Responsibilization: The case of road safety governance

Governments are increasingly turning to new modes of governance to induce nonstate actors to voluntarily take responsibility for societal problems. Using the concept of responsibilization as a theoretical lens, this article analyzes changes in road safety governance in Sweden. How, why, and to whom has the responsibility for road safety been attributed in Swedish policymaking, and how have state authorities engaged in processes of responsibilization during its implementation? The results show a shift in attribution of responsibility from individual road users to a broad set of so-called system designers, based on moral, causal, and preventive rationales. Responsibilization both occurs within the state apparatus and is imposed by state authorities on nonstate actors using soft governance measures. Responsibilization provides a fruitful theoretical lens for governance studies by identifying shifts in responsibility (including deresponsibilization), explicating normative/ethical underpinnings of new governance modes, and helping to open the “black box” of the state.     

Does poor health cause political passivity even in a Scandinavian welfare state? Investigating the impact of self-rated health using Swedish panel data

Poor health is generally believed to cause political passivity. Prior studies that satisfactorily acknowledge the causality problems involved are mainly limited to considering turnout and the U.S.A., so we lack knowledge of how non-electoral participation is affected in other countries. This article considers Sweden, characterized by a generous welfare state and an extensive public health system. Using unique panel data, which allow more thorough analyses of causality, poor health was found to have a negative effect on voting but not on non-electoral participation. By primarily focusing on other countries than Sweden and the U.S.A., it is a task for future longitudinal research to show whether the belief that poor health lead to political passivity is incorrect—or whether Sweden is an exceptional case, due to the barriers to participation being particularly low there.     

Reforming the Swedish employment-related social security system: activation,administrative modernization and strengthening local autonomy

The Swedish system of social security has often been regarded as comprehensive and comprehensive and inclusive. During major reforms in the 1990s and 2000s, it has maintained its essential character as a popular and well-endowed provider of social security and stability. Employment-related benefits are generous in financial terms, but come with the need for recipients to remain actively engaged in the economic or educational field. However, Sweden’s geographical and demographic diversity made it necessary to increase the role of local authorities in implementing active labour market policies. This article tracks these developments since the mid-1990s, both with regard to changing the benefits system and with regard to changing local government involvement. It argues that backed by broad political support, the Swedish system has achieved the necessary modernization and adaptation to remain a viable alternative to more neo-liberal welfare retrenchment projects conducted in other European countries.     

How learning aggregates: a social network analysis of learning between Swedish municipalities

Using a unique data set of learning among all 290 Swedish municipalities, we use social network analysis to analyse how learning networks aggregate nationally. To facilitate this analysis, we describe five ideal-typical patterns of aggregation: core-periphery, small world, top-down regionalism, bottom-up regionalism and urban hierarchy. Each of these ideal-types has important implications for how ideas, information and innovation will circulate among municipalities. Social network analysis allows us to both isolate these patterns and to appreciate composite patterns. The analysis indicates that Swedish municipalities are a small-world network with regional and hierarchical elements. County seats serve an important role as network hubs.     

Swedish politicians’ preferences regarding the privatisation of elderly care

Since the 1990s, Sweden has embarked on a series of market reforms in public services, aiming for greater efficiency and better service quality. Nevertheless, the political debates do not seem to fade away and local politicians still have to decide on privatisation issues. We argue that attitude studies of local politicians are of importance and present a 2014 survey in this regard, using Swedish elderly care as one example. Our findings show that altitudinal difference between left- and right-wing politicians on private for-profit providers remains distinctive. Moreover, political orientations of individuals, political majority in the municipality, as well as privatisation level already achieved locally are identified as important factors in explaining local politicians’ willingness to privatise further. This case study serves as a good example to examine the market development of public welfare in advanced welfare states and also contributes to the contentious discussion of political roles in welfare reform.     

Toe the line,break the whip: explaining floor dissent in parliamentary democracies

This article analyses the drivers of individual dissent in floor voting in parliamentary regimes. It focuses on the effect of ideological heterogeneity in legislative parties on individual MPs’ voting behaviour, as well as the different incentives caused by the differing consequences of defection and abstention. Combining individual-level survey and voting data from the Swedish Riksdag, neither of which is subject to selection bias, the study overcomes several limitations of previous research. It shows that MPs’ decisions to dissent are partly driven by ideological differences with their party, but also by the imperatives of maintaining a government majority in a parliamentary regime, along with the level of influence MPs exert on legislation. It also highlights the importance of distinguishing between abstaining from voting and defecting. Merely pooling the two oversimplifies the behaviour of MPs.     

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.     

Who is Governing What? Governing Local Technical Systems–an Issue of Accountability

The article discusses accountability in governance of local energy and IT systems. The aim is to focus on accountability of local policy making regarding technical systems by comparing consequences when new forms of governance are developed. Governance steering demands and ensures a clear division of responsibility regarding what a network is responsible for, but not regarding who is accountable for the decision making and implementation. On the other hand, in a steering context characterized by government, it is clear who is responsible and accountable for decisions, but the specific issues for which different actors can be accountable are unclear. We argue that demands for clarifications of accountability emerges from the complex modern governance.     

To depend on one's children or to depend on oneself: savings for old-age and children's impact on wealth

How did workers make provisions for old age before the introduction of old age pensions? What was the relative importance of dependence on children and saving for old age respectively? This article concerns the transition from a traditional family-based system for economic support in old age to a more modern system. Regarding the nineteenth century, studies have shown that (a) savings generally were insufficient for full retirement, and that (b) families were dependent on children's incomes when the breadwinner became older. Little attention has been paid to the question of how the relative importance of these two alternatives changed during the century. This question is addressed here in a cross-sectional study of net wealth based on probate inventories for three Swedish towns in the 1820s and the 1900s.

The results show that in general the economic importance of children was larger among the lower socio-economic strata. They also reveal that net costs for having children increased between the investigated periods. This means that dependence on children became more expensive. Consequently, the economic importance of this alternative decreased. This may have been a strong motive for the fertility transition.

On the other hand, net wealth for workers increased at the end of the nineteenth century. Financial assets constituted a great part of the increase. Workers with children had less financial savings than those without children, showing that there was a conflict between the traditional and the modern systems for support in old age. However, still at the turn of the twentieth century funds were generally too small to allow an old worker to retire. These results indicate that neither the old, nor the modern systems, fully satisfied the need for support in old age. This may explain why several Western European countries introduced old age pensions at the beginning of the twentieth century.     

True or false? Nineteenth-century Sápmi fertility in qualitative vs. demographic sources

There is limited knowledge about childbirth and childcare among Arctic indigenous peoples in historical times, and the Swedish Sami are no exception. The main aim of the present study is to investigate whether the Sami experienced fertility trends parallel to those of the rest of the population in the area and in Sweden as a whole. Digitized parish records offer a unique possibility to include comparisons from ethnic, cultural, geographical and long-term perspectives. The present study compares the statements about fertility and childcare provided by qualitative sources with data from quantitative demographic investigations. This comparison reveals a contrasting picture, from which it is evident that contemporary observers’ impressions of the Sami and their childbirths were somewhat inaccurate. Opposite to what the qualitative sources claimed Sami fertility was higher than the national average rates. Moreover, crude birth rates were high and the average number of children in families exceeded what was generally claimed. We can conclude that the statements made by clergy, physicians and travelers concerning childbirth among the Sami did not correspond particularly well with the demographic reality.