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In research on public economics, climate politics and the welfare state, voters' informational and cognitive biases are commonly understood as impeding future-oriented policy-making, by incentivizing policymakers to trade off long-term investments against short-term consumption when facing competitive elections or liquidity constraints. Yet, the assumptions about how policymakers perceive these alleged trade-offs have not yet been verified. This study reports results from a survey of Swedish local government politicians, centring around experiments about environmental-friendly public investments. We find that most politicians perceive that electoral competition stimulates rather than impedes investments. Politicians are, however, less supportive of investments if these need to be financed through absolute losses rather than gains foregone, which illustrates the relevance of endowment effects in long-term governance. We furthermore show that our micro-level observations are consistent with macro-level investment expenditure patterns. These findings demonstrate that accounting for policymakers' own perceptions is important for advancing our understanding of future-oriented policy-making.

Climate change, health pandemics, structural decline, and more - the challenges of solving political problems are daunting, particularly when the political institutions addressing them are not trusted. This article tests the economic theory that residents of high-income regions are more likely to trust political institutions, given their positive experiences with services and opportunities, against the rival argument that predicts a negative effect of regional disadvantage within a country on political trust. Using European Values Study and World Values Survey (2017-2020) data, combined with socioeconomic data for 606 regions in 42 countries, this paper analyses samples of regions both in and outside the EU. The results suggest that people living in wealthy EU regions - both in absolute and relative terms - trust national government more and the EU less. In the global sample, the evidence is more variegated and corroborates economic theory only in democracies. The article sketches implications for regional inequality, political trust, and legitimacy research.

This study explores the bilateral relationship between the European Union (EU) and India amidst the critical juncture that has been the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. The study was motivated by the simultaneous empirical and theoretical puzzle that was theseemingly continuous development of bilateral relations, albeit the differing positions of the EU and India in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Through a content analysis, and a theoretical explanation with the use of two compatible hypotheses derived from Alexander Wendt’s Lockean and Kantian cultures of anarchy, the study analyzed documents, and a sample of statements, speeches and press releases, from the European Commission and India’s Ministry of External Affairs during the period of 2021-02-24 through 2023-11-13. The results of the study suggest that the development of EU-India relations have been characterized by a continuity, albeit the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the actors differing positions thereto. The continuity can, to a greater extent, be explained by the existence and reproduction of shared ideas derived from a Lockean cultural anarchy(hypothesis 1), and to a lesser extent by shared ideas derived from a Kantian cultural anarchy(hypothesis 2), which together however, have constituted the actions of the actors during the period of study, explaining the continuity of the relations. The results both confirm and challenge relevant previous studies, showcasing social structures of relevance using theory.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the conditions for civil society and activists in Japan regarding their access to a truly free capability for their expression, action, and thoughts. The theoretical starting point is based on Iris Young's normative theory of the function of civil society in deliberative democracy, which sheds light on intermediate factors that make Young's ideal too naive to be realized. Gramsci's concept of hegemony is then used to highlight indirect and hidden power structures that certain groups in society are afflicted by. Holloway's resistance theory and anti-capitalist view of civil society are applied from a Marxist perspective that characterizes this study. In combination with a post-structuralist view of power and a Marxist perspective, it became possible to identify three hegemonies that appear to be democratically problematic from previous research, as well as an in-depth analysis of the Japanese activists' mindset and the hegemonic ideas implied in their expressions. The question is thus, how and to what extent those hegemonic ideas permeate activists' expressions and opinions in today's civil society in Japan. The result of the analytical ideological criticism shows empirical support for signs of all the hegemonic ideas in the chosen materials and offers some implications of those hegemonies for civil society and democracy. The latter conclusion also implies some consequences of capitalism and neoliberalism for society in general.

In January of 2022 the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency was established with the overarching aim of countering the spread of misinformation as well as strengthening Sweden’s psychological defence. Despite making several media appearances and launching a public awareness campaign ahead of the 2022 general election, the agency has remained relatively unknown amongst the public. Because of its recent beginnings, scientific inquiry into the agency’s operations is at the time of writing also scarce. This study aims to contribute to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the ways of thinking that underlie the agency’s work. Specifically, the study is interested in the agency’s reasoning regarding the problems that it aims to solve. By applying Carol Bacchi’s poststructural ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) approach on four of the agency’s publications the study analyses implicit problem representations as well as underlying presuppositions and patterns of logic within the agency’s discourse. The analysis finds four recurring problem representations throughout the publications: a lack of knowledge, lack of effective cooperation, insufficient governmental oversight, and an inadequate will to defend the country. Furthermore, one of the study’s main conclusions is that there is a strong logic of security underlying the agency’s reasoning, in which the spread of misinformation is primarily regarded as a threat to state security. It is through this logic that the agency’s commitments and proposed solutions appear as reasonable and legitimate. The study also highlights several silences within the problem representations and discusses alternative ways of thinking about the issue.

The democratic significance of public broadcasting corporations has gained renewed urgency as a result of developments in the outside world and the ongoing public service committee (Dir. 2023:27). According to the accepted view, public broadcasting corporations serve democracy by strengthening the free expression of opinion. This paper argues that this argument is not sufficient. In addition to strengthening the free formation of opinions, the mission must be understood as part of democracy’s self-defense. The substance of this mission derives from the values and principles defined in the Swedish constitution (Regeringsformen). Based on the idea of a “public reason”, the democratic argument for public broadcasting corporations is that they contribute to an informative, balanced and restrained public sphere that enables a democratic overlapping consensus among citizens with otherwise conflicting interests and

This dissertation examines how rebel organizations are affected by their leader’s social capital. In conflict research, leader functions and roles have been diverse, for example solving coordination problems in collective action, or devising ideologies for broad public support. What is missing is relating inter-individual differences to the social context within which these differences are argued to matter. Studying leader-level variation across conflict stages enables the identification of how the abilities of a leader interact with the challenges at hand. Spelling out the social context within which both the leader and the rebel organization are embedded, allows for the identification of the socially conditioned advantages and constraints that produce and restrict the application of human capital. I argue that a rebel leader's social capital influences a rebel organization prior to and during conflict, and when parties consider ending conflict. To investigate the main research question “how are rebel organizations affected by their leader’s social capital”, this study makes use of newly collected data on all rebel leaders from 1946 -- 2023. The results of the analyses suggest that a rebel leader's social capital is correlated with slower conflict onset, less competitors during conflict, and a mixed relationship with the likelihood of negotiation onset. In addition to the empirical contribution, I add to the literature, as I re-consider and statistically examine three central concepts in the conflict literature. I conceptualize and operationalize conflict onset as a process, thus nuancing existing explanations of mobilization dynamics prior to and for the purpose of civil conflict. Second, explain the number of rebel organizations during conflict, or "insurgency cohesion", by highlighting that both types of competitor emergences take place in the same social space. Third, I consider negotiation processes both in their public and secret format and how they relate, t

Den svenska migrationspolitiken har under de senaste åren genomgått en radförändringar där en central aspekt har varit ett förändrat ansvar mellan statenoch kommunerna. Även om de övergripande målen fattas på nationell nivå ärde inte oberoende av varken det som sker ute i världen eller av vad som avgörsi landets kommuner. Central både för mottagande och integreringen av nyanländaär bostadsfrågan, både att ha tillgång till bostad men också boendetskvalitet. Rätten till bostad är också en grundläggande mänsklig rättighet ochhar stor betydelse för människors liv. Tidigare forskning har visat hur bostadsfrågankan användas som ett instrument för kommunerna att på olika sätt styramigrationspolitiken lokalt. Detta kapitel har fokuserat på lokal bosättningspolitiki huvudsak för nyanlända som kommit till Sverige och som är föremål förbosättning enligt den s.k. bosättningslagen. Syftet med kapitlet har varit att beskriva de förändringar som den svenska migrationspolitiken genomgått desenaste åren och illustrera hur dessa påverkat den kommunala nivån med särskiltfokus på bosättningsfrågan. I kapitlet har de centrala reformerna beskrivitsoch hur de förändrat ansvarsfördelningen mellan staten och kommunernasamt resultat från forskningen på området. Därefter har empiriska nedslaggjorts i vilka det resoneras kring bostadens betydelse och hur lokal bostadspolitikanvänds av kommuner för att uppnå vissa mål. Vidare har det visats genomempiriska exempel hur lokal bosättningspolitik påverkar barn och unga samtderas familjer.

Early voting procedures boost voter participation and have therefore been suggested as institutional remedies for the problem of unequal turnout. Scholars have, however, raised concerns that making voting more convenient may actually lead to a less representative electorate. We contribute to this debate by leveraging large-scale Swedish registry data to analyze persons expecting a child around the time of the election. Our results indicate that politically engaged high-status voters are more likely to use the opportunity to vote in advance when faced with the risk of not being able to vote on election day. Given the large number of obstacles to election-day voting that individuals face throughout life, it is therefore conceivable that efforts to make voting more convenient and less costly for citizens may in the end lead to less representative electorates.

Publicerad 2024-08-01

Several earlier studies have discussed the relationship between economic inequality and democracy, although no consensus have yet been reached regarding whether there is a relation and the actual shape of it. The aim of this study is to investigate this relationship via a time series cross sectional analysis. The study is performed with panel data containing measurements of the quality of liberal democracy within countries, as well as measurements of economic inequality (distribution of pretax national income and wealth in the household sector within the richest 1% and poorest 10% of the population). The study shows a relationship between economic inequality and the quality of liberal democracy. Furthermore, the different conceptualizations of economic inequality are shown to have different effect and relevance depending on the social groups in question. Income distribution correlates strongly positive with an increase in democratic quality regarding the poorest 10% of the population, while wealth distribution correlates negatively regarding the riches 1%. Furthermore, two theoretical mechanisms through which these effects could occur are investigated; one focuses on the effects that economic inequalities have on support for democracy among the poorest, the other on the effect that concentration of economic assets has on political equality and the actions of the wealthiest within society. The study shows support for the second mechanism regarding a relationship between measures of economic inequalities and measures of how much political influence is based on economic assets, where more economically unequal societies tend to also have a more unequal distribution of political influence.

This thesis aims to analyse Vladimir Putin’s strategic use of communication in his interview with Tucker Carlson in February of 2024. The research questions intend to identify the use of such strategies and how they are used to further strengthen Putin’s political agenda. The interview was studied together with a theoretical framework consisting of propaganda analysis, narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis of which all were abetted with one of Lukes’ three faces of power. Previous research has shown how dictators have used propaganda to both legitimize their current position and justify actions. These findings concur with the result found in this thesis, but the studied material also proved to contain a more offensive and hostile strategy. The results consequently gave some insight into how Putin, and other dictators, can use media to strengthen their positions of power and legitimize military interventions. But it also demonstrated how language can be operated to produce mistrust and possibly weaken opponents.

The inclusion-moderation thesis argues that, as radical parties become included in coalition governments, their positions and rhetoric will moderate as a consequence of compromising with, and adapting to the parties they are governing with. With lacking empirical evidence, however, the effects of inclusion on radical parties are still not clear. The Sweden Democrats (SD), a Swedish radical right-wing populist party, became the country’s second largest party after the election of 2022 and received considerable influence through the “Tidö-agreement” with the new coalition government. They are thus a recent example of a radical right populist party gaining influence in Europe. This paper examines the rhetoric of the SD’s party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, before and after the election of 2022 through qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that no moderation has taken place in their radical right populist rhetoric after inclusion. Furthermore, the nativist aspect of their rhetoric seems to have become far more pronounced, and increasingly influences other aspects of their rhetoric as well.

Mercosur, created in 1991 and one of the largest regional economic blocs in the world, has been in a state of deep crisis for at least 20 years. This work engages with academic debates about the origins of crisis. Mercosur’s crisis reflects the historical trajectory of the bloc’s effectiveness in fulfilling its tasks and accomplishing its objectives. Symbolizing the crisis is the sharp decline, experienced during the late 1990s, in the bloc’s intra-regional trade rates. Previous interpretations tend to identify either the institutional structure of Mercosur or domestic political changes in member states as the driver of crisis. While to a good extent aligned with the domestic politics approach, the present study attempts to contribute to the literature by suggesting an emphasis on the history of state preferences. Through a systematic process analysis, it identifies substantive shifts in the processes of preference formation in Argentina and Brazil (the bloc’s major states) that would decisively compromise the effectiveness of Mercosur in the long-term. By abandoning agendas that prioritized the interests of domestic manufacturing sectors, Argentinian and Brazilian administrations throughout the 1990s have challenged the bloc’s ability to fulfil its foundational tasks and accomplish its central objectives.

The purpose of this study is to examine the sami identity and self-perception. To understand the self-perception and the construction of sami identity, interviews with members of the sami community in Sweden been concluded. The interview question has been based on the film “Sameblod” released in 2017 by Amanda Kernell. Sameblod is about a teenage girl, Elle-Marja, who struggles with the structural racism the Swedish state caused them during the beginning of the 19th century. The movie is portraying many of the topics considering sami self-perception and identity and was there for a good approach to discuss the matters and produce answers that would be relevant for the researching purpose. The results turned out to be categorized in that the 1. Sami’s identify strongly with their history and therefore the representation of the Swedish history turned out to be valuable for the construction of the sami identity. But the representation of the history could intensify the already undermined sami status caused by the oppression. 2. The sami pride was significantly important for the self-perception. Sameblod dose miss some crucial parts of the sami culture as well as the sami pride. This leads to sami misrepresentation, which damages the self-perception and can lead to undermined cultural heritage, as well as concecuenses of the preception for a non-sami.

Naked activism has a long history of being used to combat human bodily abuse. Morerecently, animal rights and environmental organizations including the subject of this study,the Extinction Rebellion, began employing nudity as part of their campaigns. In Sweden thiskind of activism is frequently conducted in public spaces before being promoted via socialmedia platforms. However, despite its growing popularity, the nature of nude activism is greatly understudied. Using the trans-corporeal lens and the Visual-Verbal Video Analysis-framework this thesis investigates how environmental nudity can contest established political, gender and media nodes of power. The findings indicate that the naked body plays animportant role in attracting and maintaining public interest for environmental agenda,challenging existing power dimensions, and raising social awareness.

Since the Hamas attack, 7 of October 2023, instability in the Red Sea region has occurred. Due to this, the United States, along with other western countries has made a military intervention to targets in Yemen. But the question remains, how has it been possible for the US to carry out a military attack? This paper is aiming to study how the US has made this intervention possible by analyzing the securitization of the threat image from the Red Sea region. The study is going to analyze the ATA (Annual threat Assessment) material from the years 2006-2024, the report shows next year's US threat image. By the Securitization Theory the study is aiming to see how the threat image has been securitized. Combined with a discourse analysis as a method the study will investigate how the Red Sea region is expressed in the reports. This material, theory and method have not been studied before and therefore filled a gap in the previous research field. The purpose is to contribute to a wider picture of the Securitization theory in the international arena. The analysis shows that ATA reports contain clear signs of securitization. The results show that the reports contained loaded words, an authority that was targeting an audience and macro securitization had occurred by mentioning the conflict in the Red Sea region as a proxy war. Due to these results one could draw the conclusion that Securitization had occurred in the report and therefore made possible for the military invasion.

I takt med att demokratiska system världen över möter alltmer komplexa utmaningar har frågan om demokratins effektivitet blivit alltmer ifrågasatt. Jason Brennans epistokratiteori som argumenterar för ett epistokratiskt samhälle, där politiskt inflytande bör baseras på kunskap istället för allmän rösträtt, har framkallat betydande intresse och debatt. Denna uppsats ska genom en idékritisk metod utvärdera Brennans argument och premisser som presenteras i hans bok Efter demokratin. Genom en noggrann analys av han epistokratiska grunder, dess praktiska implikationer och de etiska frågor den väcker, syftar studien till att bedöma dess rimlighet och önskvärdhet. Uppsatsen inkluderar även argument från framstående kritiker som utmanar Brennans syn på politisk kunskap, beslutsfattande, rättvisa och jämlikhet. Slutsatserna pekar på att även om epistokrati kan erbjuda intressanta insikter för att adressera vissa av demokratins brister, innebär den också betydande risker och problem, särskilt när det gäller politisk jämlikhet och frihet. Teorin innehåller dessutom motsägelser, vilket minskar dess kredibilitet. Studien bidrar till den pågående akademiska debatten om demokratins framtid och utforskar alternativa regeringsformer som kan komplettera eller reformera de nuvarande demokratiska systemen för att bättre hantera dagens och morgondagens politiska utmaningar.

This study has analysed Sweden's security policy strategy and decision to send military supportto Ukraine in light of the Russian invasion of 2022. By applying a combination of discourseanalysis (WPR) and neorealism, the study has explored the political motivations behind thesedecisions, under both the Andersson and Kristersson administrations. The results show aconsistent line in Sweden's security policy since 2014, where support for Ukraine is seen as animportant contribution to maintaining international law and supporting democracy. The studycritically examines the balance between moral obligations and strategic interests that guideSweden's support for Ukraine, and discusses the implications of this support for Sweden'snational defence capability and long-term financial sustainability. Furthermore, it assesses thebroader impacts of these decisions on the rule-based international order and Sweden's positionwithin it. The findings suggest that Sweden's actions represent a significant reorientation in itssecurity policy, aiming to strengthen both national and European security through solidarityand international cooperation. This reflects a pragmatic approach to the anarchic internationalsystem, where supporting Ukraine not only aligns with Sweden's moral values but also servesstrategic security interests.

Political parties are crucial in crafting effective national climate policies in democratic states. At the same time, there is a practical and academic debate of whether political parties matter for policy output. This article speaks to this debate by investigating the link between what parties say and what parties do with respect to environmental issues. More concretely, it analyzes whether there is a connection between the degree of environmentalism expressed in parties' electoral manifestos and national environmental policy output. Theoretically, the article draws on existing research on program-to-policy linkages in general and for environmental issues specifically to argue that saliency of environmentalism in party manifestos shapes more stringent environmental policies. This argument is empirically tested by combining data on policy stringency with data on manifesto contents for 28 countries for the period 1990-2015. The findings corroborate the main hypothesis, which has implications for understanding the overall potential for political parties to structure national environmental politics. The article concludes by sketching broader implications for research on parties' ability to shape national environmental policy across political systems, and across partisan ideologies.

In recent decades, one of the most prominent trends in global governance has been the increasing openness of international organizations (IOs) toward non-state actors (NSAs). As participants in the policymaking bodies of IOs, NSAs have become important actors in global governance, providing policy-relevant information to decision makers, representing constituency interests, and ultimately, influencing policies. Yet to date, we have little systematic comparative knowledge about the NSAs that participate in IO bodies. This article introduces the Non-State Participation in International Organizations (N-PINION) dataset, which maps NSA participant populations across eighty one policymaking bodies in twenty four global IOs between 1998 and 2017. The dataset provides indicators on the density, diversity, and volatility of NSA populations, available yearly across IO bodies. These indicators provide potential dependent and independent variables for scholars interested in a wide variety of research questions relating to the drivers, consequences, and normative merits of NSA participation in IOs.

This study examines whether and to what extent the bandwagon effect and the spiral of silence impact opinion formation in a polarized context, where individuals tend to be persistent in their policy attitudes. Focusing on contentious policy issues at the heart of the culture war in American politics, our aim is to study the relative importance of attitude persistence and social conformity in the opinion-formation process, and how these responses depend on individuals' ideological commitments. We conducted an experimental study of US citizens, where participants donated money to organizations advocating opposed positions on seven of the most contentious issues in American politics. Utilizing the presentation of opinion polls as a treatment, the findings are threefold. First, we show that polls cause ideologically moderate people to abandon the minority and conform to the majority opinion regardless of the issue at stake. By contrast, we show that attitude persistence prevails among ideologically extreme people. Second, we demonstrate that seeing polls generally demobilizes people with minority views. Third, we find that opinion-conversion and demobilization jointly undermine minority opinions, while only a small minority of extremists repels both mechanisms. These findings have important implications for research on opinion formation in today's polarized political landscape.

This study examines how the growing competition over immigration and welfare between social democratic parties and populist radical right parties impacts electoral outcomes. The study argues that the historical legacies of the social democratic and conservative welfare regimes influence how voters respond to this competitive struggle. The findings support this argument. In the social democratic regime, populist radical right parties gain more support when they compete over welfare, although Nordic social democratic parties can mitigate this trend by appearing tough on immigration. However, populist radical right parties’ emphasis on welfare is the main source of electoral mobilization, particularly among voters with anti-immigration sentiments. In the conservative regime, the competitive dynamic is less connected to immigration, and populist radical right parties’ welfare discourse appeals primarily to economically vulnerable voters, while social democratic parties lose votes by taking a strict stance on immigration. These results have important implications and suggest that welfare regimes shape voting behaviour differently today than in previous eras.

Terrorattentat verkar bli allt vanligare i Europa. I år antogs en ny strategi mot våldsbejakande extremism. Det är den tredje strategin mot våldsbejakande extremism, varav alla har skrivits under de senaste 13 åren. Den här studiens syfte är att undersöka hur två olika regeringar arbetar för att motverka våldsbejakande extremism och att se hur de skiljer sig åt, samt vilka eventuella effekter deras respektive policy mot våldsbejakande extremism kan leda till. Detta görs genom att använda Carol Bacchis poststrukturalistiska What’s the problem represented to be? (WPR)-ansats. Trots en del överlappande åtgärdsförslag så visar studien att de två regeringarnas syn på hur man bör bemöta radikalisering och våldsbejakande extremism skiljer sig åt. Den moderatledda regeringens huvudsakliga fokus är på utökade befogenheter för rättsväsendet och lagstiftande åtgärder, medan den socialdemokratiskt ledda regeringen främst fokuserar på utbildande åtgärder. De mest anmärkningsvärda effekterna av policyerna är subjektifieringseffekten av utlänningar och unga män.

This article analyses the role of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in the field of climate security. In 2021, the OSCE unanimously adopted a ministerial decision on climate change despite rising geopolitical tensions between Russia and the US. Why and how was this possible? The article answers these questions, drawing on a unique set of qualitative data collected from interviews with diplomats and officials conducted during Sweden's OSCE chairpersonship. The analytical framework draws on the concept of communities of practice to analyse how Swedish and like-minded diplomats built on the OSCE's approach to security to informally expand the domain of knowledge on climate-related security risks in the organization. The article suggests that the current political impasse in the OSCE does not necessarily mean that initiatives advanced by groups of like-minded states, in collaboration with the OSCE secretariat, need to be paralyzed. The findings reveal important features of multilateral diplomacy on climate security as well as how the OSCE works in practice.

International Parliamentary Institutions (IPIs) increasingly welcome non-state actors (NSAs) within their policy-making procedures. Political donations are an important tool in NSAs' lobbying toolbox that has been well researched at the national level. Nevertheless, we know little about the links between NSAs, IPIs and political finance. Employing the European Parliament as an exploratory case-study, the article meticulously assesses micro-level financial donor data. Contrasting neo-functional and intergovernmental approaches, the results demonstrate a cleavage formed between individuals supporting anti-integration political parties, and international business donating to pro-integration parties. Theoretically, the article validates postfunctionalist approaches as a model for parts of the NSA–IPI relationship. Conceptually, the analysis shows that IPIs can encourage transnational cleavage formation and serve a representative function, which addresses the concerns about democratic deficit that come with the transfer of policy-making authority to international organizations. Simultaneously, financial donations can strengthen movements that oppose an IPI, and have an asymmetric impact on the IPI's political legitimacy. This calls for further research on NSAs’ political financing of IPIs, the impact of financial donations on IPIs and the need to update relevant regulatory frameworks.

This paper introduces and elaborates on a distinctively political approach to study and manage existential risks with artificial intelligence (AI). In contrast to research in ethics, economics, and computer science, a political approach to interactions between AI and humans emphasizes the possibility and effects of persisting disagreements. The paper introduces issues of how humans and AI exercise power while neither side is able to control, or enslave, the other (1); how persisting disagreements between humans and AI may induce either mutual learning and value-creation, or destructive conflicts and large-scale violence (2); how knowledge of political dynamics between states, classes and sexes/genders applies to imagine models for safe co-existence between humans and AI at present as well as in a post-singularity future with super-human AI (3); how human/AI relations should be constructed to reap the opportunities of AI while minimizing existential risks for humans (4).

The limitations and possibilities of the state in solving societal problems are perennial issues in the political and policy sciences and increasingly so in studies of environmental politics. With the aim of better understanding the role of the state in addressing environmental degradation through policy making, this article investigates the nexus between the environmental policy outputs and the environmental performance. Drawing on three theoretical perspectives on the state and market nexus in the environmental dilemma, we identify five distinct pathways. We then examine the extent to which these pathways are manifested in the real world. Our empirical investigation covers up to 37 countries for the period 1970-2010. While we see no global pattern of linkages between policy outputs and performance, our exploratory analysis finds evidence of policy effects, which suggest that the state can, under certain circumstances, improve the environment through policy making.

This article examines how the war in Ukraine and the subsequent re-orientation of Swedish security and defense policy leading up to a NATO-application, has been discussed in Swedish public debate. We ask what work gender does in the sense-making of the war and the changes in security policy. Departing from feminist theories of security and gendered protection, the study discusses the ambiva-lent ways in which gender and the trope of Sweden as a gender equal nation is negotiated in the media (print media and television) and by policy makers. The gendered imaginaries of masculinist protection and the vulnerability of women and children legitimize violence as the most adequate way to respond to this new situation. Gender is used to depoliticize security politics and to frame militarization as unavoidable. In this context, gender equality is both seen as a value worthy of protection and as an internal threat weakening men, and inclining women to object to the military responses suggested. We argue that the production of masculinity and militarization promotes a security ideology imbued with violence, hierarchies, and control.

Bringing together leading and emerging scholars on European politics, this collection explores how dilemmas associated with key democratic concepts can be understood in relation to the EU. The book renews our understanding of EU democracy in ways that are more attentive to the multiple fault lines and cleavages that structure this political order. It focuses on a set of democratic dilemmas inherent to EU democracy, including representation, deliberation, sovereignty, citizenship, democratic contestation and market, to provide discussions on the specific tensions and trade-offs associated to a particular concept. The book engages in the theoretical groundwork necessary for assessing and analysing the specific dilemmas that arise when translating democratic concepts into concrete institutional designs in the European setting.

The “Qatargate” scandal has focused attention on the impact of lobbying on EU policymaking. Drawing on a new study, Alexander Katsaitis examines what we know about the financial donations received by EU level political parties and foundations., Publicerad November 15th, 2023.

Recognising widely held concerns regarding ‘presentist’ biases in democratic institutions, thischapter challenges the contention that democratic legitimacy inexorably requires the inclusion of futuregenerations in democratic decisions. According to two requirements of democratic legitimacy – inclusionand constitutional empowerment – people should be empowered to participate in decisions about policyand law, and to determine the rules structuring the political framework. Drawing a distinction betweenthese requirements, this chapter contends that though it may be feasible to ‘include’ future generations forproxy representation, future generations cannot enjoy ‘constitutional power’.This chapter applies two separate understandings of constitutional power to future generations, the‘constituent power’ to create constitutional frameworks, and the ‘constituted power’ to amend suchframeworks’ norms. It contends that neither is achievable for unborn people and that full intergener‐ational democratic legitimacy is therefore impossible. Reason for concern with the long-term effectsof contemporary policies and political systems still remain, of course. But in attending to them, justicerather than democratic legitimacy should guide our judgments.

Despite its resource advantage, business cannot mobilize across institutions and policy fields. For some issues it cannot do so as legitimately as other organizations. For example, NGOs are better placed to convey important information on how public opinion stands on environmental regulation. Moreover, business cannot mobilize across all the steps of the policy cycle. To ensure the smooth flow of the policy process, policy-makers encourage groups that legitimately hold relevant information-expertise to mobilize at different policy stages, while lobbyists choose to mobilize where their expertise allows them to better influence policy-makers’ debates Among numerous policy fields and policy-making stages, business chooses to mobilize in those that affect their interests more directly and those where they can make better use of their resources. Therefore, there is variation in the density and diversity in business mobilization across policy fields, and across the steps of the policy cycle. To understand the nuances of business-government affairs we must also appreciate how the policymaking context impacts business-government affairs. This paper examines the impact of the policy field and the policy cycle on business-government relations. We discuss how the nature of the policy field influences business mobilization and assess the density and diversity of interest groups across them. While the Commission and the European Parliament share different objectives and responsibilities, there is similar variation of business activity across sub-systems. Elite pluralism, that sees a wide distribution of different types of interests with business holding the strongest mobilization, remains a valid conceptual model at the macro-level, but at the meso-level we observe instead a ‘chameleon pluralism’ characterized by the interchangeable dominance of public interests, such as civil society, and private interests. This mobilization is not isolated within policy silos but expands acros, Plenary session: T09P02 / Meet the Authors: Business Lobbying in the EuropeanUnion.

This paper is about voters’ perceptions of voting secrecy in the 2022 Swedish elec-tions. In collaboration with the local election authorities in Gothenburg, we have asked a large number of advance voters (n = 12901) about perceived voting secrecy under three types of voting arrangements. In the high secrecy arrangement, voters completed voting behind a single closed screen. In two medium secrecy arrange-ments, voters selected ballot papers behind a closed screen and walked a few meters with ballot papers in hand to another closed screen to complete the vote. Results show that perceived voting secrecy is high in all three arrangements, but also that the high secrecy arrangement makes a statistically significant contribu-tion to perceived voting secrecy. The findings illustrate that voters are sensitive to small changes in the voting environment, and that details matter for the experi-ence of voting secretly.

Trafficking for sexual exploitation is a phenomenon that greatly affects the individual as well as society. The effect is grim for the victims and their families, as sex trafficking violates their basic human rights, can shatter families, and cause severe psychological trauma. Human trafficking for sexual exploitation also has negative effects on societies, it can adversely affect the economy, public health, national security, and gender equality. Legislations have been implemented in response to sex trafficking in Thailand. The thesis aims to show what economic, social-cultural, and political challenges Thailand faces when implementing legislation on human trafficking for sexual exploitation, based on the application of conflict theory and feminist theory. The research method used is a qualitative case study with a qualitative content analysis of empirical data from interviews conducted and textual data. Through this method, seven interviews were conducted, and four documents were provided by the Royal Thai Government, the United States Department of State, and relevant NGOs such as UNODC were analyzed. The result of the analysis shows that there are challenges related to all three factors examined, making it more difficult for the legislation to be successfully implemented.

This thesis deals with differences in the level of satisfaction with democracy between populists and non-populists in eleven Western European countries the past twenty years, with the common denominator that they all have experienced the electoral success of a populist radical-right party and a population increasingly expressing distrust and dissatisfaction with democracy. The thesis is based on a definition of populism in which it is regarded as a threat to democracy, and moreover, the thesis explores whether there are any significant differences in the level of satisfaction with democracy and whether these differences changes as time passes between these two voter groups. The results of the analysis, which is carried out quantitively, strengthens the theoretical expectations, proving that there is a significant negative correlation between being populist and level of satisfaction with democracy, and that the effect becomes stronger as time passes. The results also align with the perception that societal changes such as modernization and globalization has contributed to the growth of new voter groups who express their dissatisfaction with democracy by opposing the establishment, thus turning to the political alternatives.

The past decade has witnessed profound transformations in subnational territories engendered by a dramatic increase in natural resource extraction. Research to date has concentrated largely on why the transfer of extractive revenues often reinforces a ‘local resource curse’; however, little work has been done on subnational governments’ attempts to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of mining expansion. Drawing on the literature on subnational governance in the context of resource extraction and neoliberal reforms, this study analyses the strategies – confrontational or collaborative – subnational political leaders pursue and the reasons why they pursue them. The findings are based on in-depth field research in two Peruvian subnational regions that are highly dependent on mineral extraction. More specifically, we examine the collaborative strategy pursued in one region and compare it with a confrontational strategy in another. Our analysis indicates that an interplay between institutional capacity and supporting coalitions affects whether subnational leaders undertake a collaborative or a confrontational approach. Based on our findings, we consider the likely effects of these strategies for regional development. By shifting the focus to the agency of subnational leaders, we make an essential contribution to debates about subnational governance in the realm of resource extraction.