Mid-Level Officials as Policy Makers: Anti-Corporatist Policy Change in the Swedish Employers' Confederation, 1982–1985

The aim of the article is to provide an account of the process of policy change in the Swedish Employers' Confederation (SAF), 1982–1985, implying a shift from a pro-corporatist to an anti-corporatist view on interest representation within decision-making bodies of public authorities in the sphere of labour market and working life issues. In this respect, the study throws new light on the fall of the 'Swedish model' of industrial relations, by stressing the central policy-making role of a few individuals occupying their positions in the mid level, rather than in the leadership level, of the huge SAF hierarchy.
Given the formal structure of SAF and its statutes, SAF seems to be the least likely organisation to show signs of policy making in the mid level. Therefore, the case study also contributes to the general discourse about policy making in organisations, foremost by challenging mainstream rational choice theory assumptions of the role of the formal leadership in processes of policy change.
Being based on studies in the archives of SAF, the article reveals the mechanisms explaining why a few mid-level officials were successful in anchoring a minority standpoint into the basically 'model-friendly' leadership of SAF. The argument put forward is that the key to an understanding of this case of minority influence is to consider the mid-level officials' strategic use of different kinds of information-based persuasion and propaganda techniques. In fact, the policy-making mid-level officials belonged to a specific activist subgroup within SAF with its main base in SAF's department of information.     

Principles on a collision course? State sovereignty meets peoples' right of self-determination in the case of Kosovo

Sovereignty and self-determination are central features of international relations and international law. The concepts are often depicted as conflicting and incompatible. In addition, the meaning, application and relevance of both concepts continue to form the subject of debate. In practice, they remain important, fiercely protected and centrally placed in conflicts concerning territorial integrity or political status. In this paper, we argue that our understanding of the concepts and their interrelationships can be enriched by looking past conventional and often rigid conceptualisations, instead placing more emphasis on the ways in which they are used in particular cases. The aim of this paper is to analyse how state sovereignty and peoples' right to self-determination are given meaning in state practice. The paper focuses on the case of Kosovo, and in particular statements submitted by 36 United Nations member states to the International Court of Justice. Analysing the ways in which states use the concepts to rationalize and justify their position on the Kosovo case reveals several diverging and sometimes conflicting understandings that indicate a need to go beyond and problematize the clear-cut and inflexible conceptualizations that often shape the academic debate on the concepts of state sovereignty and peoples' right of self-determination.     

Death from Nitrous Oxide

Nitrous oxide is an inflammable gas that gives no smell or taste. It has a history of abuse as long as its clinical use, and deaths, although rare, have been reported. We describe two cases of accidental deaths related to voluntary inhalation of nitrous oxide, both found dead with a gas mask covering the face. In an attempt to find an explanation to why the victims did not react properly to oncoming hypoxia, we performed experiments where a test person was allowed to breath in a closed system, with or without nitrous oxide added. Vital signs and gas concentrations as well as subjective symptoms were recorded. The experiments indicated that the explanation to the fact that neither of the descendents had reacted to oncoming hypoxia and hypercapnia was due to the inhalation of nitrous oxide. This study raises the question whether nitrous oxide really should be easily, commercially available.     

Coalitions in European Union Negotiations

Coalitions will probably become an increasingly important theme in European Union (EU) politics. The spread of decision making by majority voting promotes coalition‐building behaviour. The impending enlargement is predicted to differentiate and polarize policy standpoints within the EU. Increasing levels of policy conflict imply increased propensities for coalition building. Still, the role and nature of coalitions in EU negotiations are obscure. This article raises important research questions: What characterizes coalition building in the EU? How important are coalitions? What coalition patterns are discernible?Using data from a questionnaire to Swedish participants on EU committees, it is shown that coalitions are more frequent when majority voting occurs than when unanimity rules. Coalition behaviour is, however, important also under unanimity. The existence of consensus norms diminishes the propensity to form coalitions. As regards coalition patterns, there is a prevalence of coalitions based on policy interests and/or on cultural affinity. Contrary to conventional wisdom, consistent and durable coalition patterns seem to exist. The north–south divide is one such persistent pattern. The Swedish respondents thus reveal a close cooperation between the Nordic member states and Great Britain, whereas France and Spain are seldom approached for coalition‐building purposes. As to future research, evidence from other member states and from case studies is needed in order to learn more about the bases for coalition building in EU negotiations.     

Longitudinal Analysis of Links Between Bullying Victimization and Psychosomatic Maladjustment in Swedish Schoolchildren

Cross-sectional studies of bullying mask variability in categories of and persistence of bullying victimization. Longitudinal, individual-level data offers a greater insight into schoolchildren’s psychosomatic maladjustment as a consequence of bullying. Swedish schoolchildren (n = 3,349), with unique identifiers, in 44 schools (4th–9th grade), answered a questionnaire at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Longitudinal trends for nonvictims (88%), ceased victims (4.7%), new victims (5.7%), and continuing victims (1.6%) revealed that new victims had the largest decrease in well-being; continuing victims had a smaller though not significant decrease; while ceased victims showed a small, (nonsignificant) increase in well-being over the measurement period. It was also discovered that children not bullied at baseline but bullied subsequently, differed, at baseline, from their never-bullied peers through lower levels of overall well-being. It is argued that this finding has implications for prevention strategies.     

Transferring custody from birth parents to foster parents – an ambiguous matter

In this study, we analyse 32 district court decisions regarding custody transfers from the birth parents to the foster parents in Sweden. When a child has been in foster care for three years, in order to enhance stability for child, the local social welfare committee considers a transferral of custody to the foster parents following an application to the district court. Although all but one of the decisions in our study favoured a custody transfer, the courts acknowledge different reasons for this. Specifically, there is vagueness about whether or not functioning contact between the child and birth parents is a hindrance in custody transfer. Our findings stress the need for clarification in the law regarding the criteria for custody transfer in order to reach a more unified judgment. Furthermore, the district courts do not sufficiently acknowledge children’s views, and we suggest that children and young people should be made more visible in the decision-making process.     

Arts Organizations and Branding: Creating a New Joint Brand for Three Arts Organizations

This article investigates brand architecture by analyzing stakeholder perceptions of brand images when a new joint brand is created for the existing brands of three arts organizations. The theoretical framework is based on previous literature on brand architecture and brand image. The empirical study is based on a quantitative, 418-respondent survey among stakeholders of these three arts organizations. The study makes two major theoretical contributions. First, the results show that the new joint brand can be endorsed by the existing sub-brands, contrary to brand-architecture literature. Second, even in the case of a new brand, stakeholders perceive the functional attributes as important.     

Swedish Reaction to the Assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme

Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot dead, on a street in central Stockholm, on his way home from the cinema late in the evening of 28 February 1986. The Swedish public reacted with grief and horror. The emotional reactions to Prime Minister Palme's assassination were greater than expected. However, placed in an international context they are, nevertheless, relatively weak. In the analysis, the situation six and four years after the assassination will be compared with the situation three weeks after the event. The focus is on: what role, if any, the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme has played in the way in which Swedes and immigrants express their views on a number of important issues related to the murder and what effect, if any, it might have on the Swedish political culture and on the trust of the Swedes in the political and judicial system. The final argument that can be presented from this study of the connection between exposure to a dramatic event, such as the murder of a prime minister, and children's and adults' political values, is that the emotional effect of the assassination fades away fairly quickly and is replaced by a much more vague and unclear structural effect related to the total impact of the assassination seen as a dramatic event of national importance. This kind of structural effect on the political culture in a country can never be clearly described and analysed for the simple reason that an effect of this magnitude is almost impossible to control and isolate from other experiences.     

The importance of discretion for welfare services to minorities: Examining workload and anti-immigration attitudes

Migration influx in Western countries resulting in increasingly diverse societies results in more complex situations for bureaucrats in their client interactions in welfare organizations. The role of discretion for services to clients has received much attention in the public administration research and therefore this study explores the relation among perceived workload, anti-immigration attitudes, perceived discretion, and perceived difficulty in working with migrants. The paper examines the function of perceived discretion as moderator or mediator variable in this constellation. The relations are examined by using structural equation modelling based on a survey among Swedish welfare bureaucrats (N = 1,319). The results show that heavier perceived workload increased the likelihood of experiencing work with migrants as difficult and that greater perceived discretion decreased the likelihood of experiencing work with migrants as difficult. The results suggest that perceived discretion functions as a mediator for the relation between perceived workload and difficulty in work with migrants: potentially functioning as a ‘buffer’ for organizational pressure. We also found that bureaucrats who hold negative attitudes towards migrants were more likely to express their work with migrants as more difficult. This paper contributes to the public administration literature by increasing our knowledge on how discretion has significance in relation to when bureaucrat's behaviour is determined by specific organizational and personal factors.