Under 2021 beviljades Vänersborgs kommun statsbidrag från Delegationen mot segregation (Delmos) för ett samverkansprojekt mellan det lokala brottsförebyggande rådet och den kommunala arbetsgruppen Samverkan för social inkludering. Projektet kallas Delmosprojektet och syftar till att skapa mer jämlika och jämställda förutsättningar för medborgarna i den socioekonomiskt utsatta stadsdelen Torpa att påverka sina liv. Samverkansarbete är ett nytt arbetssätt inom Vänersborgs kommun, där man hoppas hitta långsiktiga sätt att samverka kring det brottsförebyggande och trygghetsskapande arbetet.För att kvalitetssäkra arbetet i Delmosprojektet och ta fram underlag för fortsatt metodutveckling fick forskargruppen Samskapande hållbar samhällsutveckling (SHS) vid Högskolan Väst i uppdrag att genom observationer och intervjuer genomföra följeforskning. Forskningen genomfördes utifrån ett deltagarperspektiv och under projektets inledande fas, från september 2021 till januari 2022. Denna rapport är en både beskrivande och analytisk sammanfattning av projektet under den här tiden, med målet att illustrera utmaningar och möjligheter när det gäller kunskapsöverföring mellan de samverkansaktörer som representerar Vänersborgs kommun. Analysen är gjord utifrån ett arbetsintegrerat lärandeperspektiv och inkluderar faktorer som anses påverka lärprocesserna, såsom absorptionsförmåga, systematisk kommunikation, projektroller, gruppdynamik, gemensamma mål, tillit och relationer samt tidspress.Generellt uppfattas Delmosprojektet som positivt och dess mål som viktigt. Samarbetet i arbetsgrupperna beskrivs som väl fungerande med givande diskussioner i en trygg och inkluderande miljö. Genom medborgardialoger visar kommunen stort förtroende för och tillit till medborgarna och deras kunskaper och erfarenheter av området. Projektdeltagarna förstår vikten av medborgarperspektivet och önskar att det även fortsättningsvis är en del av kommunens arbete.Samtidigt uttrycker deltagarna att det finns utmaningar, framför allt i form av otydlighet kring projektstruktur, roller och gemensamma mål. De efterfrågar mer information kring projektet som helhet, men även en struktur för kommunikation mellan grupper och inom de olika förvaltningarna. Likt inom många andra kommunala projekt önskas också mer tid och resurser.Följeforskningen har funnit goda exempel att ta vara på inför framtida projekt men också möjligheter till utveckling. Att förankra kommande projekt är en viktig förutsättning för deras start och fortlevnad, och därtill krävs systematiska kommunikationsvägar, långsiktiga mål och ständiga utvärderingar. Att medborgarnas röster måste vara ledande i arbetet finns det inga tvivel om, men rapporten lämnar utrymme för frågor kring hur man bäst når medborgare som i vanliga fall inte kan eller vill nås.

The paper articulates a model of urban governance, developed through emergent analysis of the rulers, methods, rules and logics evident in the practices of security governance in Hout Bay, Cape Town. Informed by the concept of hybrid governance, this grounded theorising draws on extensive fieldwork on security governance practices in a complex urban neighbourhood to present a model of multiple and sometimes contending forms of governance that include, but are not limited to, bureaucratic, market, developmental, network and informal governance. Our model emerges from a critique of top-down approaches to understanding governance that starts with the state, institutions and law, or approaches that primarily focus on formal partnerships between the state and business or other social partners. The view from above can miss important aspects of how residents are governed ‘from below’ and informally. Hence it is impossible to understand from the formal, and in advance of grounded research, exactly how many places in urban Africa are governed. Exposing the particular and local forms of governance in urban Africa can support improved forms of service delivery and citizen’s experiences of living in their city. In addition, while our model may be relevant in other places, more important is the methodology of identifying the rulers and methods, but especially the rules and logics of practice, to surface the specific, and complex, forms of governance in an urban place.

The increasing use of automated systems for decision-making and decision support in public administration is forming new practices and challenging public values since public services must be impartially accessible and designed for everyone. New robotistic process automation (RPA) systems are generally designed based on back-office structures. This requires clients to submit relevant data correctly in order for these services to function. However, not all potential or intended users of these services have the competence and the capacity to submit accurate data in the correct way. Front-line case workers at public agencies play critical roles in supporting those who have problems using the services due to the a forementioned accessibility requirements and there by work in bridging digital divides. This article analyses strategies used by front-line case workers to complement RPA and improve the inclusion of all clients in the services. It builds on qualitative case studies at two Swedish authorities, including in-depth interviews and observations. The study shows that the discretion of the front-line case workers is limited by the RPA systems, and they also have limited discretion to support clients in their use of the digital services. Instead, they develop strategies in line with more service- and socially-oriented values; duty-oriented values are integrated into the RPA. The analysis shows the importance of forming new support structures for inclusion when public services are automated to maintain the core public values of inclusion and democratic legitimacy.

The study on which this article is based, aimed to map out and analyse the ways in which Sweden’s Gripen exports have been shaped and sustained since the end of the Cold War. It did so by examining three interrelated factors that have had an effect on Sweden’s defence industry. By illustrating how societal preferences, defence and security policy shifts, and the role of national identity have influenced weapons manufacturing and exports, this article provides a balanced overview of the most salient push and pull factors of Sweden’s Gripen exports. The central contention of the study was that Swedish weapons manufacturing and exports often involve a close interaction between interests and ideals. Moreover, due to the multitude of richly correlated, interconnected and mutually reinforcing elements related to such practices, there cannot be a neat and parsimonious distinction between agents and structures and domestic and international settings. Instead, the study was especially reflective of real-world practices and the strategic relational approach between those forces that shape and sustain Sweden’s Gripen exports.

This article aims to map out and analyse how Sweden’s security economy is shaped and sustained through security policies, political decisions, and personal connections amongst commercial and state elites. We treat the arms and security service industries as two sides of the same coin. In doing so, we address a shortcoming in the security literature that often analyses these two fields as separate areas of study with their own set of logic, research questions, theories, and methodologies. By bringing these two areas together, our study contributes to knowledge of the relationship between commercial defence and security actors and the state and a deeper understanding of Sweden’s security economy.  

Contemporary research on so-called Nordic branding has provided crucial insights into the social power of states and how various actors use and circulate ‘progressive’ nation brand tropes for political and commercial goals. Hitherto, the literature on Nordic branding has focused on a wide range of substantive issues, among other things, human rights, gender equality, social welfare and foreign aid, but considerably less attention has been paid to the topic of security. The present article adds to a small but established literature on how the security sphere is increasingly entangled with nation branding. In the Nordic region, we argue, the latter is particularly evident in the case of Sweden - one of the world’s largest per-capita arms exporters in the post-Cold War era but also a country known and often revered for its peaceful and progressive image. Focusing on the case of Sweden, the article contributes to knowledge of how defence industry-related actors (both public and private) draw on and frame nation branding tropes to sell and legitimise their products and services to both insiders (domestic constituents) and outsiders (the global security market).

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the status of Nordic development studies. To that end, we reflect on two themes that we consider as essential to the field of study but which cause both friction and fragmentation: (i) the many meanings of development; and (ii) Africa as a continued 'object' of Nordic development studies. The article concludes with a reflection about how we think different standpoints on these issues can be productively balanced.

In this essay I revisit The Prince and the Discourses and argue that across the design of these two texts on the theme of conspiracy Machiavelli constructs an ambush on Medici princes. I reconsider Mary Dietz’s (1986), and Langton’s and Dietz’s (1987) suggestion that Machiavelli’s The Prince was a deceptive political act through an exploration of the link Dietz and Sheldon Wolin (2004) draw between Machiavelli’s method and Renaissance artistry. I suggest that Machiavelli applied a one-point linear perspective – a scientific and visual method of pictorial representation and geometrical modelling that emerged for the first time in the Renaissance – to the political field. I test this hypothesis on the theme of conspiracy in Machiavelli’s work by arguing that The Prince ultimately presents one vantage point – that of the prince–while the Discourses offers another – that of the conspirators. I argue that a blindspot is created by these two texts when they are jointly considered: conspirators seduced, recruited, and trained by the Discourses eliminate a prince caught off guard for having followed the advice on conspiracy in The Prince.

Bachelor thesis writing and supervision as potential practice-based WIL 

In Sweden, students are required to write a bachelor’s thesis in both vocational and academic university programs, though the writing and supervision process differ across disciplines and institutions. In our research on undergraduate education and work-integrated education (WIE) in the social sciences, we conceive of thesis writing and supervision, as performed in the undergraduate program, International Program in Politics and Economics (IPPE) at University West, as an example of practice-based education. While studying the educational practice of thesis writing from the viewpoint of work-integrated learning (WIL), we pose two sets of questions: how and what kind of knowledge or skills are required and acquired, and what is the role and kind of supervision involved throughout the research-thesis writing process? The second set of questions is whether the practice of thesis writing could be classified as WIE, and ultimately, if WIL is achieved; more precisely, we are investigating what kind of learning is acquired and processed, and in what ways the “knowledge” acquired through this kind of research practice is transferable to “work-life” and result in “life-long-learning”? Is the thesis writing bridging the “gap” between the university and post-graduate professional careers? To answer these interrelated questions, we construct a theoretical framework that conceptualizes work-integrated supervision as cognitive apprenticeship and dissects the supervision process which aims to develop a particular set of skills that will align (i) the aim of highquality academic university education, with; (ii) the new (mass-) diversity of student population, with; (iii) the increasing emphasis on employability and career advancement.

Material and method

Our specific object of study is an academic program in political science that according to national curriculum regulations must contain a scientific research thesis, which is closely followed by supervisors assigned to student groups of two. It is a hands-on approach to supervision (Sinclair, 2004) following a strict timeline and structure as well as support. We investigate thesis-writing as a practice, the role of the supervisor therein, and the relation between thesis writing, the curriculum, and work-life. The primary data in this qualitative small-N study is gathered by a combination of interviews and participant observation. We conducted 15 semi-structured interviews and participated in 22 supervision sessions with 4 thesis groups. From the data collected, we identified p atterns, commonalities, and differences around how the students experience the practice of writing a thesis and its relation to their work life. 

Results and indications

The findings indicate that bachelor thesis writing and supervision in the form that it is practiced at IPPE is WIL. This specific model of supervision is that of an apprenticeship. While components of traditional (or vocational) apprenticeship is included in the relationship (especially when it comes to teaching/learning the actual p ractice of research), cognitive apprenticeship with a variety of methods to allow the apprentices to observe and actively engage in the practice through the supervisor’s strategic push toward independence (Collins, Brown, and Newman 1987) provides the basis of the relationship. The one-to-one hands-on cognitive apprenticeship supervision in the program is by far the most extensive task through which the students learn how to reflect on practice and become professional in what is a wide-open career trajectory. WIL is attained through working closely with a professional in their professional capacity as his/her apprentice and being trained in that very profession (as researchers) as a result of which they acquire the skills required for an increasingly intensive knowledge economy and the public sphere. The supervision model designed as an educative, supporting, and controlling process of seven steps ranging over 20 weeks complements the academic social science education students receive up to that point sealing the acquisition of epistemological skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, capacity for relearning, and coworking in groups as well as boosting ontological skills of time and project management in becoming confident professionals. 

Implications and contributions

While there have been previous studies on conceptualizing supervision within a WIL framework, they mostly focus on the supervision of students in the workplace/place of internship in relation to the work practices (Cooper et al., 2010), or supervision, mentorship, and feedback at the workplace (Eraut, 2010), rather than the academic thesis writing. These studies, therefore, focus on supervision more as a WIE practice, i.e., supervision with the intention of making sure that workplace experience of the supervisee serves certain learning outcomes (Billett, 2019), rather than as a WIL practice for learning to process experience for knowledge production. Our finding that the specific model of bachelor supervision within the context of WIL, based on the relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee(s) as a relationship of cognitive apprenticeship achieves WIL, is thus a novel contribution to the field. 

Thesis writing, at all levels of higher education, is considered the pinnacle of the learning process at that particular level, where the students get the opportunity to turn the core knowledge they acquired from coursework into a reflective experience. The way thesis writing is handled, therefore, seems to have special relevance from a WIE perspective, since the way this reflective experience is organized and guided by the supervisor has a significant impact on the extent to which the candidates can attain WIL: learning from experience as independent researchers and acquire the ability for “reflective” knowledge/learning (Billet 2012) on both practice and learning, as required for “progressive growth” (Dewey 1976-1983; see also Fleming & Haigh, 2018), as well as “critical reflections” (Trede & Mcewen, 2012). The result from our study thus contributes to the problem of knowledge transferability between the university and “work-life” (Eraut, M., 2010) be resolved through a “transformational” WIL model of academic supervision along the lines of Liberal Arts education’s broad appeal to knowledge and critical awareness that both question, analyze, and better prepare a diverse set of students for the knowledge economy, and a labor market that regularly sees people move in and out of different careers, not least as skills and even professions become obsolete (Crisp 2019; DeNis et al., 2003; Gannaway et. al., 2017).

Background: When the workload for the nurse becomes too high in relation to resources or time, there is an increased stress impact. This stress affects patient safety when the nurse tries to make up for the lack of time. The nurse must perform care with good quality, where nursing care must be in accordance with the patients’ physical, psychosocial, spiritual, and cultural aspects. This includes, among other things, good communication where the patient has the opportunity to participate in their own care.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses’ experience off work-related stress that can pose a risk to patient safety in a hospital environment.

Method: A literature-based study with a qualitative approach and analysis based on ten articles.

Results: The analysis resulted in three themes High workload leads to a lack of communication, Impaired ability to fulfill nursing responsibilities and Obstacles in the work environment risk safe handling of medicines.

Conclusion: Work-related stress affects patient safety negatively. Factors within nurses´ environment that emerge from this study can be helpful for further development within nursing and hospital organizations. 

Digital technology is becoming ubiquitous and embedded as an integrated part of our daily lives, in which the digital and the physical worlds are increasingly interconnected and intertwined. While advanced technology can provide tremendous benefits and opportunities, it can also be very complex and challenging to understand, potentially leading to fear, suspicion, and distrust. This paper investigates a case of human-robot interaction in cooperative manufacturing, focusing on understanding how operators, managers and viewers feel about cooperating with industrial robots using potentially dangerous tools like nail guns. The aim of the study is to identify how human reactions to technology-induced change can be understood. The research question is: how can different trigger points of fear or distrust in technology be understood in the context of human-robot interaction? The findings reveal three key factors in overcoming fear, creating trust and encouraging interaction: knowledge, control, and self-preservation. The main contribution is illustrated through suggested guidelines for aspects that have to be practically considered when building this type of flexible robot cell for interacting with industrial robots in a real setting.

This article investigates how the Swedish forest industry, as represented by the three largest Swedish private forest companies (Svenska Cellulosa AB, Stora Enso, and Holmen), through their main public relations (PR) channels frame the current dominant Swedish forestry model and alternative models that are promoted by the European Union (EU). The content analysis of the three companies’ trade magazines published between 2019 and 2022 explores the patterns in the PR framing of the forest management models with respect to economic, environmental, and social aspects. The time interval is centered by the July 2021 announcement of the EU’s new Forest Strategy for 2030. The magazines’ target audience is private forest owners, from whom Svenska Cellulosa AB, Stora Enso, and Holmen buy 40–50% of the timber used in production. The main finding of the study is that these corporations did not present alternative methods as viable options to replace the Swedish forestry model. The magazines, with some individual variations, respond to the alternative methods promoted by the EU and environmental associations by an increased emphasis on the benefits, mainly environmental, of the Swedish forestry model–framing the model as not only the most profitable but also the most ecologically sustainable. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

There are vital challenges for organization undergoing digital transformation, especially those that rely more and more on the ever-evolving platform economy. The hotel industry faces key problems as they need to have the power to control and augment the value chain supported by an ongoing access to accurate data (such as online customer behavior). We discuss on a conceptual level how such disruptive economic changes appear in the analogue and physical practice, at place in hotel organisations. We explore the practice of analogue disruption as it emerges as struggles and discontinuities that may not bring the expected flow of value to the business. This paper aims to examine how analogue disruptions takes place due to the ongoing digitalization in the hotel sector through the platform economy. We here apply a qualitative analysis with interpretative methodologies, that will open for further knowledge and insights on the analogue disruption of digital transformation. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Einleitung

Der Begriff »Vergewaltigungskultur« tauchte in den 1970er Jahren zuerst in den USA auf und wurde anschließend zu einem allumfassenden Erklärungsmuster für das Vorhandensein sexueller Gewalt in verschiedenen sozialen Bereichen: auf dem College-Campus, beim Militär, in den Gefängnissen und zu Hause. In manchen Studien wurden verschiedene Gesellschaften je nach ihrer Vergewaltigungskultur als »vergewaltigungsanfällig« oder »vergewaltigungs-frei« (Sanday 2003) kategorisiert. Wurden das normative Umfeld und die gesellschaftliche Wahrnehmung von Vergewaltigung mit dem individuellen Verhalten von Menschen verbunden, so ergab sich eine höhere oder niedrigere Zahl sexueller Übergriffe, mit mehr oder weniger harten Konsequenzen für die Täter.

Baum, Cohen und Zhukov (2018) stellten zum Beispiel in ihrer Stu-die über die amerikanische Vergewaltigungskultur fest, dass es einen signifikanten Zusammenhang zwischen der Vergewaltigungskultur und der Häufigkeit von Vergewaltigungen sowie der Reaktion des Strafrechtssystems gibt. Studien mit einem Fokus auf dem Einfluss oder der Prävalenz der Vergewaltigungskultur bezogen sich zwar auf die amerikanische Gesellschaft und arbeiteten mit einem daran ausgerichteten Modell, es gab jedoch überall auf der Welt auch Studien, in denen Ursachen, Manifestationen und Konsequen-zen von Vergewaltigungskulturen in unterschiedlichen soziokulturellen Kontexten erforscht wurden (Inal und Smith 2018). Entsprechend untersucht dieser Artikel die Vergewaltigungskultur in Schweden, wie sie sich unter Jugendlichen manifestiert, von ihnen erlebt und verstanden wird. Diese Untersuchung ist vor allem im Zuge der #Metoo-Bewegung von Bedeutung und in der von ihr ausgelösten Debatte über die Selbstwahrnehmung Schwedens als eine der Gesellschaften mit der größten Gleichberechtigung weltweit und jahr-zehntelanger aktiver Förderung der Geschlechtergleichstellung. Diesbezüglich wartet der schwedische Kontext mit einigen Paradoxien auf. Die nationale #Metoo-Bewegung hat schnell und lautstark mobilisiert und das strukturelle Vorhandensein einer Vergewaltigungskultur in einem Land aufgezeigt, in . . . 

De-democratization is a global trend, with an increasing number of governments gradually dismantling democratic institutions and norms in their countries. De-democratization can be seen as an incremental crisis that radically redraws the sociopolitical order. This article is among the first to highlight external knowledge producers in autocratizing contexts. Relying on a unique data set of 40 interviews with Polish think tankers conducted before and after the Law and Justice party came to power in 2015 and began pushing the country in an authoritarian direction, the article analyses how liberal think tanks handle de-democratization. The findings show that autocratization entails a reconfiguration of the think tank space; i.e. think tanks aligning with the government blossom and think tanks opposing the government are marginalized through a lack of public funding and access to policymakers. Second, significant changes in think tank tactics, strategies, and identities, especially among liberal organizations, are exposed. The doxic mode through which liberal think tanks produce analyses and provide policy advice as “nonpartisan experts” has shifted to the use of contentious tactics and the assumption of an openly political identity as “democracy defenders”

Think tanks, or organizations producing and disseminating policy knowledge to influence policymakers, are a given element of political systems around the globe. Depending on the national opportunity structure, think tanks take different forms. Individual think tanks usually represent a given ideological orientation or set of values. This chapter studies think tanks that align with the illiberal political agenda in Poland. These organizations, most of which self-identify as conservative, have played a significant role in the electoral success of Law and Justice, and after the party gained power, they have helped sustain the illiberal political orientation by providing the government with policy ideas and communicating policy decisions to the broader public domestically and abroad. Conservative think tanks form the intellectual infrastructure for the illiberal government, both proactively inspiring the illiberal agenda and reactively legitimizing it to external audiences. Benefiting from illiberal policymaking, they form the illiberal knowledge regime.

Relations between diplomats and civil society are central to diplomatic work. However, scholarship on diplomacy has not paid sufficient attention to how diplomats interact with civil society actors abroad. This article theorises and empirically examines diplomatic engagements with civil society organisations (CSOs) in host states. The article introduces a new concept – maternalism – into the analytical toolbox of diplomacy studies. While the Bourdieu-inspired ‘practice turn’ has entailed a recalibration of the study of diplomacy towards the everyday work of diplomats, I claim that we need notions that will help us understand these everyday practices in the context of structural power inequalities. In this endeavour, instead of turning to the established notion of paternalism, I follow feminist thinking regarding motherhood and the ethics of care. Maternalism is proposed as a complementary heuristic to paternalism that is helpful in capturing different modes of engagement between unequal actors in international politics and is not marked by financial dependency or military power. Maternalism and paternalism rely on distinct practices of care and control. To empirically illustrate the utility of the notion of maternalism, I analyse diplomats representing seven liberal states in the illiberal states of Poland and Hungary.

Think tanks are a special type of civil society organization engaged in research and advocacy. They produce and deliver social analysis to policymakers and the wider public, aiming to influence policy in a given direction while declaring themselves detached from vested interests. This chapter focuses on how the image of independence rhymes with think tanks’ need for significant economic resources, revealing two main strategies to resolve the resulting funding dilemma. The first strategy entails diversification of funding sources; the second is avoiding certain types of funding outright. The concrete sources that individual think tanks eschew turn out to be linked to their ideological profiles: conservative institutions highlighted foreign funding as the most problematic, while market liberal and centrist liberal institutions shunned state funding.

Pernicious polarization is an antagonistic Us versus Them division, where the other group is perceived as an existential threat. It is often intertwined with the erosion of democratic norms and institutions. Although studies on polarization abound, there are still some blind spots to be filled. Our contribution is the focus on the mesolevel of civil society and the theoretical development of (de)polarization mechanisms at this level.

Empirically, we study think tanks, a special type of civil society organization, in the context of democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland. The analysis is based on 53 interviews with Hungarian and Polish think tankers conducted between 2020 and 2022. We contend that through a shift in perceptions of Us, Them, and the middle ground, think tanks contribute to both polarization and depolarization. Rather than being passive receptors of polarization dynamics, we show casethink tanks’ agentic roles as they emerge through these three mechanisms and through think tanks resorting to specific patterns of discourse and interactions.

More than thirty years after the publication of the the Brundtland report “Our Common Future” (World Commission on Environmental and Development, 1987), the social dimension of sustainability remains theoretically underdeveloped. Sweden has since the adoption of the Global Sustainable Development Goals set out to take a leading role in the implementation of these goals. Granted that Swedish municipalitie s enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy and thus provide citizens with a majority of public services, municipalities are central to the realization of national commitments to international agreements such as the Global Sustainable Development Goals. Consequently, part of the national strategy for realization of the Global Sustainable Development Goals consists of support to municipalities in developing local strategies for implementation of the goals. Previous research on policy implementation highlights the importance of the policy formulation stage for successful implementation of policy (Winter and Nielsen, 2008, Winter, 1986, Bardach, 1977). With the social dimension of sustainability left rather vague and undefined on the international and national level, municipalities are likely to face some challenges both in translating the social dimension of sustainability into local goals but also in the realization of these. Some researchers argue that it is necessary to differentiate between scientific sustainability studies and processes of defining sustainability at the political level (Griessler and Littig, 2005). On the contrary, I argue that one way of developing the concept of social sustainability theoretically could be to study these practical political processes of defining social aspects of sustainability. The aim of this research is thus to explore and understand the complexity of the social sustainability concept in the local context of a municipality in Sweden. This study is part of a collaborative project on sustainable societal development between University West and Trollhättan municipality. The study is designed as an explorative case study of Trollhättan municipality, in which I use theories on policy implementation and social sustainability to conduct a qualitative content analysis of policy documents. In addition to policy documents, I have also included field notes from participant observations from meetings and workshops at Trollhättan municipality during the time-period January-November 2022. The preliminary results of the analysis indicate that Trollhättan municipality understands sustainability as threedimensional consisting of ecological, economic, and social sustainability. Social sustainability is understood as an important dimension in its own right and not merely as a means to support the ecological dimension. The link between the social aspects and the ecological aspects of sustainability is fairly weak. In terms of substantive social sustainability, the local social sustainability strategy has a focus on housing, employment, gender quality, health, and well-being. The understanding of the procedural aspects of social sustainability in Trollhättan is centered around creating pre-conditions, possibilities, and opportunities for social sustainability rather than reaching social sustainability in itself. There is an emphasis on inhabitant participation, but this aspect is not yet clearly defined in terms of how this participation is to be facilitated. The social dimension of sustainable development remains vague and undefined. With this study I exp lore the possibility of using a work-integrated learning approach in order to contribute to the theoretical development of the social dimension of sustainable development. I suggest that one way of gaining a deeper understanding of social sustainability as a concept is to study the practice of formulating, designing, and implementing policy at the level closest to the people affected by it. In Sweden this is the municipal level. This study aims to contribute both to sustainability research, research on public administration and policy implementation as well as work-integrated learning. 

Forsknings- och utvecklingsmiljön Samskapande hållbara samhällen (SHS) vid Högskolan Väst har under flera år arbetat i nära samverkan med kommunen Trollhättans Stad. Främst genomförs samarbetet i form av projekt finansierade av Delegationen mot segregation (Delmos) där fokus ligger på olika aspekter av segregation och social hållbarhet. Denna rapport sammanfattar ett Delmos-projekt som genomförts 2021–2022. Projektet leddes av Samhällsbyggnadsförvaltningen vid Trollhättans Stad och hade stöd i kommunens mål- och resursplan, hållbarhetspolicy och strategi för social hållbarhet. SHS deltog genom forskning samt som utbildare för kunskapsspridning.Segregation har sedan länge varit en svår utmaning för Trollhättans Stad. Tidigare rapporter har beskrivit och analyserat den både ur ett generellt statistiskt perspektiv och ur perspektivet ungas rörelsemönster i staden (Karlsson etal., 2021; Sunnemark etal., 2021). Vad gäller bostadssegregation pekar tidigare rapporter på ett behov av mer kunskap om hur förväntningar på, och identiteter kopplade till, platser i staden påverkar var Trollhättans invånare bor, vistas och lever sina liv. Det Delmos-projekt som ligger till grund för denna rapport tog sin utgångspunkt i dessa resultat och lade grunden för ett hela staden-perspektiv där segregation – speciellt bostadssegregation – inte ses som en angelägenhet enbart för vissa utsatta områden utan är en angelägenhet för alla kommunens invånare. Därmed behövs djupare kunskaper och erfarenheter från ett brett spektrum av kommunens invånare för att driva integrationsarbetet framåt. Denna rapport syftar till att öka denna kunskap samt identifiera metoder för fortsatt kunskapsutveckling som kan stödja konkreta förändringar. En del av arbetet är att identifiera möjligheter och hinder för mer integrerade och inkluderande blandområden att växa fram och utvecklas i Trollhättan. Sådana områden kan identifieras med hjälp av ett antal indikationer i kombination med DeSO1-statistik (Sunnemark etal., 2021:19–24).Dessa två ambitioner – hela staden-perspektivet och blandområdet – förenas i denna rapport. En fallstudie har gjorts i Innovatum – Norra Skoftebyn – Pettersberg (INSP) som potentiellt blandområde. Enligt Segregationsbarometern (2021a) faller det under kategorin ”områden med goda socioekonomiska förutsättningar” och utifrån de ytterligare indikatorer som används i rapporten kan det anses vara ett blandområde. Statistiskt är det representativt för Trollhättan som helhet och kan därför betraktas som ett Trollhättan i miniatyr.Rapporten baseras huvudsakligen på en utvecklad tidsrumslig stadsrumsanalys av INSPområdet, med intervjuer och geografisk information som grund. Tio invånare från området har deltagit i individuella intervjuer och gemensamma fokusgruppsintervjuer. I rapporten benämns dessa invånare stadsdelsexperter, inte för att de besitter en högre grad av expertis om områdets omständigheter än andra utan för att de utgör den mest diversifierade demografiska konstellationen av de sökande till studien och därmed har goda förutsättningar att illustrera livet i området ur både ett brett och ett djupt perspektiv.Studien visar att det finns både möjligheter till och begränsningar för att området utvecklas som blandområde. Möjligheter identifieras främst i relation till rekreation, utbildning, samhällsdeltagande och trygghetsupplevelse, medan begränsningar identifieras i relation till ekonomiska och etniska förutsättningar på bostadsmarknaden, främst sammankopplade med befintligt bostadsbestånd. Etnicitet identifieras som delvis begränsande även i relation till upplevd trygghet och kultivering av en platsidentitet. Slutsatsen är att fortsatt utveckling av ovan nämnda faktorer, gärna i nära samverkan med områdets invånare, är viktigt för att INSP-området ska realiseras som ett blandområde utifrån ett hela staden-perspektiv

This chapter explores human rights organizations resisting the illiberal reconfiguration of Polish society that has been spearheaded by the country’s ruling political party since 2015. By decreasing financial support, launching smearing campaigns, and engaging in intimidation practices, the political regime aims to influence the scope of economic, symbolic, human, and social resources available to human rights organizations. Using data from representative surveys and in-depth interviews with representatives of human rights organizations and other civil society organizations, we systematically examine opportunities and limitations in navigating such institutional pressures. Our study demonstrates that organizations’ characteristics and environmental conditions determine the action repertoire, including diversification of resources, coalition building, and public campaigns, that sustains an organization’s legitimacy and (re)generates various forms of support.

This open access book examines how civil society organizations in Poland, Russia, and Sweden (re)act to transformations of opportunities and limitations in access to various forms of resources. The volume’s contributions discuss the constraints associated with different types of resources as well as organizations’ capacities to generate resources—or compensate for their lack—as they negotiate and contest barriers. The resourcefulness of civil society is revealed to be rooted in a variety of capabilities: converting resources, eliciting organizational change, and metamorphosing in response to organizational and environmental development. ​

Citizen science games (CSGs) are a valuable means for motivating citizen science participation. However, many CSGs still suffer from the recruitment and retention issues of traditional citizen science projects, despite much prior literature on what motivates CSG players. In this study, we take a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) perspective to explore in what ways CSGs are still failing to provide motivating play experiences for players. Using Qualitative Content Analysis, we conducted and analyzed an online survey of 185 players from 9 citizen science games. This survey contributes insights to the current state of CSG experiences and next steps for developers to address these issues. We found that major concerns included scientific communication, instructional design, user interface and controls, task quality, and software issues. © 2022 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.

A politicization of diplomacy weakens the professionalism of the foreign service and arguably endangers the external relations of states. Yet, this phenomenon has largely escaped scholarly scrutiny. Public administration research on politicization usually overlooks the foreign service, whereas diplomacy scholars have focused almost exclusively on the United States. Our exploratory study of ambassador appointments compares the levels and modes of politicization (through politically connected professionals, or political appointees) of 669 ambassadors in 2019, across seven countries and three administrative traditions. The analysis is guided by three expectations: 1) countries that are more politicized overall appoint more non-career ambassadors; 2) patronage recruitment of political appointees focuses on low-hardship postings; and 3) politically connected professionals are used to control politically important foreign missions. We find that states politicize their foreign services to a varied degree and in different ways. Appointing politically connected professionals instead of political appointees is the most common way of politicization among our cases. In this regard, the US is an outlier, which also points to the need of studying politicization of diplomacy comparatively. This article thus makes an important contribution by setting the agenda for future research on this hitherto underexplored topic.

This article examines the construction of hegemonic masculinity in Greek political discourse, by analysing minutes from the Greek Parliament at the height of the economic crisis in 2010-2012. Based on Connell´s concept of hegemonic masculinity and the application of a discursive approach inspired by Laclau and Mouffe ([1985]. Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso), the article asks: (1) which discourses constituted the rhetoric of Greek elite politicians regarding economic policies during the crisis and (2) which hegemonic concepts of masculinity and femininity did Greek elite politicians elaborate upon and discursively position themselves in. It also reflects on the implications of the gendered speeches of these elite politicians. The article shows how the rhetoric of elite politicians includes different identities normatively related to manhood. The article argues that the construction of these gender dominant gender representations in the political discourse has severe implications in terms of functioning as a means of justification of austerity measures in Greek economy with negative consequences for politics and society. It is also argued that by adopting elements of hegemonic masculinity, Greek elite politicians contribute to creating an image of a powerful man to whom citizens should adhere, hence reproducing the male (white and heterosexual) norm. 

While long part of vocational and professional training, forms of practice-based education like Work-integrated learning (WIL) arenow spreading to academic disciplines like Political Science. The pedagogical entailed in WIL is that student learning requires the theoretical knowledge and practice of both the classroom and theworkplace, and therefore pledges better employability for graduates. At the same time, this promise entails a potential threat to disciplinesthat may call into question the assumptions of market and staterelations. The question thus emerges: is it possible to do critical WIL,and what would it look like? This paper makes a normative case that a critical WIL is both desirable and possible by turning to Hanna Arendt and Richard Turner to differentiate ‘banal’ from ‘critical’education. It further argues that any ‘critical’ educationalprogramme must be based on three principles. First, students must learn about how social systems work and how to be successful inthem, but they must also learn to critically reflect on the systemsthemselves, and to do so in normative terms linked to ending domination. Second, are students required to develop both thedispositions and attributes required for working life, and those required for acting to end domination. Finally, there must besufficient institutional independence of the programme from its partner institutions to protect the critical WIL agenda. These claims are illustrated through reference to a real-world attempt toinstitutionalise WIL in a Political Studies Masters programme inSweden.

The article develops a model for how an academic discipline like Political Studies can embrace work-integrated learning (WIL) to the benefit of students, the discipline, and wider society by interpreting WIL in relation to discipline-specific forms of knowledge and knower. The model is of a new Master’s in WIL in Political Studies (WIPS) at University West, Sweden, an institution that is experimenting with the idea of WIL as a discipline beyond the mainstream framing of WIL as pedagogy only. In this innovative context, three ideas are central to WIPS. First, the content of WIPS is about research knowledge, rather than Political Studies knowledge. Second, drawing on political philosophy, the important relationship between theory or science (episteme) and practice (techne) is framed in terms of an additional concept of practical knowledge (phronesis) regarding the particulars of political action to equitable ends and wisdom (sophia) in regard to the philosophical and ethical nature of those ends. Third, WIPS re-thinks student learning in ontological ways that focus on the capabilities of the political knower. In sum, WIPS frames WIL as “reflective practice on research-intensive political work”, offering a novel and enriched theoretical model of higher education learning of interest to other academic disciplines looking to embrace WIL.

This paper engages with the ambition of some forms of work-integrated learning (WIL) programmes to produce graduates who are not just well equipped for the world of work, but who are also capable of being change agents to bring about a more sustainable and democratic world. More specifically, we explore an innovative pedagogic practice termed the ‘Global Classroom Initiative’ (GCI) that has been piloted between colleagues at the University of Toronto, Canada, University West, Sweden, and in various iterations, the University of Stellenbosch, and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. The key focus of the paper is on the impact of the GCI experience on the disposition of participants to act as democratic citizens. In exploring this research problem, the paper draws on the views of participating students, facilitators, and the organising team over three iterations of the GCI. Our initial findings are that the GCI has a significant and even profound impact on participants express desire to act for sustainability, but it is unclear how enduring this view may be, and whether our findings are impacted by the self-selection into the programme of students already inclined to be activists.

The mainstream approach to WIL is a pedagogic one where students learn both through traditional teaching and practical doing, and this learning occurs both at the university and in the workplace, to better prepare graduates for working life. However, a great variety of WIL approaches exist, and some, such as at University West (Högskolan Väst) in Sweden, include the ambition to produce graduates who are better prepared for life in ge neral, and who are empowered to be change agents for a more sustainable and democratic world (Sunnemark et al 2022: forthcoming). Thus, the WIL process is orientated both to producing new kinds of knowledge but also a new kind of knower. This knower may even be deeply critical of the status quo and desire to bring about a more just world (Piper et al 2022: forthcoming). 

In the context of this framing of WIL at University West as committed to producing graduates who are change agents for democracy and sustainability, over the last 18months we have been experimenting with the ‘Global Classroom Initiative’ (GCI). While the concept of a global classroom long exists in American secondary schooling where it is associated with the Model UN programme (UN 2008) and has also been used at post-secondary level as a space for international engagement between University students around research (see https://globalmaryland.umd.edu/content/welcome-global-classrooms), the approach adopted in the GCI is distinctive. Thus, while it is international like many other versions, and it happens online, as most other versions do, it is also explicitly conceived as a space orientated to inspiring active citizenship – agency – among the participants, who must collaborate around a tangible project as the outcome of the engagement. Furthermore, it is underwritten by a normative commitment to sustainability and democracy too, and thus is well-suited to express desire by Högskolan Väst that WIL graduates become change agents for these social goods. Indeed, a key feature of the design of the GCI is that it follows a design theory model that is deliberately horizontal and participatory (Manzini 2015). Thus, while the process of the GCIs is design and facilitated, and do include some background academic reading, academic staff do not participate. Rather there is some input from various civil society organizations or activists to give examples of the kind of work they do, and then it is up to the participants, working in teams, to frame the problem as they see fit, and design a practical project to address it, one that they can implement where they live. Thus, the focus is on ownership of the whole process by participants, and the generation of an actionable outcome.

The paper reflects on the experiences of two GCIs conducted to date, and whether they do contribute to making graduates change agents. To this end, we draw on the views of participants, especially the students who have been through the process, but also the facilitator team and supporting academic staff. While our findings are largely positive there are two major caveats: first it is hard to judge how enduring the commitment to being a change agent is, especially in a world of work that does not necessarily support it. Second, to date the recruitment for our GCI events has been through voluntary and open calls. So, we cannot rule out that we students already likely to be change agents self-select into the events. Going forward however, we are institutionalising the GCI as part of a module at University West, and this should provide a more robust test of the innovation. 

Strategic urban planning has long been promoted as an important approach to transitioning to sustainable communities. However, previous literature on the Nordic context has critiqued strategic activities because they often take place outside of statutory planning procedures and therefore present legitimacy deficiencies. While the inclusion of both stakeholders and diverse expertise has been recognised as important in strategic planning, previous planning literature has focused either on the role of politics or knowledge in planning, but not as much on the relationship between the two. This paper aims to deepen our understanding of how political and epistemic authority affect the legitimacy of strategic planning by exploring how participants in an informal strategic planning process enact authority. By applying a theoretical framework of stakeholderness and boundary work, the paper shows how the balance between political and epistemic authority is important when legitimizing strategic planning processes. The paper concludes by suggesting the concept of knowledgeable stakeholders to describe actors’ enactment of political and epistemic authority. This paper argues for a need to repoliticise participation in strategic planning by illuminating the interrelatedness of politics and expertise, to which the concept of knowledgeable stakeholders can contribute

This paper provides further understanding of how social sustainability functions as a discursive boundary object, by exploring how it is artefactually anchored during the planning process, and how this anchoring affects the discourse of social sustainability. This is explored in a Swedish strategic planning project – the RiverCity in Gothenburg – where social sustainability is the desired policy objective.

This paper traces how the discourse of social sustainability shifted during the planning process (2012–2019) and shows how social sustainability contains two levels of meaning, substantives aspects of what a socially sustainable city is and procedural of how to achieve it. The substantive level functions as a boundary object between policy areas, however, the procedural level leads to goal conflicts when it is translated and artefactually anchored by different municipal departments.

The findings show how the conflicts between different translations of social sustainability change the discourse over time without changing the phrasing of the first level of meaning. This finding shows that 1) while the core idea persists different translations lead to different artefactual anchoring, 2) which shows a mismatch between long-term socioeconomic goals and short-term financial goals for social sustainability, and 3) risks the concept being hijacked.

This paper explores and analyse the evolvement and outcome of formal international partnership between University West (UW) in Sweden and Central University of Technology (CUT), South Africa. The collaboration was initiated in 2017, based on a mutual interest in the field of Work Integrated Learning (WIL). The differences in the universities' views, policies and strategies of WIL in research and education was seen as a strength, where the universities, through international collaboration, could learn from each other to foster further knowledge, skills and practices to develop the field of WIL in higher education and research.This study explores how an international university partnership aims to develop and integrate WIL a research and education approach to enhance societal development. The paper introduces a conceptual framework focusing on views and policies of internationalisation, connected to views and perspectives of WIL. The paper thereafter explores and analyse how an international collaboration is used to enhance and improve the different forms and approaches of WIL at the respective university.

UW and CUT comes with different history, perspectives, and strategies of WIL. The institutions recognised different strength, weaknesses and focus of WIL, which was seen as an important starting point and cornerstone for a partnership to learn from each other, and jointly develop WIL in higher education and research. In connection, the partnership aimed to further develop WIL as a new academic field, focusing on applied research approaches and strategies, together with and for societal actors, adress real societal challenges.

The partnership has been instrumental in creating opportunities to discuss and analyse the concept and application of various forms of WIL that through a close collaboration strives to overcome challenges and provide opportunities for development to the benefit of society at large. In short, the partnership has sparked various developments of WIL in higher education and research, including PhD student from CUT to be enrolled in the WIL doctoral at UW. Collaboration through an international master’s program me in WIL, will enable students from CUT and UW to study together. Through networks with industry and organisations in the respective country, internship placements is another WIL component being planned for undergraduate- and postgraduate students from both universities. Researcher from UW and CUT has initiated several research ventures and are co -publishing research outputs with a distinct WIL profile. In all, the collaborative partnership has enhanced the integration and development of, from local to international level, improving the outcome for students, researchers, and society. The partnership includes several important components, with definite possibilities for further development.Students from CUT are enrolled in the doctoral programme in WIL at UW, providing relevant WIL research and PhD staff in WIL at CUT. This helps to make inroads into establishing WIL as an independent research field of its own in the South African context and to possibly further international networks. It also helps to deve lop WIL as a research field at UW by adding South African perspectives and experiences.

The collaboration of the master's programme in WIL, offered by UW, will enable students from CUT to apply and enrol in a post-graduate WIL education and degree, without moving across the globe, hence providing a more inclusive approach to higher education, connected to the local society. Also here, WIL can be further developed by international experiences adding perspectives to both the Swedish and South African context. This both as an educational philosophy and structure as well as a field of study. Internships that are local in practice have the possibility of being global in scope through being part of an extended network, and thereby develop ways of studying WIL-processes that further strengthens WIL as an independent field of study.

Under- and postgraduate students from UW can, through the established formal structure at CUT, conduct internship placements in South Africa. A long-term sustainable collaboration between the institutions creates a foundation for opening for work and practice placement for students from all faculties, wanting to further their study period with international experiences and learning in and from working life in another context than their usual.

Researchers from UW and CUT has initiated several research ventures and are co-publishing research outputs with a distinct WIL profile. By connecting this to extended personal and professional research networks, the independent field of study can be further stabilised, and not least grow in the South African context.

The collaboration has also strengthened the WIL profile and branding of the respective university, nationally as well as internationally. As an example, the universities are planning to co-host an international WIL conference in South Africa during 2024.

Purpose: Social sustainability is a concept frequently referred to in public debates concerning how to construct the governance of future societies. The interpretations of its meaning, however, are ambiguous, and practices often dubious. Confronting top-down technocratic governance structures, this paper aims to argue for for tripartite collaborations between residents, higher education institutions (HEIs) and local government, as an approach toward social sustainability that involves residents’ interests in local governance. Design/methodology/approach: This study argues that a specific time-spatial method of analysis can benefit the co-creation of knowledge as it passes through the spectrum of resident–HEI–local government. It provides a way for resident perceptions to become structured knowledge that originates from the residents, effectively engendering a bottom-up governance structure. Findings: This study shows how to include residents in policymaking and implementation processes as co-creators of knowledge, and thereby displays the possibility of examining knowledge and competence within municipal projects for social sustainability. Originality/value: The model developed in this study can be used as a methodological instrument to analyze and expand resident participation in local social sustainability work. It thereby provides a toolbox for inclusive policymaking and strategies. © 2023, Fredrik Sunnemark, Emil Gahnström, Hedvig Rudström, Erika Karlsson and Per Assmo.

Purpose

This study aims to explore barriers and facilitators for knowledge transfer and learning processes by examining a cross-departmental collaborative project in the municipal organization. It is based on a R&D collaboration between University West and a Swedish municipality.

Design/methodology/approach

To explore the barriers and facilitators, the data collection was made through observation of the project implementation process, as well as 20 interviews with public servants and external actors. To conduct a systematic qualitative-oriented content analysis, the article constructs and applies a theoretical analytical framework consisting of different factors influencing knowledge transfer and learning processes within a municipal organizational setting.

Findings

This study explores the facilitators and barriers to knowledge transfer and learning processes, specifically focusing on strategic communication, individual roles, common goals, time pressure, group learning, trust and relationships and absorptive capability. Lack of communication affected the group learning process, while the close relation between time pressure, group learning and trust in colleagues is also pointed out as crucial areas. Trust developed through dialogue efforts helped overcome project fatigue. Coaching with a human rights-based approach improved organizational absorptive capabilities.

Originality/value

The study gives important insights into organizational learning within a municipality in Sweden for the successful implementation of collaborative projects. Knowledge must be transferred for the organization to learn to develop and tackle future challenges and its complex responsibilities. The theoretical analytical framework provided in this article has proven to be effective and is therefore transferable to other organizations in both the public and private sectors.