limited direct influence on the policy contents of national reforms, this paper demonstrates that the OMC on social inclusion has had impact on the relationships between national Ministries and social NGOs, as well as the relationships between social NGOs. First, we analyze how the enactment of the OMC on social inclusion has contributed to new forms of institutionalized consultation and co-operation between Ministries and social NGOs. Second, we analyze how this OMC has contributed to new patterns of co-operation and/or conflict between social NGOs, institutionalized in networks or loose affiliations. The paper pays special attention to the tensions, conflicts, difficulties, passiveness or even resistance provoked by the OMC social inclusion on actor relationships. Hence, the paper contributes to the general knowledge about the tensions inherent in the OMC social inclusion as such, as well as to the specific understanding of what factors hamper a successful implementation of OMCs in the Swedish context. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper departs from the Swedish empirical results from the PARADYS (Participation and the Dynamics of Social Positioning) research program. The PARADYS study concerned citizen participation in the licensing procedure for genetically modified plants. The study departed from the idea that citizenship is communicatively achieved and that legal administrative procedure matters for this kind of citizenship. The PARADYS study resulted in certain social positions (like 'Administrator' or 'Scientist') and certain dynamics (e.g. inclusive and exclusive). In this paper, an analysis of the relation of those results and the legal design making up the procedure is made. The question is if and how certain legal rationalities have implications for the communicative structures - here interpreted as social positions and their dynamics. Part one of the paper analyses the Swedish legal framework in terms of legal rationalities (formal, substantial and reflexive law). Part two presents the social positions and their dynamics resulting from two cases. Finally, in part three an integrative analysis is made. The paper suggests that there are connections between different legal rationalities and the social positions emerging from the empirical manifestations of these rationalities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper will reflect on how and why a comprehensive welfare state like Sweden, with far-reaching egalitarian commitments, still reproduces inequalities between men and women. The gender perspective adopted concerns both the politics of sex equality between men and women, and the legal constructions of gender relations. A point of departure for the paper, is that a large number of women have suffered disproportionately from cutbacks in public welfare provision. This is probably a symptom of a gendered dimension to social power within the legal structures that regulate the right to receive social welfare and the obligations to participate in generating public welfare. One frame of reference for scholarly analysis is that a normative model of individual rights and obligations creates an imaginary concept that all citizens are equal under a neutral law. Such a uniform approach to social citizenship is incapable of identifying those legal structures in which the patterns of social power reside, and which reproduce sex inequalities between men and women together with stereotyped gender constructions. In contrast, taking a gender perspective on welfare-state regulations highlights the diversity of possible legal strategies for achieving sex equality drawn from social, economic and political contexts. The aim of this paper is to explore, from a Swedish perspective, why a transformed conception of social citizenship is needed in order to achieve a more inclusive social welfare regime from a gender perspective. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As many studies have shown, regulation is only as effective as its implementation in real life. One aspect of reorganization of the electricity and telecommunications sectors in the last two decades has been the attempt to create competition in these areas. However, opportunities for competition are meaningless without creation of competition "on the ground", consumers actually choosing between providers and being able to transfer, and there are powerful interests opposed to that. The former incumbent has an incentive to make the process of transferring away from it as cumbersome and inefficient as possible, keeping its customers hostage. On the other hand, competitors have an incentive to engage in aggressive, often questionable selling practices that may deprive consumers of choice, a practice of "taking hostages". Yet economic and political studies focus on the struggle to create opportunities for competition, competition "on the books", without looking at the implementation of such policy in practice, "in action". Drawing on research in three countries, the UK, France and Sweden, this paper asks how regulators handle these issues and achieve industry compliance. The paper concludes that the regulators expected competition to be achieved naturally from liberalization. Faced with industry intransigency, agencies initially did not consider enforcement actions, preferring persuasion and bargaining. Even when those strategies failed, regulators did not resort to coercive measures. Only public pressure and criticism resulted in enforcement action, showing the importance of giving voice to actors other than industry in these areas, moving from unidirectional to multidirectional accountability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideally, law-making is changing law and society. In this sense, there is nothing extraordinary in the current regime-shifts of countries in Eastern Europe and East Asia. However, it appears that there is more involved than just changing the law and progress towards a true rule of law regime is very slow everywhere. The paper examines questions surrounding legal & social change with examples from Sweden, as a benchmark, Estonia and VietNam guided by a systems theory approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernisation of national social protection as part of the Lisbon Strategy of the EU is bound to exert normative pressure on national welfare models. Legal principles today have come to play a different role, from being means for decision-making to a means for understanding and international dialogue. The Swedish social system in general and the Swedish welfare state in particular have often been described as the 'Swedish model'. Solidarity, redistribution and equal opportunity are often described as legal principles which constitute the basis for Swedish social security, together with such perspectives as justice and effectiveness. The notion of a normative comprehensive structure without legitimate particular and individual interests has characterised the Swedish welfare state. The scepticism that has persisted with respect to statutory regulation in the area of anti-discrimination is now under re-evaluation.Constructions of normality in social security, and hence the boundaries of social citizenship, are determined by statutory and discursive constructions about who is being included; what needs are to be ensured and how; what responsibilities should the state or community have; and what individual rights and obligations ought there to be. The contextual dependence in law today spells out the need for structural analysis of the welfare model - normatively and discursively - beyond the nation-state. Using solo mothers as analytical concept, the paper discusses, as a matter of gender and power, the new directions in politics and law and the implications for Swedish social security law and for the boundaries of social citizenship these directions might have. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many areas of social policy raise fundamental questions about the levels and conditions of inclusion for vulnerable individuals in society. At the same time, policymaking in different countries is grounded in diverse histories and political philosophies regarding appropriate relationships between states and their citizens. Yet little comparative research has been conducted on how these national traditions shape and become embedded in local administrative practices. As a start to filling this gap in scholarship this paper considers the prospects for developing such a cross-national, street-level studies. It outlines some of the key challenges to such an approach, including the twin foes of hyperlocalism and convergence-through-incapacity. It then demonstrates the potential rewards by presenting some major findings of a comparative street-level study of welfare and welfare-to-work programs in the United States, Germany, and Sweden. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of sustainable development and environmentalism, one means of advancing environmental interests that has been put forward within the European Union and in Sweden (as well as in other places in the world) is public procurement. The legislative framework in place that regulates public procurement in Europe and in Swede has been amended in order to facilitate this development. The legislative framework leaves much discretion to the procurement officers in terms the application of the legislation in practice and empirical data has shown that it is up to them to weigh the environmental against the economic interests in the public procurement process when the particular situation requires it. The public procurement legislation is one example of the reflexive law that has been discussed by scholars (such as Teubner) and that epitomises the need for balancing different interests in society, such as environmental and economic interests. Green public procurement legislation is an example of how the legislator has tried to get around the problem of conflicting interests.The aim of this paper is to discuss the regulation of green public procurement in Sweden from a socio-legal perspective and in light of the reflexive law discourse. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates and opponents of same-sex marriage have recently found themselves squabbling over the relationship between same-sex marriage and divorce. Drawing on emerging data from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, opponents of same-sex marriage have argued that all three countries experienced a rise in divorce rates since they began offering legal recognition to same-sex couples. Proponents of same-sex marriage have drawn on the same data to argue that anti-marriage advocates have it wrong; that divorce rates have declined since the three nations began to recognize same-sex relationships. I do not weigh in on the merits of the divorce dispute in this paper. Instead I question the validity of a premise that both sides of the dispute accept: divorce is bad. Divorce, I contend, is good. I use the experience of same-sex couples in the United States to illustrate my argument. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Nordics, in Sweden especially, the employment strategy for men and women is a crucial principle for the achievement of gender equality. This strategy is largely based on the notion of a dual breadwinner family, which has economic and social effects for solo mothers. In Sweden, the risk of poverty for solo mothers has increased during the last decades and has reached great attention in various government commissions. In this paper normative and multilayered arguments in policy and law for the inclusion of solo mothers are historically identified and analysed in order to make visible constructions of normality in social security. Although the legal competence of the European Union as regards social security is limited, common policies and soft law techniques aimed at social inclusion through active policies may affect distinct features in national welfare models. Whether individual based anti-discrimination principles in EC law create a tension in relation to the collective dimension and principles of solidarity in Swedish social security is discussed. Will common policies in terms of social inclusion and activation within the EU, that may be based on different cultural and social assumptions, have a transformative influence on social security for solo mothers in Sweden? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses conceptual issues concerning the organisation of state power. The deployment of state interventions is intimately bound up with available information, performance targets, policy goals, selected risks, threat assessments, legal powers, efficiency audits, administrative guidelines, organisational routines, and relations of accountability. The selected risks, in particular, have a special status. To be effective, requests and expectations are by necessity translated to fit the risk communication system operating within and beyond the specific organisation. Different and sometimes competing goals, conflicts of interest, available information, moral and political convictions are phrased - or re-phrased - as considerations of risks. That will not erase the contradictions but make different priorities and goals negotiable, and direct the use of interventions. Using examples from my research on three state agencies in Sweden, I will discuss how the state is currently organised, in terms of power and strategies. In this way, topics of governance and regulation will be approached sideways. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the way regulatory decisions are made in a highly technical area, and discusses the accountability in the process, focusing on the distinction between a consultation process and the actual ability to participate and influence it, drawing on Bronwen Morgan's work on social citizenship and regulatory justification. It addresses the regulators' ways of dealing with different participants and those participants' ability to meaningfully contribute to the dialogue. The empirical data is drawn from the setting of network prices: interconnection prices in telecommunications, distribution and transmission in electricity, in three countries, the United Kingdom, France and Sweden. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swedish Employment Protection Act aims towards a high employment for people who are of active age. The Act's purpose is to balance the employers' interest of profitability and the employees' interest of having employment protection. The Act implies certain reductions in the managerial prerogative. An analysis of the power relations indicates however that the regulation grants the managerial prerogative the strongest position when an employer terminates employment because of redundancy or decides how to meet new needs of manpower. The procedural rules, governing the negotiations, do not change the unequal positions between the employer, the trade union and the individual employee. In situations when an employer wants to do a collectively agreed upon redundancy list and a list for reemployment, the regulation assigns the trade union the same power position as the employer. The individual employee is in the regulation powerless and subordinated to both the employers' and the trade unions' collective interests and power. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State organizations are integrated in a wider network where risks are their unifying element. The communication of risks connects diverse phenomena and makes them function as parts of a single strategy. Individual state organizations such as the tax authority, the public employment service, the police and the prison service take part in the state formation process by means of a common language of risk and control. Figuratively speaking, risk is the language spoken within a strategy - by means of which the institutional players make themselves understood. To be effective, requests and expectations are of necessity translated to fit the risk communication system operating within the strategy. Competing goals, diverging interests, available information, moral and political convictions are phrased - or re-phrased - as considerations of risks. In this way, risk becomes the common language. Goals that are not primarily associated with risk management - and that appear to have been drawn from a regime of welfare, of sovereignty, or of cost efficiency - may be attached to the communication system. In administrative practice, considerations of efficiency, security, rehabilitation, due process, free trade and business opportunities are all negotiated in terms of risk. The common language does not erase the contradictions but makes different priorities and goals negotiable. The argument is based on case studies of five Swedish state organizations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006 a new Aliens Act took force in Sweden. The new legislation involves a changeover from handling by administrative authorities and the Government to a system where appeals are tried in administrative courts. The change was made in order to strengthen the rule of law. At the same time changes concerning the refugee definition were made in the Act in the light of inter alia the guidelines issued by the United Nations High Commissioner, UNHCR, about the interpretation of the concept of 'membership of a particular social group', and the EC Qualification Directive. The significance of these changes are that persons that have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of his or her gender, and who according to previous legislation were granted protection as persons in need of protection otherwise, instead shall be regarded as refugees under the 1951 Geneva Convention. The refugee determination process is not covered by the new Anti Discrimination Act. Instead it is presumed that the rule of law, applied by independent bodies, courts and authorities, will secure equal treatment before the law. At the same time aliens law is in many aspects regarded as 'special', which has implied other demands than those usually present in administrative courts. The presentation aims to illuminate problems with the Swedish legislation concerning determination of refugee status, focusing on women that risk abuse from their husbands or partners. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]