The evolution of Swedish fascism: self-identification and ideology in interwar Sweden

ABSTRACT

Historians and social scientists generally understand nationalism to be the defining feature of fascism. Kunkeler's study challenges that assumption with his examination of Swedish fascist movements through the notion of self-identification. Using fascist periodicals, he traces the development of Swedish fascists' identification with the movement—in relation to matters of race, nation and the signifiers of ‘fascism’ and ‘National Socialism’—from the early 1920s, when an overt attachment to Mussolini's project was evident, through a National Socialist phase showing cautious commitment to Nazi Germany, and ending with a final phase of strategic anonymity. In the face of criticism that fascism was an alien import, Swedish fascists adapted their public profile to accommodate such national sensitivities, developing a racialist ideology that was not confined by national borders and was believed to be more in tune with Swedish political culture at the time. When public opinion turned decisively against ‘international fascism’ in the mid-1930s, they were forced to discard the name and image of ‘fascism’ altogether and enter a final phase of public anonymity that, in any case, involved no significant ideological metamorphosis.     

Defending popular sovereignty: discursive conflict in French and Swedish parliamentary debates on immigrant voting rights (1968-2017)

ABSTRACT

Through a discourse analysis of French and Swedish legislative debates from 1968 to 2017, this article examines how actors challenge and reinforce dominant ideas about the link between nationality and political rights. We argue that the broader political culture influences which discursive strategies – or ‘frames’ – are more likely to structure parliamentary debates in different national contexts. However, our analysis also shows that legislators sometimes develop new discursive frames in which they reinterpret dominant norms to make them consistent with their views. Through this incremental process of reinterpretation and reformulation of dominant ideas, debates over non-citizen voting rights have chipped away at the link between nationality and political rights. Our findings suggest that initiatives to enfranchise non-citizens trigger lower levels of conflict when they can be framed as a policy tool for immigrant integration rather than as a matter of popular sovereignty.     

Embodying ‘the Nordic race’: imaginaries of Viking heritage in the online communications of the Nordic Resistance Movement

ABSTRACT

Kølvraa’s article focuses on the cultural imaginary of the Scandinavian extreme right by analysing the online presence of the so-called Nordic Resistance Movement. He seeks to show how the cultural imaginaries of this National Socialist organization make use of the Scandinavian Viking heritage in three distinct ways. First, to produce a distinctly Nordic form of National Socialism and thus potentially make this ideology palatable to Nordic publics. Second, to differentiate their racially oriented political project from a wider far-right or populist right concern with the defence of European Christian heritage and/or civilization against Islam. And, third, to thematize and perform a certain hyper-masculine identity, especially in the context of martial and sporting competitions arranged by the organization.     

A party system in flux: the Swedish parliamentary election of September 2018

In the Swedish parliamentary election of 7 September 2018, the biggest parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderates, both lost votes compared to their scores in the previous election, but not as many as they had feared. Commensurately, the radical-right challenger party, the Sweden Democrats (SD), which had seemed certain to profit from Sweden's dramatic experience of the European migration crisis, did well, but not as well as it had hoped. The result left the array of parliamentary forces fragmented and finely balanced. Only after months of negotiations could a government be formed. Eventually, the incumbent coalition received a renewed parliamentary mandate. At the same time, the party system was transformed.     

《公共管理学报》2004-2005年载文统计分析

应用文献计量学的方法,对《公共管理学报》2年共8期刊载的110篇文章的著者情况、信息密度、出版时滞,论文的地区分布及内容构成,引文情况和2005年的投稿、录用情况进行了统计分析,得出论文选题逼近前沿,研究深入,总体上具有高起点、高质量的显著特征和较强的新颖性;通过对载文的分析也从一个侧面反映出公共管理学科的研究重心、研究方式和研究方法的发展趋势.     

Research utilization in policymaking: A tale of two series (of social experiments)

This paper is an exploratory attempt to view the role that social experiments in general, and the income maintenance experiments and work/welfare demonstrations in particular, have played in the policy process through the lens provided by the knowledge utilization literature. In addition to suggesting that the decision to conduct a social experiment is rarely, if ever, made according to an essentially rational paradigm, this framework helps highlight the range of uses to which findings from social experiments can be put and the circumstances under which various types of uses are more or less likely. Specifically, the knowledge utilization literature suggests that rather than having the dramatic, decisive effects on policy choices that their promoters have often envisioned, social experiments are more likely to affect policy in a variety of subtle ways.     

Some talk: Money in politics. A (partial) review of the literature

The financing of political campaigns is an area of active scholarly study. I review some of the recent literature and discuss important methodological issues that arise in empirical research on campaign expenditures and campaign contributions. The effects of campaign expenditures and advertising on candidate and ballot-measure elections are summarized, as are the impacts of contributions on contributors’ welfare. Many states have changed their campaign finance laws in the past few years, and I describe work that exploits variations in these laws. A discussion of the strategies used by interest groups to allocate their campaign contributions provides insights into contributors’ motives.     

Contribution of agriculture in economic growth: A case study of West Bengal (India)

Economists have argued that role of agriculture is pivotal for economic development of the nation. Worldwide studies have shown that agriculture sector is more effective in reducing hunger and poverty than other sectors. This study is an attempt to ascertain the importance of agriculture in the economic growth of West Bengal. Agriculture, being the source of livelihood and supplier of raw material to various industries, triggers economic growth of the nation. This paper exhibits how agriculture has contributed to West Bengal's economic excellence using empirical data and a cointegration analysis. The role of agriculture is examined on four contributions: (a) product contribution (forward linkage), (b) market contribution (backward linkage), (c) factor contribution, and (d) foreign exchange contribution. The composition and growth of the sectors and its association with other sectors is analyzed using time series analysis. Findings of the study revealed that agriculture sector has appeared as an important contributor to drive West Bengal economic growth even after declining share in gross state domestic product over the years. Empirical analysis reveals that agriculture is having long run causal linkages with industry, services, and overall economic growth in West Bengal.     

Australia's Progress Undefined: A Critical Review of Measures of Australia's Progress (MAP)

Indicator systems to report on concepts such as sustainability and progress have become a key policy response by governments to concerns over environmental degradation and social and economic instability. When developed by a national bureau, public service imperatives suggest that concepts such as ‘sustainability’ and ‘progress’ should be addressed without offending the ideology of political actors. We offer a case study of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Measures of Australia's Progress (MAP) indicator system. The ABS has chosen to avoid offering a clear definition of what progress means, or a conceptual framework linked to a definition to explain the selection of indicators. ‘Progress’, however, is a socially defined, normative concept. Such concepts cannot be understood without reference to cultural and political processes. By seeking to avoid a perception of cultural or political bias the ABS has limited MAP's capacity to measure progress. We conclude with suggestions on how MAP might be improved.     

Crucial Factors in Implementing Radical Policy Change: A Comparative Longitudinal Study of Nordic Central Agency Relocation Programs

Abstract

Why do public policies succeed or fail? The aim of this article is to contribute to answering this enduring research question in policy research through a comparative study of the variable efforts by Nordic governments to relocate their central agencies from the capital regions over a period of several decades. This was a radical redistributive policy program premised on a policy instrument – coercion – which was very alien to political systems characterized as consensual democracies. Hence, it is no surprise that only two out of seven relocation programs of any substance were successful. The really intriguing research question here is how any relocation program was achievable at all in a policy context where this was very unlikely. A broadly based multi-theoretical analytical framework linking interest groups, institutions, human agency in the form of policy entrepreneurship/design and situational factors is employed to solve this research puzzle. Findings from this study offer important contributions to the following research fields: comparative public policy, radical policy change and most specifically the so-called third generation of public policy implementation research.     

Assessing the (eco)macroeconomic performance index of India: A data envelopment analysis approach

The prime objective of this article is to construct a robust macroeconomic performance (MEP) index of the Indian economy using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Seven major macro indicators, namely, economic growth, employment rate, terms of trade, inflation rate, fiscal deficit, pollution, and climate change are used to compute MEP and Eco‐MEP indices of the Indian economy from 1980–1981 to 2018–2019. Overall, both the MEP and Eco‐MEP index scores have quite similar best performing years worst performing years, and have also captured the major events that affected adversely the Indian economy during the past decades. The trend in the overall performance of the Indian economy was better in the 1980s and the 1990s but has deteriorated since 2000. The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approaches to cointegration methods are used to test the robustness/utility of these indices. The estimated results show that MEP and Eco‐MEP have a positive impact on private investment, foreign investment inflows, foreign direct investment, and a negative effect on the current account deficit. Hence, the suggested composite MEP index is stable, robust and truly captures the economic performance of India. The constructed MEP composite index may be used by foreign investors, rating agencies, private investors, and policymakers for their planning and decision‐making processes.     

Women and (in)security: The case of the Philippines

Abstract

This paper takes as its starting point the need to address a gender void and northern‐centrism in the new/critical security agenda. Basing the paper on the security priorities of women in the Philippines, presented in the form of a ‘Security Pillar’, the paper examines how far new/critical security, and feminist security literature incorporates the concerns of women in Southeast Asia in the reconceptualization of security, and considers the ways in which security can be reformulated to address the security needs of women in Southeast Asia.     

Withdrawing (from) waste,and the end of law: reflections on DeLillo’s prophecies in Mao II (1991) and Underworld (1997)

ABSTRACT

An often heard phrase these days is “There is something about this chaotic 21st century of ours ...”. This “something”, it is argued here, lies at the heart of a new form of life which has become predominant in recent decades in globalizing culture: the life of aspiring, radicalizing sovereigns. This “something”, then, could the called the end of Law. In an age of aspiring and radicalizing sovereigns the Law, indeed law in all its forms and shapes, has become not just an irrelevance, but a nuisance and embarrassment as well. One of the manifestations of this irreverent sovereign attitude is the growing inability to accept waste, that is, an inability to live with all that generates waste (i.e. Law), and an inability to live with all that is waste. Waste, i.e. the accumulation of spent potential, is not what the aspiring, radicalizing sovereign wants. The sovereign's desires are all about conserving all potential. Although this new form of life has become manifest only very recently, it had been predicted by the novelist Don DeLillo in his novels Mao II and Underworld. The themes and images in both these novels are the focus of this contribution.     

农村已婚青年女性自杀现象研究——基于湖北省大冶市丰村的个案分析(1980-2000)

家庭结构及其变动和人们的死亡观念是理解农村已婚青年女性自杀的关键因素。婆媳关系和夫妻关系及两者变迁所呈现出来的双重失衡状态,使得处于劣势地位的已婚青年女性容易走上自杀之路。人们相信死后还有一个存在的世界,并认为在死后的这个世界中,能够看到对造成她们自杀死亡者的惩罚,因而,自杀成为已婚青年女性寻求救助的一种手段。在这两大因素背后,更为基础的社会实践推动了自杀的产生。社会实践现场中自杀后的一系列表达是构成农村已婚青年女性对自杀死亡后进行想象的现实基础。现实生活中这种社会实践的上演与习练,会通过女性意念的投射与模化映置到未来的自杀实践中。     

Participatory budgets in Canoas (Brazil) and Cascais (Portugal). A comparative analysis of the drivers of success

ABSTRACT

This article is a comparative analysis of two internationally awarded cases of Participatory Budgets in Canoas (Brazil) and Cascais (Portugal). Our main argument is that the success of these PBs relies on political/administrative, societal, and geographic drivers. This conceptual model has been adopted to analyse and discuss the success of the two case studies. The provision of an original conceptual model for comparative analysis and the empirical knowledge from the two cities are supported by the review of main literature in this field of study, and aim to contribute, with original findings, to the international debate on participatory budgeting.     

青年研究中的热点、趋势及核心作者群分析——基于CSSCI(1998—2008)的研究

王沛沛对CSSCI关键词标引次数和论文被引频数两组数据的分析表明:1998-2008年间青年研究的研究热点主要包括青少年内各种群体的研究,青少年人的教育问题,青年人的心理、行为、性别与人际关系研究以及青年群体中的文化与价值观研究等。而从关键词标引变化表明,青年研究热点与社会变迁尤其是政策演变紧密相关,而且还与社会热点相联系。另外,对《青年研究》中的作者进行分析,展示青年研究中的核心作者群。     

The Politics of Constitutional Change in a Federal System: Negotiating Section 92A of the Canadian Constitution Act (1982)

This article examines the process of constitutional change surroundingthe enactment of the natural-resource amendment (Section 92A)to the Canadian Constitution Act (1982). It traces the motivationsbehind the adoption of the clause to a combination of long-termexogenous factors originating in the OPEC-inspired price risesof the 1970s, and short-term endogenous factors particular toCanada's political and institutional arrangements, includingunpredictable patterns of judicial arbitration of constitutionalissues. The presence of endogenous and exogenous "shocks" tolong-established constitutional modus vivendi allows some predictionsto be made about the general nature and direction of futureconstitutional change. However, the workings of short-term politicaland institutional variables make it impossible to predict theexact content of the constitutional response to such influences.This finding supports Banting and Simeon's hypothesis that constitutionalchange is political process subject to political forces in societyand that constitutional change, like constitution-making, remainsan art and not a science.