Constructions of Deportability in Sweden. Refused Asylum Seekers’ Experiences in Relation to Gender,Family Life,and Reproduction

Drawing on ethnographic material, this article examines how the experiences of refused asylum seekers in Sweden are shaped by migration policies, welfare policies, and gender norms. The article develops a feminist account of deportability to examine some gendered and reproductive aspects of everyday experiences of seeking asylum in Sweden. Focusing on the interview accounts of one heterosexual couple and one woman from Kosovo, I explore how their experiences are formed by the refusal of asylum claims in cases of sexual violence and/or their relationship and parental status. The analysis reflects on the way in which the specific legislative situation in the time period in which these interviews were made led to a privileging of families with children above single migrants and/or couples without children. It also reflects on how experiences of deportability clash dramatically with the idea of Sweden as a women-friendly welfare state.     

Sorting through the garbage can: under what conditions do governments adopt policy programs?

The paper aims at explaining the adoption of policy programs. We use the garbage can model of organizational choice as our theoretical framework and complement it with the institutional setting of administrative decision-making in order to understand the complex causation of policy program adoption. Institutions distribute decision power by rules and routines and coin actor identities and their interpretations of situations. We therefore expect institutions to play a role when a policy window opens. We explore the configurative explanations for program adoption in a systematic comparison of the adoption of new alcohol policy programs in the Swiss cantons employing Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The most important conditions are the organizational elements of the administrative structure decisive for the coupling of the streams. The results imply that classic bureaucratic structures are better suited to put policies into practice than limited government.     

Serving many masters: Public accountability in private policy implementation

In recent decades, the introduction of market principles has transformed public service delivery into a hybrid. However, little is known about how these changes are reflected in the attitudes of private implementing agents: The hybridization literature neglects individuals, and street‐level bureaucracy research has disregarded hybridization. This article extends Hupe and Hill's ( 2007 ) accountability regimes framework to introduce the market as an additional accountability regime alongside state, profession, and society. Using a configurational approach, the article explores how public and private food safety inspectors in Switzerland perceive the multiple norms for behavior stemming from their environment. Results suggest that the plural accountabilities of for‐profit street‐level bureaucrats can increase the dilemmas involved in their work. Under certain circumstances, for‐profit street‐level bureaucrats have particular difficulties reconciling rule pressure with market incentives and client demands. The extended accountability regimes framework fruitfully captures such dilemmas and helps identify suitable governance responses.     

“Boundary Delineation” in grenzüberschreitenden Policy‐Netzwerken: Primat der “Policies” oder der “Polity”? Das Fallbeispiel des Policy‐Netzwerks zur 28‐Tonnen‐Limite

Zur Analyse neuer Verhandlungssysteme der Politikformulierung hat sich seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre das Konzept der Policy‐Netzwerke herausge‐bildet. Verschiedentlich wurde diesen Netzwerkkonzepten in der Literatur vorgeworfen, dass bei dynamischen networking‐Prozessen nicht zwischen inhaltlichen und institutionell geprägten Aktivitäten unterschieden werden kann. Inwiefern sich diese These aufrecht erhalten lässt und welche Implikationen sie für die Ausdifferenzierung von grenzüberschreitenden Netzwerken birgt, ist Gegenstand des vorliegenden Beitrags. Die quantitative Netzwerkanalyse der schweizerischen Schwerverkehrspolitik im europäischen Umfeld über drei Phasen hinweg stützt die Institutionalismus‐These, wonach sich das grenzüberschreitende Netzwerk entlang der staatsrechtlich‐institutionellen Dimensionen Schweiz‐EU sowie staatlich‐parastaatlich/privat ausdifferenzierte. Die Sektorzugehörigkeit dagegen wirkte in dieser Konstellation erst innerhalb formal‐institutionell definierter Strukturen differenzierend.     

Types of knowledge utilization of regulatory impact assessments: Evidence from Swiss policymaking

Ex ante policy appraisals, such as Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIAs), are promoted because they are expected to inform decisionmakers and, thus, to lead to better quality regulation. Such instrumental use is not the only possible use of RIAs. Ex ante policy appraisal can affect the policy process in various ways. However, a consolidated theory on the conditions for utilization of RIAs in the policy process has yet to be developed. In order to explore these conditions, we analyze three case studies of Swiss decisionmaking processes and apply concepts from knowledge utilization literature. In conclusion, we find that policy arenas matter more than the institutional context and design of RIA procedures. In line with previous literature, political use seems to be a prevalent type of utilization. Yet we find that, under specific conditions, RIAs also provide a basis for the optimization of policy designs (instrumental use), help improve interagency relations (policy‐process use), and may change how a policy issue is understood (conceptual use).     

Policy’s role in democratic conflict management

Policy Sciences - This article proposes rethinking democratic conflict management by acknowledging the increasingly important role policy plays in it. As the debate on the health of democracy...     

Political rights,republican freedom,and temporary workers

I defend a neo-republican account of the right to have political rights. Neo-republican freedom from domination is a sufficient condition for the extension of political rights not only for permanent residents, but also for temporary residents, unauthorized migrants, and some expatriates. I argue for the advantages of the neo-republican account over the social membership account, the affected-interest account, the stakeholder account, and accounts based on the justification of state coercion.