Decades of social science stress the vital role of trust in a robust democracy, and scholars have explored the origins of trust, highlighting the dynamic interaction between institutional trust and generalised social trust. While the literature exhibits uncertainties regarding the causal direction between these various forms of trust, it generally suggests that trust in institutions spills over to trust in people in general. This article examines a neglected aspect of trust studies – the relationship between local institutional trust and community trust. Drawing on a two-wave panel study from Sweden, the results indicate bidirectional relationships between the two forms of trust over time. In so doing, this study contributes to the prior research by showing that in a local context, where daily interactions take place between community members and representatives of local institutions, the relationship between trust in neighbours and trust in local institutions appears to be more complex and interdependent.

Valdeltagandet är högt bland unga och följer ganska väl befolkningen i stort. Det finns dock en oroväckande klyfta i samhället, alla unga upplever inte att de har lika möjligheter att göra sin röst hörd. Unga med sämre socioekonomiska förutsättningar deltar i lägre utsträckning i val. Under samtal med unga träder också en allvarlig bild fram av att unga inte upplever att samhället finns till för dem eller att politiska företrädare inte lyssnar. De känner sig inte inkluderade.

Den här rapporten visar att det spelar roll var unga växer upp och bor. Ungas socioekonomiska förutsättningar är tätt sammankopplade med valdeltagande. Det finns betydande skillnader i valdeltagande mellan olika områden i kommunerna i hela landet. Det visar att skillnader i social jämlikhet riskerar att leda till politisk ojämlikhet. De geografiska skillnaderna i valdeltagande pekar på att det finns behov av insatser som utjämnar skillnader i uppväxt- och levnadsvillkor. Alla unga ska ges likvärdiga förutsättningar, det ska inte spela någon roll var de bor.

Perspektiv på offentlig verksamhet i utveckling - Tolv kapitel om demokrati, styrning och effektivitet samlar texter från doktorander och forskare knutna till Forskarskolan Offentlig verksamhet i utveckling (FOVU) vid Örebro Universitet. Antologin erbjuder en mångdisciplinär och omfångsrik behandling av en rad viktiga utmaningar för dagens offentlig verksamhet. I boken behandlas ämnen som korruption, jämställdhet, trygghet, medborgardialog, sjukskrivning och högerextremism. Målsättningen med boken är att skapa en bro mellan inomvetenskapliga debatter, offentlig praktik och politik. Här erbjuds kortare texter som på ett överskådligt sätt angriper praktikrelevanta ämnen utan att göra avkall på den vetenskapliga kvaliteten. Vissa texter erbjuder forskningsöversikter och reder ut oklarheter i teoretiska debatter, medan andra presenterar resultat av empirisk forskning.

Det här kapitlet presenterar en forskningsbakgrund över hur svensksamhällsvetenskaplig forskning har studerat det svenska organisationslivetfrån mitten av 1900-talet till idag. Tillbakablicken illustrerar att begreppetcivilsamhället kan kasta nytt ljus över relationen mellan det civila ochoffentliga samhället och problematisera den samverkan som vi idag ser tarform inom offentlig förvaltning.

The paper investigates whether the local political context has an impact on the frequency of contacts between voluntary associations and local politicians. The study contains data from two different surveys, one directed towards the citizens of the four selected municipalities and the other directed towards local voluntary associations and it also contains qualitative interviews with local level politicians. One of the conclusions is that one aspect of political opportunities structures, the stability of the political majority, seems to matter for the perceived outcome of the contacts between voluntary associations and local politicians. With one dominating political party in the local government the local voluntary associations seem to find it more difficult to influence local level politicians.

I artikeln uppmärksammas hur nordiska folkhögskoletankar spridits globalt. Möjligheterna att studera denna spridningsprocess med analytiska verktyg från nyinstitutionell organisationsteori diskuteras. Framförallt mytbegreppet bildar utgångspunkt för diskussionen. Utifrån en genomgång och tolkning av internationell litteratur presenteras tre idealtypiska spridningsmönster för folkhög-skoletanken (migration, inspiration och export), vilka illustreras med hjälp av exempel på utbildningsinstitutioner från Japan, USA, Tanzania, Argentina och Bangladesh, och hänvisar till folkhögskolan som förebild. Artikeln uppmärksammar att frågan om hur olika föreställningar om folkhögskolan använts för att legitimera och organisera varierande typer av vuxenutbildningsinstitutioner och verksamheter världen över rönt betydande internationellt intresse, men att den ägnats nästan obe-fintlig uppmärksamhet i svensk pedagogisk forskning. Att studera folkhögskoletan-kens spridning med hjälp av verktyg från nyinstitutionell organisationsteori pekas ut som en möjlig och generativ forskningsingång som kan bidra till kunskapsutvecklingen inom svensk folkbildningsforskning och länka denna till internationell jämförande pedagogisk forskning.

The OECD con­sid­ers co-production an impor­tant social inno­va­tion. This paper dis­cusses alter­na­tive def­i­n­i­tions of inno­va­tion, since tra­di­tional def­i­n­i­tions, employed by econ­o­mists for indus­try and man­u­fac­ture, do not fit well with pub­lic ser­vice pro­vi­sion. It then presents some def­i­n­i­tions of co-production, dis­cusses the rela­tion­ship between staff and their clients, and asks whether co-production is based on indi­vid­ual acts, col­lec­tive action or both. It briefly dis­cusses sev­eral fac­tors that can con­tribute to mak­ing co-production more sus­tain­able. This paper con­cludes that gov­ern­ments should develop more flex­i­ble, ser­vice spe­cific and orga­ni­za­tion spe­cific approaches for pro­mot­ing co-production, rather than look­ing for sim­ple “one size fits all” solu­tions to the chal­lenges fac­ing pub­lic ser­vice deliv­ery in the 21st Cen­tury, par­tic­u­larly for endur­ing wel­fare ser­vices. Finally, it rec­om­mends more research to pro­mote sus­tain­able co-production.

Tillit mellan människor är en viktig resurs som kan bidra till att skapa lösningar på bland annat samhällsproblem. Är tilliten lätt att rasera eller är den i grund och botten stabil? Påverkas människors tillit av faktorer i omgivningen där de verkar och bor?

I Den svala svenska tilliten analyseras resultaten från internationella studier men framför allt från en stor befolkningsundersökning i 33 svenska kommuner. Tilliten i Sverige är hög i ett internationellt, jämförande perspektiv men det finns betydande skillnader inom landet. Detta gäller speciellt den form av tillit som författarna kallar lokalsamhälletillit. Analyserna visar också att såväl ojämlikhet som invandrarrelaterad mångfald är kopplade till lägre lokalsamhälletillit.

Sega sociala strukturer har historiskt skapat en bred men sval tillit i Sverige. Författarna frågar sig om den kan utmanas och försvagas av förändringsprocesser som märks främst på lokal nivå och om dessa förändringar nödvändigtvis är av ondo.

Since the 1980s in Sweden, children’s violent actions in schools have been reported to the police as criminal offences more frequently than before. This increasing trend is analysed against the background of a general increased cultural sensitivity to violence and slowly developing social changes that affect the propensity to report every form of violent incident to the police. This project analyses 1,239 police reports of assault, unlawful threat, molestation and insulting behaviour committed in schools by 7- to 14-year olds in ten municipalities in the Stockholm area. The time period studied is from 2000 to 2010. Regression analysis shows systematic differences among schools in different areas and social contexts. Average merit ratings, which are a measure of the educational quality of schools, explain most of the variance and correlate negatively with reported incidents. There are also significant differences among municipalities and school forms in terms of police reports. So-called resource schools, which are designed to serve children with special needs, report extremely high numbers of incidents per child. Reporting seems to have been routinised in many schools, including resource schools. Our results can be interpreted as suggesting that increased cultural sensitivity generates a bias against children in less affluent contexts.

Co-production is a term that has been used to describe arrangements where receivers of services are also involved in producing them. This type of arrangements can be found in a wide range of services and situations, which has stretched the concept of co-production to a point where its meaning is becoming less clear. This paper presents research on co-production from two very different service areas that will show both commonalities and differences in the interpretation of the concept. What is at the core of the concept and how can co-production be transferred from one service area to another? These are questions addressed in this paper, using existing research on childcare and addiction treatment and in Sweden.   

The overall issue addressed in this thesis is the challanges to the Swedish welfare state. This topic has been the subject of several different interpretations in the academic as well as political debate in Sweden over the last decade. The first of two questions raised in this thesis is therefore what the main challenges to the Swedish welfare state are. It is concluded that the main challenges are the challanges to the representative democracy that originate in measures to meet the economic challenges to the Swedish welfare state by making it more efficient and rational. The main challenges to the Swedish welfare state are, therefore, a mix of interrelated economic and democratic challenges. A specific factor is tested for its possible impact on these challenges and that factor is third sector provision of welfare services. The second of the two research questions is therefore in what way and to what extent the third sector can influence how the identified challenges affect the welfare state. Childcare is selected as an example of a welfare service where there are a considerable proportion of third sector providers, primarily parent and worker cooperatives. The diversity, level of participation and service quality of different types of childcare is analysed with regard to how they affect the here presented challenges to the welfare state. It is concluded from this analysis that there are democratic benefits in the third sector provision of childcare that can act complementary to the challenged representative democracy. It is also concluded, however, that not all Swedish childcare can be provided by the third sector and that its democratic benefits therefore also should be produced by other types of childcare by imitating the third sectors active participation, small scale and independence. This study shows that Sweden is rapidly moving towards a greater diversity in its delivery of welfare service and that there are no policies or institutions for facilitating a more diverse service provision. An additional conclusion is for this reason that the outcome of the economic and democratic challenges varies with the direction of this diversification, which tells us that such policies and institutions are desirable. The Swedish welfare state will be getting a more diverse provision of welfare services regardless if there is any readiness for it or not and the results from this thesis show that the third sector is the non-public type of welfare provider that best facilitate the values and morals of the welfare state.

This article presents some unexpected findings from a study of the upper secondary school voucher system in Sweden. This publicly funded but relatively unregulated quasi-market offers a large number of alternatives to teenagers choosing an education. The choice situation is relatively complex and the stakes are high, but the youths themselves find the decision unproblematic. A possible explanation for this is that the future upper secondary students mistake information for knowledge. In lack of knowledge they follow a norm of conformity according to their outer circumstances. This leads youths from different socioeconomic groups to experience different choice situations and outcomes.

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse the growth in food aidin Sweden, and how it affects the non-profit organisations providing it. The partic-ular type of food aid in focus is large-scale collaborations between charitable non-profit organisations and the food industry, through which food surplus is turned intofood aid for people in food insecurity. The first examples of such food aid emergedless than 10 years ago in Sweden, but it has since experienced a dramatic growth. Thedevelopment in Sweden follows a pattern known from many other Europeancountries, with the exception that it is going faster, as if Sweden is catching up. Thismakes food aid in Sweden an interesting case for an empirical study. The article isbased on an interview study performed in 2022. Staff and managers at two large,national organisations were interviewed about how the rapid growth in food aid hasaffected their work and the institutional logics of their organisations. They alsoprovided their thoughts on the role of food aid in Swedish society. One of the mainfindings is that the growth in food aid bring both the benefit of more people in needreceiving help, and the challenge of strain as well as concerns regarding ethics andmission drift in the organisations. Another finding is that the growth is driven byboth a growth in demand for food aid, but also by a growth in supply of food from thecharities and their corporate partnerships

Denna rapport utgör en forskningsöversikt över litteratur som undersökt förutsättningar, möjligheter och utmaningar för hållbart boende i form av bygg- och bogemenskaper. Byggemenskaper är kollektiva projekt där deltagare aktivt bidrar till att skapa sitt framtida boende, med varierande grad av privat och gemensamt utrymme. Bogemenskaper är kollektiva boendeformer med varierande grad av gemenskap, deltagande och styrning. De kan inkludera gemensamma ytor, aktiviteter och tjänster, och de har ofta sociala mål som miljö, integration och hållbarhet.

I dag är bygg- och bogemenskaper relativt marginella fenomen på den svenska bostadsmarknaden. Men de skulle kunna vara en del i ett svar på några av våra största samhällsutmaningar. En sådan utmaning är den åldrande befolkningen och de sociala och ekonomiska följder den kommer att få för Sveriges kommuner och regioner. Bogemenskaper har visat sig kunna erbjuda en slags medelväg mellan individuellt boende och institutionsboende som kan bryta social isolering, erbjuda ömsesidigt stöd och skapa en känsla av sammanhang särskilt för äldre.

En stor ödesfråga kopplat till byggande och boende är klimatkrisen. Bogemenskaper har också visat sig kunna minska de boendes miljö- och klimatavtryck genom att resurser och utrymmen delas. Byggemenskaper har dessutom visat sig vara ett sätt för miljömedvetna personer att försöka bygga mindre miljöbelastande bostäder åt sig själva genom innovativt användande av ny teknik. Både bygg- och bogemenskaper kan organisera och tillvarata engagemang i miljö- och klimatfrågor, och dessutom kan de i bästa fall verka som ”skolor i miljötänkande” och som skyltfönster för miljö- och klimatsmarta boendeformer.

Syftet med denna rapport är att sammanställa existerande kunskap om bygg- och bogemenskaper för att skapa en mer sammanhållen bild av potential och begränsningar för dem i relation till dessa utmaningar. Rapporten försöker besvara följande frågor:

Vad kännetecknar bygg-och bogemenskaper?Vilka samhällsvisioner knyts till bygg- och bogemenskaper?Vad kännetecknar de som deltar i bygg- och bogemenskaper?Vilka typer av hinder stöter bygg- och bogemenskaper på?Rapportens resultat visar att det finns många argument för att det ligger i samhällets intresse att verka för fler bygg- och bogemenskaper. Det som framför allt talar emot bygg- och bogemenskaper är att de huvudsakligen verkar attrahera en begränsad del av befolkningen. De som deltar i bygg- och bogemenskaper är vanligtvis socialt engagerade, ofta mer högutbildade och något äldre än allmänheten, och de är mindre heterogena än samhället i övrigt vad gäller etnisk och kulturell bakgrund. Den stora utmaningen för politiska ambitioner om att öka antalet bygg- och bogemenskaper är därför att finna sätt att göra dem tillgängliga och attraktiva för fler och bredare grupper i samhället. Därutöver stöter byggemenskaper ofta på hinder vad gäller till exempel finansiering, byggnormer som är dåligt anpassade, och krångliga beslutsprocesser.

In this study I investigate whether and to what extent local voluntary associations in Sweden maintain values of democratic governance. The study is based upon a survey of about 400 local voluntary associations within four local communities. The results show that a vast majority of these associations are supportive of member influence and governance through internal democracy. These values can also explain civic engagement of these local voluntary associations. The results indicate that if these values would change radically it would probably have an impact on civic engagement of these organizations, but at present the support remains solid.

A cornerstone of democracy is the capacity of citizens to influence political decisions either through elections or by making their will known in the periods between elections. The aim of the present study is twofold: (1) to explore what factors inherent of the voluntary associations that determine the perceived success in their attempts to influence policy and (2) to investigate what role the composition of the local government have on the perceived success. This study is based on a survey conducted among 404 local voluntary associations in four different municipalities in Sweden. The results show that the frequency contacts influence perceived success positively, while the level of civic engagement of the voluntary associations affected the perceived success negatively. Having a heterogeneous local government also contributed positively to the perceived success to influence policy.

This chapter analyzes different perspectives dealing with organizational change and the dissemination of ideas and practices between different contexts. Through an investigation into projects featuring cooperation between Swedish and Estonian civil society organizations, the chapter demonstrates how different concepts brought together can further our understanding of such processes.

This article deals with civil society organizations active in the field of family policy and demographic issues in contemporary Russia, using Michel Foucault’s concepts of biopolitics and governmentality. More specifically, so called “daddy-schools” that have emerged in and around Saint Petersburg since 2008, are studied, using interviews and documents. The analysis shows that the organizations work as a complement to the state but have also been able to influence policy, alter legislation and challenge the established assumptions and governmentality of the Russian state concerning parenthood, the “good” father and how to deal with the ongoing demographic crisis and increase fertility.

Several challenges, external and internal, to the identity and position of civil society organizations exist today. Organizations may be tempted or coerced into closer cooperation with the state. There are also incentives to become more market oriented. This article deals with such struggles in Swedish study associations and how these organizations attempt to gain legitimacy. The tradition of the organization is an important legitimating aspect and so is efficiency. These two aspects can complement each other but may also collide. The article demonstrates how civil society organizations handle an influx of market logics and trends of professionalization when these clash with a civil society identity. The findings indicate that different isomorphic processes are at work. Cultural resources are used to handle conflicting myths, leading to varied discursive strategies and incidences of decoupling.

History and traditions are important for many civil society organizations (CSOs). However, they have to mediate between their original mission and modern-day realities. This article argues that the concept of decoupling can enrich analyses of how organizations deal with path dependency. Hence, theoretically, the article discusses cross-fertilization between historical and organizational institutionalism. This is illustrated through a study of Swedish CSOs using survey data, interviews and documents. The Swedish popular movement tradition is argued to be a path that is not easily abandoned, and the results show how actors in CSOs find history to be both a resource and a constraint. Furthermore, different decoupling strategies, including both reversed and official decoupling, are used to balance between historical legacies and current challenges.

How does participation in non-formal learning influence the self-perceived well-being among older adults? This article looks into that issue through a study of people aged 65 years or older who have participated in Swedish study circles. The data analyzed consists of a nation-wide survey of study circle participants.

The results show that there are beneficial effects from participating in study circles for the well-being of older adults. As could be expected, participants claim that their knowledge and skills have increased but the main finding is the importance of the social dimension of participating in non-formal learning activities. The fellowship created in study circles is both an important motive for participation and an important outcome of having participated. This, however, is not at the expense of gaining new knowledge. Rather, the two dimensions may strengthen each other.

Non-formal settings appear to provide an environment that has positive effects on the well-being of older adults by fostering a sense of belonging and the opportunity to be part of a fellowship that may work as an aid in avoiding social isolation and loneliness.

What do we know about fatherhood and norms concerning fatherhood in Russia? This article investigates this question using previous research and the contemporary state-discourse. Family and parenthood have been important parts of the state-discourse during the last decades due to the demographic situation in Russia. However, at the same time, fathers are more or less absent from the discourse while mothers and children are occurring frequently. With this as a background, the role of the father is examined, in the past and in the present. This is done using previous research on Soviet and Russian fatherhood, with the aid of knowledge gained through fatherhood studies in other national contexts as well as current policy documents and presidential speeches.

The results show that norms concerning fatherhood are closely connected to the sociopolitical context and changes in welfare systems and in the gender contract. The development of fatherhood models differ between Russian and West European, and American, experiences. In today’s Russia there are competing discourses, suggesting that the role of the father is contested. There is evidence of both a marginalized fatherhood model, a legacy from Soviet times, of the traditional breadwinner model of fatherhood as well as of a more nurturing and active type of fatherhood.