Family caregivers and decision-making for older people with dementia

This article addresses the dilemmas concerning legislation, individual autonomy and the reality of everyday life for people coping with dementia. We describe and analyse decision-making in relation to older people with dementia in Sweden, within the area of social work regulated by the Social Services Act and the Parental Act. Swedish legislation is based on the individual’s autonomy and capacity to consent to services without anyone having legal authority to decide on behalf of the individual. Based on data from interviews with family caregivers living at home, decision-making through family caregivers is discussed and formal guardianship is also considered. Swedish legislation leaves individuals with dementia and family caregivers in a vacuum between self-determination and full autonomy with the ideal of citizenship emphasised and recognised in the Social Services Act on the one hand, and on the other, a strong need for support in everyday life and with decision-making.     

Ownership of a cultural landmark: The case of Gotha Canal

Gotha Canal is perhaps the most gigantic construction work ever undertaken in Sweden. It is a seaway through Sweden that connects the Baltic Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. It is nowadays considered to be one of the most famous cultural landmarks in Sweden from the time it opened for traffic the canal was in 1832 until 1978 the canal was privately owned. Since then, it has been owned by the state. Such a long time of private ownership of transportation link is remarkable. This paper analyses why the change from private to state ownership finally took place and also looks at the implication of this ownership change for profit maximising behaviour and maintenance of the canal. A discussion of how ownership of a cultural landmark like Gotha Canal can be structured is also provided.     

The Europeanization of financial regulation and supervision on the Baltic–Nordic axis: the perspective of national bureaucracies

ABSTRACT

This article presents a comparative case study about the impact of Europeanization on two types of small North European states after 2008. For our case study countries, this is mainly a process of Europeanization. Our analysis focuses on interpreting the Europeanization process from the perspective of bureaucracies: we attempt to understand financial bureaucracies’ perceptions of, attitudes toward, and reactions to the post-2008 developments in financial regulation and supervision in Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and Latvia. This enables us to reflect on the implementation performance and embeddedness of post-2008 regulatory and supervisory principles in these countries.     

Gender equality in Swedish AI policies. What's the problem represented to be?

Over the past few decades, Sweden has established itself as a “world leader” in gender equality. Alongside this development, Swedish politicians have also initiated ambitious plans that aim to establish the country as “world class” in terms of digitalization. International research shows that women and racialized groups are in a minority in the design processes, that AI facial recognition systems are built with white male faces as the norm, and that digital tools replicate racial injustices. In this paper, we are interested in if, and if so how, gender equality is articulated and thus filled with meaning in national policies on AI and digitalization. The overall aim is to discuss the potential of gender (equality) mainstreaming to challenge systems of privilege in the implementation of AI systems in the public sector. The paper analyses how gender equality is filled with meaning in national policy documents on AI and gender equality. The main findings show that gender equality is turned into a question of lack of knowledge and information, which in turn blocks out an understanding of gender equality as something that is related to gendered power relations.     

Networks of organised black market labour in the building trade

The building industry is a sector characterised by a large number of opportunities to commit economic crime. In Sweden, the level of tax avoidance in the building trade is estimated to be substantial, and the use of black market labour extensive. This article focuses on the organised use of black market labour in the building industry, which may be described as a form of both economic and organised crime. To date only a very small number of criminological studies have examined the use of black market labour in this sector of the economy. The article focuses on two of the central roles found in the context of organised, black market labour: the “fixer” and the “criminal entrepreneur”. The fixer is an individual with expertise in the methods of economic crime. The criminal entrepreneur acts first and foremost as a link between a client and the manpower required by this client. In this paper, fixers and criminal entrepreneurs are studied on the basis of data from the Swedish Register of Suspected Offenders. The analysis shows that the networks of fixers and criminal entrepreneurs overlap one another to some extent. There are nonetheless a number of differences between the two groups and also between their respective networks. The networks of the fixers are larger than those of the criminal entrepreneurs, and the individuals that comprise the fixers’ networks are suspected in connection with much larger numbers of offences. The fixers more often commit offences together with others and also have larger numbers of suspected co-offenders than the criminal entrepreneurs. On the other hand, the criminal entrepreneurs are suspected of having maintained their ties to suspected co-offenders for longer periods of time than the fixers. The fixers appear to specialise in fraud and forgery offences, whereas motoring offences, smuggling and drug offences are more common among the criminal entrepreneurs. The networks are highly male-dominated and on balance they are comprised of much older individuals than those of traditional offenders. Many of the fixers and criminal entrepreneurs are suspected of committing offences with the same co-offender for a long period of time. Further out in the networks, co-offenders are replaced more often. Tax offences are very common in both types of network, both in those parts of the network that are close to the fixers and criminal entrepreneurs, and also in more distant parts of the networks. In the more distant parts of the networks, there is also an increase in the proportion of offences that individual network members are suspected of committing. Judging from the material examined in the current study, violent offences do not appear to be very common among either fixers or criminal entrepreneurs. The networks examined are largely comprised of individuals suspected of economic offences. These individuals are linked together with one another by means of direct and indirect contacts that produce semi-legal networks of individuals with knowledge of organised black market labour.

The neglected female unemployment in Sweden during the Great Depression

ABSTRACT

The unemployment statistics of the 1930s’ Great Depression have often been used as a way of estimating the endurance and severity of the economic crisis in different countries. The Swedish unemployment data have, among other things, been used in comparison with the American data to describe the different economic development that these two countries experienced during the twentieth century. Sweden’s ‘work approach’ to unemployment during the Great Depression has also been highlighted in earlier research as an answer to the question of why Sweden managed the Great Depression quite well and was able to kick-start the development of the welfare state. Unfortunately, the official unemployment data mainly covered men; female unemployment has been neglected both in the official records and in earlier research, and the praised ‘work approach’ only targeted male unemployment. In this paper, a new and previously neglected source of unemployment data is brought into the light in the form of poor relief statistics. From this information, a new estimation of the female unemployment during the Great Depression is made, which questions the grand conclusions that have been reached regarding the connections of the crisis and the later welfare state construction.     

Do crime hot spots affect housing prices?

ABSTRACT

Our knowledge about what happens to housing values when properties are close to places with high concentrations of crime, often called ‘hot spots’, is limited. Previous research suggests that crime depresses property prices overall, but crime hot spots affect house prices more than crime occurrence does and may affect prices of single-family houses more than prices of flats. Here we employ hedonic price modelling to estimate the impact of crime hot spots on housing sales, controlling for property, neighbourhood and city characteristics in the Stockholm metropolitan region, Sweden. Using a Geographic Information System (GIS), we combine property sales by coordinates into a single database with locations of crime hot spots. The overall effect on house prices of crime (measured as crime rates) is relatively small, but if its impact is measured by distance to a crime hot spot, the effect is non-negligible. By moving a house 1 km further away from a crime hot spot, its value increases by more than SEK 30,000 (about EUR 2,797). Vandalism is the type of crime that most affects prices for both multi- and single-family housing, but that effect decreases with distance from a crime hot spot.     

‘Inappropriate but not crime’? Policing racial hatred in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Racial bias afflicts police practices across the globe. Police discrimination against and mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities is indeed difficult to underestimate. While much attention has been thus paid to racially biased policing, fewer studies examine the question from the reverse angle, namely how the police themselves combat racist offences. This article offers empirical insights into the policing of racial hatred in Sweden, a relevant yet relatively understudied case. Drawing on interviews with police officers and crime investigators, I discuss law enforcement perspectives, e.g. perceptions and reasoning in relation to the investigation of racist offences. Findings evince a rather narrow approach as regards the constructions of racist motive that involves a relatively restricted use of bias labelling in identifying hate incidents, especially when the boundaries of racial hostility are perceived as blurred. I argue that while such an approach may reflect a legitimate effort to demonstrate the existence of a motive behind an offence, it may also lead to an underestimation of more mundane forms of racism and their harms inflicted upon racialized individuals and communities. The results have implications for ‘recognition’ and ‘belonging’ as benchmarks of democratic policing, and ‘the promise of inclusion’ associated with combatting hate crimes.     

瑞典的北极战略

在北极开发和竞争热潮的刺激下,作为北极八国中距离北极最为遥远的国家,瑞典也于2011年5月发布了《瑞典在北极的战略》文件,从历史联系、安全政策、经济纽带、环境与气候、调查研究和文化等六个方面,详细叙述了瑞典与北极之间的联系。该文件是瑞典政府在北极地区的第一个战略计划,也是瑞典在北极地区进一步发展的一个起点。该文件在着重强调瑞典与北极历史联系的同时,侧重关注气候与环境、经济发展和人文发展,其核心思想是着力强化与北极国家的合作来提升瑞典在北极的影响力。     

刑事诉讼价值论与目的论述评

大陆法系和英美法系国家在刑事诉讼上存在着侧重各不相同的价值观和目的选择 ,并形成了不同的理论学说 ;随着价值、目的用语的引入及对国外学说的借鉴 ,我国刑事诉讼价值与目的的理论也逐步确立并发展起来。通过对几种具有代表性的理论观点的评析 ,试图区分价值与价值观 ,澄清价值与目的用语 ,并揭示其意义