Academic literature on the topic 'Scandinavian institutional theory'

This article discusses to what extent the widely accepted hypotheses of Hugo Grotius’s crucial impact on the theory of contract law – also in Scandinavia – may be maintained or even positively confirmed. Although few direct references to the works of Grotius can be found in Scandinavian legal literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, it would be premature to draw a negative conclusion. An impact of Grotius’s thoughts may rather be demonstrated by thoroughly analysing patterns of argumentation concerning specific contractual topics both in legal literature and case law. The article provides the reader with necessary information on the institutional and intellectual preconditions for the reception of Grotius in the Scandinavian legal orders before discussing the impact of the ‘will-theory’ on the requirements of a legally binding contractual agreement in the works of selected influential legal scholars and in case law in more detail. The analysis confirms that Grotius’s work contributed substantially to shaping the intellectual framework in which the first contract law doctrines in Scandinavia evolved.

The article tackles the problem of the most important institutional determinants of public expenditures. Within the traditions of public choice and institutional economics, it tests several theories ranging from the fiscal commons framework, Political Business/Budget Cycle (PBC) and path dependence to veto players theory. Its novelty compared to previous research stems from an attempt to test several theories simultaneously, dealing with model uncertainty by using sensitivity analysis within the Bayesian Model Averaging framework with a vast prior structure in terms of model, g and multicollinearity dilution priors. The results confirm several hypotheses tested in the area of fiscal management across the recent decades within the group of developed economies, giving especially strong support to the tragedy of the fiscal commons and path dependence concepts, while only partial support to veto players theory. In contrast, explanations based on political budget cycle (PBC) theory are dismissed. Among other interesting findings reported in the study, Scandinavian countries turn out to be the most fiscally responsible when other institutional factors are taken into account. Similarly, contrary to other recent research into the issue of EU fiscal institutional framework, Euro area countries are characterized by limited public expenditures.

The concept of patriarchy gives a necessary causal basis to the study of gender divisions and gender inequality. However, it has often been employed in a deterministic way, where variation is unexplained and agency is underplayed. This paper reviews Walby's reconceptualisation of six dimensions of patriarchy, based on a realist view of causation, which attempts to reintroduce empirical complexity and institutional variation into the concept. The author suggests that this reconceptualisation does not go far enough. Similarly, models of gendered welfare states, though descriptively quite detailed, are analytically weak. It is suggested that an integration of Walby's theory of patriarchy with Scandinavian ideas of the gender contract provides the best means of conceptualising difference in gender divisions.

This paper has a three-fold purpose: to challenge the current conceptualization of firm-stakeholder engagement, to popularize ‘allemansrätten’, the Scandinavian social innovation tradition for environmental value creation and environmental governance for ensuring ecological balance, and to introduce the concept of usufructual rights and the tutelage of natural resources for promoting human dignity. We underscore the deficiencies in the current stakeholder paradigm by pinpointing the specific essential catalysts that move the stakeholder theory to a new paradigm of a universal stakeownership. This is a quest to ensure the preservation and sustainability of natural resources and life support systems within specific institutional orders. We employ an adaptive research approach based on the Finnish/Nordic ecological case with a focus on the concept of ‘everyman’s right’: Everyone has the freedom to enjoy Finland’s/Scandinavia’s forests and lakes but with that also comes everyman’s responsibility to preserve the country’s nature for future generations. We argue that uncritically valorizing the universalized position of the current understanding of stakeholdership, with its flourish of contradictory and inaccurate characterization of global sustainability, retroactively aborts our ecological ideals from the uterus of preferred futures at the expense of humanity as a whole for the benefit of a few speculators and profiteers. Thus, we are woven into an ecological and economic tapestry whose present and future the current generation is accountable for in the era of universal stakeownership for a crucial evolutionary adaptation. This, however, cannot come about without fundamentally ‘democratizing’ resource democracy from the grassroots and questioning the global power structure that decides on the distributive effects of resources.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze important parts of the contemporary development of project research and to outline plausible and desirable directions for the future. Design/methodology/approach This is accomplished through a review of the “Scandinavian School of Project Management” and “Rethinking Project Management,” which is complemented with a set of questions distributed to 27 active researchers within the project research field from around the world. Findings Through the analysis the authors show how the two streams have more similarities than differences, despite the fact that they have been initiated in very different contexty 8ts and ways. The authors could also conclude that the “Scandinavian School” appears stronger on the international scene than in the Nordic countries, and that general perception of what the “school” stands for has changed and been blurred with time. Based on the analysis the authors also proposed the need for a broad, more coherent research effort in terms of a multi-perspective research program on projects and temporary organizations. The essence of this would be: an action research profile to improve practice and foresee the future; a combined research focus on institutional change and project practice to ensure both theoretical and empirical progress; and a strong global perspective to further enrich both theory and practice. Research limitations/implications This research has obvious limitations in terms of empirical scope and response selection. The questionnaire results should therefore be interpreted with care. Originality/value The value of this research lies in its reflective nature and the proposed trajectory of the project research domain.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to put forward a theoretical model which conceptualizes and clarifies the function and skills of communication consultants in terms of translation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper combines theoretical underpinnings from Scandinavian institutional theory with empirical examples from an interview study with ten senior communication managers in Swedish public sector organizations. Findings – Communication consultants are explained to perform varying translator functions ranging from a neutral transcoder to a freely interpretive translator and sensegiver. These functions are enacted as the consultant span organizational boundaries and contexts inside and outside the organization. The consultants are apt to carry out these tasks due to their translator expertise which resides in, e.g. multicontextual knowledge and bilingual skills, something which their clients lack. Research limitations/implications – The scope of the empirical material is limited to public organizations and a Swedish setting, and may therefore not be valid in other cultural contexts. Practical implications – The model highlights the intersecting work of communication consultants and their clients and thus raises questions concerning the legitimacy and core responsibilities of communication managers. The paper also argues that managers and consultants need to develop their translator skills, and that higher education in communication and PR should prepare students for professions where translator skills may be of great importance. Originality/value – The functions and tasks of communication consultants is a neglected area in communication research. By providing a comprehensive and pragmatic framework for communication consultants work as translation, the present research adds knowledge about the essential functions these actors perform and how they contribute to communication management as well as to organizational performance.

Variations in PBL implementation need to be seen as the norm rather than the exception, since local PBL practice will always diverge from the “original model”. In order to understand this phenomenon, this conceptional paper first systematizes variations in PBL implementation at the inter-institutional, intra-institutional, and individual level. Then, variation in PBL implementation is discussed through the lens of translation theory as part of the research tradition of Scandinavian Intuitionalism. Resulting insights are applied to develop guiding questions designed to help leaders and PBL researchers to reflect on PBL implementation processes. Uncharted territories in PBL implementation research are identified, and it is argued that researching PBL implementation can serve as a blueprint to understand educational change dynamics in institutions of higher education.

Purpose Contrasting two countries with different gender regimes and welfare states, Sweden and Tanzania, this paper aims to analyse how the institutional context affects the ways in which a neo-liberal reform agenda is translated into institutional changes and propose how such changes impact the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This study uses document analysis and previous studies to describe and analyse the institutions and the institutional changes. This paper uses Scandinavian institutional theory as the interpretative framework. Findings This study proposes that: in well-developed welfare states with a high level of gender equality, consequences of neo-liberal agenda for the preconditions for women entrepreneurs are more likely to be negative than positive. In less developed states with a low level of gender equality, the gendered consequences of neo-liberal reforms may be mixed and the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship more positive than negative. How neo-liberalism impacts preconditions for women entrepreneurs depend on the institutional framework in terms of a trustworthy women-friendly state and level of gender equality. Research limitations/implications The study calls for bringing the effects on the gender of the neo-liberal primacy of market solutions out of the black box. Studying how women entrepreneurs perceive these effects necessitates qualitative ethnographic data. Originality/value This paper demonstrates why any discussion of the impact of political or economic reforms on women’s entrepreneurship must take a country’s specific institutional context into account. Further, previous studies on neo-liberalism have rarely taken an interest in Africa.

This article presents an analysis of Amalie Skram’s 1895 novel Professor Hieronimus, with an emphasis on the seclusion aspect of this patient narrative. In the article, I give a close reading of the novel where I make use of insights from theorists from different disciplines, such as Shoshana Felman, Erving Goffman and Giorgio Agamben. The intent of the analysis, is to show how Skram manages to expose the rigid social categories that characterize the total institution in which the novel’s protagonist, Else Kant, claims to be wrongfully lodged. Through a critical assessment of the institutional hierarchy, both social and medical, Amalie Skram makes her novel well-suited for the type of interdisciplinary readings that in the last couples of decades have expanded and become more accessible, thanks in part to the emergence of the field of literature and medicine. This development grants us the opportunity to revisit the works of the Scandinavian literary canon with a fresh theoretical perspective, where fiction bears the potential to articulate aspects of the patient experience that has yet to be encapsulated by theory. This article shows how this phenomenon includes studies that are not limited to this interdisciplinary field alone, meaning that a complex patient narrative such as Skram’s Professor Hieronimus is accessible to a broader theoretical material as well.

The paper highlights the drivers of contemporary fertility history in developed countries “forgotten” by theory: fundamental changes in the world system after the Second World War and in the late 1980s and early 1990s; competing ideas of the “right” family and family and demographic policy; centre-peripheral relations and their impact on the resource capabilities of such policy. Statistical analysis shows that the periods during which countries’ positions by total fertility rates remained stable were disrupted by intervals in which significant changes in these positions occurred. Twice, due to the Second World War and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, such intervals coincided with fundamental shifts in the world system. In addition, such intervals occurred in Western countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the negative association between women’s participation in the labour force and fertility became positive, and then in the 2000s in Russia, countries of Eastern and Central Europe and the former Yugoslavia during fertility “recovery”. Contemporary fertility changes in the developed world are directed by “gravitational fields” of four attractors. Three of them are institutional traps created by low living standards, or contradictions between the “new” economy and “old” family relations, or, in varying proportions, both. The fourth attractor is an ideal condition in which generous family policy and men’s participation in the home maintain fertility at the replacement level. Currently, France and the Scandinavian countries come closest to this. The question of whether the developed semi-peripheral countries will be able to approach this condition, or, due to resource constraints, it will remain a privilege accessible only to the core countries, remains open.

Vi har gjort en fallstudie som utforskar hur ledarskapet påverkar och påverkas vid entillämpning av ISO 14001, samt hur tillämpningen av standarden är utformad påstudiens företag. Analysen har genomförts med hjälp av institutionell teori somteoretisk referensram. Vi kom fram till att ISO 14001 inte leder till eninterorganisatorisk homogenisering mellan olika företag, inomsamhällsplaneringsbranschen som vårt fallföretag agerar i. Vidare fastslog vi även enparadox i utformningen av ISO 14001-systemet hos företaget; otydliga istället förtydliga krav ökar chansen för att behålla certifieringen. Till sists kom vi också framtill att ledarskapets svårighet att kommunicera aktörernas rätt att översätta ISO 14001i sin praktik, beror på att ISO 9001 och ISO 14001 hos vårt fallföretag är utformatsom ett gemensamt system. Där ISO 9001 ligger i fokus. Uppsatsen syfte är att bidratill existerande institutionell teori.<br>Program: Civilekonomprogrammet

Bakgrund: Offentliga organisationer har under de senaste decennierna utsatts för förändring, detta till följd av ett ökat krav på effektivitet. Som svar på detta har styrinstrument (management verktyg) från industriella sammanhang hämtats för att bemöta denna effektivitet, ett av dessa verktyg är Lean, som i hälso- och sjukvården fått namnet Lean Healthcare. Lean kan ses vara ett koncept som färdats från tillverkningsindustrin in till hälso- och sjukvården där den översatts, något som medfört att det teoretiska ramverket översättningsmodellen används för att förstå denna översättning i hälso- och sjukvården.   Syfte: Syftet med studien är att beskriva och förklara hur olika hälso- och sjukvårdsorganisationer översätter Lean. Detta för att bidra med kunskap om vad Lean står för i hälso- och sjukvården, samt vilka möjligheter och svårigheter som existerar.   Metodval: En kvalitativ flerfallstudie har genomförts för att kunna förstår hur Lean översatts i hälso- och sjukvården. Datainsamlingen har genomförts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer på kliniknivå vilket inneburit att vi haft kontakt med läkare, sjuksköterskor, fysiker, specialistsjuksköterskor, barnmorskor samt administrativ ledning. Vi har även tagit del av olika dokument som medfört en bredare förståelse för hur översättningen sett ut.   Slutsatser: Vi har sett hur idén, Lean, genomgått olika faser i klinikerna där det översatts till att bli något eget i klinikernas lokala praktiker. Vi kan konstatera att Lean i hälso- och sjukvården blir något som står för effektivitet, processtänk, samarbete och problemlösning, standardisering, visualisering, att ledarna investerar i sina anställda samt mätning och sökande efter överlevnadsgrad. Vidare kan vi konstatera att Lean i hälso- och sjukvården skapar möjligheter då det lett till effektivare behandlingstid, bättre tillgänglighet av personal, förkortade ledtider, förbättrade patientflöden, bättre arbetsmiljö och en bättre struktur. Svårigheter som visat sig uppkomma är att finna balans och anpassning, svårigheter med professioner, svårigheter med koppling till det industriella sammanhanget samt den komplexitet som hälso- och sjukvården består av där oförutsägbara händelser ofta uppstår.<br>Background and discussion: Public organizations have in recent decades been subjected to change, and this is due to an increased demand for efficiency. The control instrument (management tool) from industrial settings has been taken in response to this efficiency and one of them is Lean, in Healthcare named “Lean Healthcare”. Lean can be seen as an idea that has been translated from the manufacturing industry to healthcare, and the theoretical framework translation model has been used to understand this in this paper. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to describe and explain how different healthcare organizations translate Lean. This is to provide knowledge of what Lean stands for in Healthcare, as well as the difficulties and opportunities that exist. Method: A qualitative case study has been conducted to understand how Lean is translated into Healthcare. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews at the clinic level, which meant that we had contact with doctors, nurses, physicists, specialist nurses, midwifes and administrative management. We have also taken note of the documents that enabled us to have a broad understanding of how the translation looked which has given us an understanding of the opportunities and difficulties that existed. Conclusions: We have seen how the idea, Lean, has undergone various phases in both of the clinics, where it was translated into something local. We can conclude that Lean in Healthcare is something that stands for efficiency, the process of thinking, collaboration and problem solving, standardization, visualization, leaders investing in their employees, and measurement of quest for survival. Furthermore, we note that Lean in Healthcare creates opportunities as it leads to more effective treatment, better availability of personnel, shorter lead times, improved patient flow, better work, better structure and a better working environment. Difficulties arise as proven by finding balance and alignment, difficulties with professions, difficulties related to the industrial context and the complexity of healthcare where unpredictable events are common.

In the context of New Public Management, concepts such as lean have had a major impact among organizations in recent years with efficiency ideas based on customer focus. Moreover, the benefits of lean have served as solutions to the problems and challenges facing the public service. However, previous research is limited in public authority contexts to understand its applicability. The Swedish Social Insurance Agency is a public authority that started implementing lean in 2012 with the aim of streamlining its flow with continuous improvements based on customer value. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to examine how lean is expressed from idea to practice in two departments of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency as a public authority context. This, by illustrating the translation process of the management idea as a strategy based on a strategic and an operational department as an overall level and the everyday work within the core activity at the micro level. Thus, lean is a broad and flexible concept, but the focus of this thesis is on the concepts flow and value. Institutional theory and Scandinavian institutional theory, especially translation theory have been used to apply a model of decontextualization, translation arenas and contextualization, as well as central translators. This to understand how ideas are raised from a practice through various arenas and translated into another practice. To achieve the purpose of this thesis, a two-case study was conducted by the lean introduction of these two departments. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with central managers and employees in the departments as well as with external consultants who have been involved in and influenced introduction of lean. This, in order to understand how the concepts have been translated from arenas and translators at two comparative levels. This thesis also contains internal documents and annual reports as well as observations that have been studied. Results presented in the paper contribute to existing research, with the translation of lean at the strategic and operational level within a public authority context. As such, the results indicate that translation is ongoing everywhere where a link between public and private activities is a way of how ideas are disseminated and translated. In addition, the introduction of lean in the departments had been introduced and tested to a minor extent at the strategic department before the introduction as a top-down process of the entire authority through informal relationships with Scania and Toyota. Analysis shows that the local translation process in both cases is an adaptation between lean and practice. Furthermore, lean did not change the everyday work completely, but was translated in a way that supported how the departments were organized before, rather than radically changing them. Additionally, the analysis shows that the translation of lean was affected by the private sector and other organizations in the area. The various arenas and translators play an important role in how lean is translated into practice. Adaptation to the organizational context is also important for the idea to be successful. However, the thesis shows that a formal actor is required to add energy to maintain the commitment with lean.<br>I en kontext av New Public Management har idéer som lean fått en stor genomslagskraft bland organisationer på senare tid med effektivitetstankar utifrån ett kundfokus. Vidare, har fördelarna med lean fungerat som lösningar på de problem och utmaningar som offentlig tjänsteverksamhet står inför. Därutöver är tidigare forskning begränsat inom myndighetskontexter för att förstå dess tillämpbarhet. Forskning belyser att empiriska och teoretiska studier efterfrågas på mikronivå inom kärnverksamheters vardagliga arbete i kombination med en övergripande nivå vid införande av management-koncept. Försäkringskassan är en myndighet som påbörjade implementeringen av lean år 2012 i syfte att effektivisera sitt flöde med ständiga förbättringar utifrån kunden i centrum. Av den anledningen är uppsatsens syfte att undersöka hur lean kommer till uttryck från idé till praktik på två av Försäkringskassans avdelningar som en offentlig myndighetskontext. Detta genom att belysa översättningsprocessen av managementidén som verksamhetsstrategi utifrån en strategisk respektive en operativ avdelning som arbetar med övergripande strategi och kärnverksamhet på mikronivå. Lean är således ett brett och flexibelt begrepp, men fokus i uppsatsen är på koncepten flöde och värde. Institutionell teori, skandinavisk institutionell teori och i synnerhet översättningsteori har använts för att tillämpa en modell av dekontextualisering, översättningsarenor och kontextualisering samt centrala översättare. Detta för att förstå hur idéer lyfts från en praxis via olika arenor och översätts till en annan praxis.  För att uppnå syftet har en tvåfallstudie genomförts av lean-införandet på dessa två avdelningar. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har gjorts med centrala chefer och medarbetare på avdelningarna samt med externa konsulter som varit med och påverkat införandet. Detta för att förstå hur koncepten översatts utifrån arenor och översättare på två jämförande nivåer. Uppsatsen innehåller även interna dokument och årsredovisningar samt observationer som studerats. Uppsatsens resultat ger bidrag till existerande forskning, med översättning av lean på strategisk och operativ nivå inom en myndighetskontext. Resultaten tyder på att översättning pågår ständigt överallt där en koppling mellan offentlig och privat verksamhet är ett sätt för hur idéer sprids och översätts. Införandet av lean testades i mindre omfattning på den strategiska avdelningen innan införandet en top-down process på hela myndigheten genom informella relationer till Scania och Toyota. Analyserna visar på att den lokala översättningsprocessen i båda fallen är en anpassning mellan lean och praxis. Dessutom förändrade inte lean det vardagliga arbetet helt utan översattes på ett sätt som avdelningarna sedan tidigare varit organiserade, istället för att radikalt förändra dem. Vidare visar analysen att översättningen av lean påverkades av privat sektor och andra organisationer i omgivningen. De olika arenorna och översättarna fyller en viktig funktion i hur lean översätts till praktiken. Anpassning till den organisatoriska kontexten är även viktig för att idén ska bli framgångsrik. Emellertid visar uppsatsen att en formell aktör krävs för att tillföra energi för att behålla engagemanget för lean.

The dissertation analyses changes in the role of editors-in-chief in ten leading Norwegian and Swedish media houses – today owned by either Bonnier or Schibsted – in light of the potential tensions between journalistic ideals and market demands. This duality is studied over a period of 30 years, from 1985 to 2015. The most defining changes in the structural framework under which editors-in-chief work are the ongoing technological revolution, the transformation from an analogue into a digital society, and structural, economic changes related to this development. Methodologically, the study builds on data from qualitative in-depth interviews, mainly with 33 past and present editors-in-chief. It also contains a study of how the role of editors-in-chief has been reported and discussed in the magazines of two media branch organisations. The changing role of editors-in-chief is analysed within an institutional perspective. The main empirical results are as follows: (1) Owners and company management have considered the recruitment of editors-in-chief to be highly important throughout the period, and they have used their influence actively. Internal recruitment processes are a standard procedure. Very few of those chosen are women; men recruit other men. The last decade shows a recruitment process becoming more centralized and professionalized. (2) Most editors-in-chief represented in the study have a background in the newsroom. This has traditionally been the main qualification. (3) Regular meetings have structured most of the working hours for editors-in-chief. From an institutional perspective, meetings have played a norm-setting and ritualised role. During the last decade, some of those meetings have included not only journalists but also employees from other departments. (4) Those respondents who were active during the last period investigated perceive the increased speed of work on a daily basis and the more complex editorial role as the main changes and challenges. (5) Many of the respondents are so-called ‘silent’ editors. Due to a lack of time, they do not write much in their own papers. Lately, this has changed to some extent, especially among Swedish editors. This finding is one of the major differences between Norwegian and Swedish editors-in-chief. (6) Editors are still responsible for journalistic content, but demands on the part of commercial management have gradually become more important, and strategic decisions have become more centralized. The metaphor about the need to balance the demands of the ‘Marketplace and Cathedral’ has been replaced by the metaphor ‘We are all in the same boat’. The journalistic institution is under pressure. (7) Despite the immense technological and economic changes in the business and in the structural framework, there is also stability in the role due to the robust nature of journalism as an institution. The role of editor-in-chief is complex, and during the last 30 years, it has become even more so. The structural conditions have affected the role in various ways. While the basic tasks of editors-in-chief remain rooted in editorial work, downsizing and market demands have simultaneously undermined the autonomy and power of editors-in-chief, especially in relation to central media group management.

Algorithmic power and politics stems in part from how algorithms acquire the capacity to disturb and to compose new sensibilities as part of situated practices, particularly in terms of how they become invested with certain political and moral capacities. Looking at how algorithms materialize in the institutional setting of the news media, the chapter considers how algorithms are made to matter. Based on field observations and 20 interviews with digital editors and managers at leading Scandinavian news organizations the chapter explores how institutional actors are responding to the proliferation of data and algorithms. The analysis shows how, on the one hand, news organizations feel the pressure to reorient their practices toward the new algorithmic logic governing the media landscape at large. On the other hand, algorithms work to disturb and question established boundaries and norms of what journalism is and ought to be.

A century ago, state institutes of public health played an important role in the production of sera and vaccines. In The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries they continued to do so until after World War II. Focusing in particular on The Netherlands, this chapter examines their withdrawal from vaccine production in the past 20 years. In the 1980s the Dutch government was still committed to maintaining the state’s ability to produce the vaccines needed by the national vaccination programme. A series of legal and institutional changes sought to protect the public sector vaccine producer against the threat of privatisation. These changes ultimately proved inadequate. Not only was the Institute’s ability to meet demand for new vaccines being eroded by global developments, but policy makers were increasingly convinced that vaccination practices should be harmonised with those of other European countries. The decision to sell off the Dutch state’s vaccine production facilities, taken in 2009, has to be understood in historical context. It was the outcome of globalisation processes that for two decades had worked simultaneously on both the supply and the demand sides

This chapter is a contribution to the literatures on hip hop and identity politics among two rappers of color in Scandinavia. Locating the artists’ pedagogical practices within global flows of resistance in hip hop culture, the concept of public pedagogy is employed for analyzing how these artists use hip hop as a medium for education and activism outside of formal educational institutions. The analysis focuses on counter-hegemonic representations of identity in the music of Adam Tensta and Eboi. The author argues that the two artists have situated themselves as public pedagogues and catalysts for social change and that they have confront right-wing populism and deconstruct Nordic notions of Otherness in their music In doing so, the artists provide nuanced counter-narratives that share insight into how global struggles for resources and neoliberal policies in the welfare state are brought to bear upon individuals living in the Nordic countries.

This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues), in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation), and in their written, visual and exhibitionary practice--disseminated to a variety of academic and public audiences. Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organizational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues that have hitherto often remained "unspoken" among the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as "death-workers" of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context that highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.

This translation of Rechtsvergleichung offers a critical introduction to the central tenets of comparative legal scholarship. The first part of the book is dedicated to general aspects of comparative law. The controversial question of methods, in particular, is addressed by explaining and discussing different approaches, and by developing a contextual approach that seeks to engage with real-world issues and give a practitioner’s angle on contemporary comparative legal scholarship. The second part of the book offers a detailed treatment of the major legal contexts across the globe, including common law, civil law systems (based on Germany and France as well as case studies of Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Latin America, among others), the African context (with an emphasis on customary law), Asian jurisdictions, Islamic law and law in Islamic countries (plus a brief treatment of Jewish law and canon law), and transnational contexts (public international law, European Union law, and lex mercatoria). The book offers a coherent treatment of global legal systems that aims not only to describe their varying norms and legal institutions but to propose a better way of seeking to understand how the overall context of legal systems influences legal thinking and legal practice.

Civil service consists of civil servants and their activity when implementing the assigned functions and decisions made by politicians. In other words, it is a system of civil servants who perform the assigned functions of public administration. The corpus of civil servants consists of people who work in central and local public administration institutions. The concept and scope of civil service in a particular country depends on the legal framework that defines the areas of public and private sectors and their relationship. In many countries, civil service consists of an upper level, a mid-level, and civil servants who work for coordinating, independent, and auxiliary institutions. However, the scope of civil service in different countries varies. When analyzing/comparing civil service systems of different countries, researchers often categorize them as Western European, continental European, Anglo-American, Anglo-Saxon, Eastern European, Scandinavian, Mediterranean, Asian, or African.All European Union member states can be classified into two groups: the career system—dominant in continental Europe, with the prevalence of traditional-hierarchical public administration, rational bureaucracy, and formalized operational rules—and the position system—dominant in Anglo-Saxon countries, with the prevalence of managerial principles, pragmatic administration, and charismatic leadership. Neither of the two models exists in pure form. If features of the career model dominate in the civil service of a country, it is identified as a country with the career CS model; if elements of the position model dominate the country is identified as a country with the position civil service model. An intermediate version of this model, characteristic of a number of countries, is the mixed/hybrid model.Many civil service researchers claim that in the case of two competing systems of civil service—closed (the career model) and open (the position model)—reforms of the open civil service system win. It has been argued that the organizing principles of the open, result-oriented civil service system (the position model), which is under the influence of “new public management,” will permanently “drive out” the closed, vertically integrated and formal procedure-oriented career model. Scholars argue that civil servants of the future will have to be at ease with more complexity and flexibility. They will have to be comfortable with change, often rapid change. At the same time, they will make more autonomous decisions and be more responsible, accountable, performance-oriented, and subject to new competency and skill requirements.

This is the most comprehensive and thorough English language book on Danish politics ever. It is written by fifty authors, each of whom is an expert in and has contributed to the field that they write about. And why is Denmark an interesting topic for a handbook? In some respects, Danish political institutions and political life are similar to that of other small, North European countries such as the other Scandinavian countries and The Netherlands. However, in other respects, Danish politics is interesting in its own right. For instance, Denmark has a world record in minority governments. According to standard scholarly knowledge, this should result in unstable governments and a bad economy. This is not the case, however, since Denmark has a rather stable political system and a strong and robust economy among the strongest in Europe. The Danes have continued reservations towards the EU despite close to 50 years of EC/EU membership, and the Danes rejected the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Still, the EU issue is handled in ways that do not call for large political battles. Also Denmark used to be known as a tolerant and liberal society; its Jews were almost all saved during the German occupation of the Second World War; it was the first country to legalize pornography and formally register same-sex couples. Yet recent Danish politics has also been associated with xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments. The handbook provides the reader with a detailed knowledge and understanding of almost all aspects of Danish politics.

AbstractThis chapter compares social models in Europe and Latin America. The goal is to study the interaction between two institutions: on the one hand, pre-distributive (ex ante) institutions, such as the structure and coverage of collective bargaining and, on the other hand, post-distributive (ex post) institutions, such as unemployment protection and social policy. Pre-distributive institutions are important for correcting inequalities in the labour market, because they introduce guidelines for egalitarian wage structures. Post-distributive institutions help to mitigate inequalities generated in the labour market.The methodology is based on statistical analysis of a series of indicators related to pre and post-distributive policies. The results present three types of model: (1) coordinated economies, typical of neo-corporatist Scandinavian countries; (2) mixed economies, typical of Mediterranean systems, and (3) uncoordinated economies, which equate to liberalism and the Latin American ‘structural heterogeneity’ model. It is neo-corporatist coordinated economies that generate the most pre and post-distributive equality. In turn, uncoordinated economies, and Latin American ones in particular, generate more inequalities due to highly informal employment and the weakness of their post-distributive institutions.

This chapter analyzes the strikingly divergent trajectories of Christian belief and practice in Scandinavia and the United States. All Scandinavian countries in the twentieth century experienced a decline in regular church attendance that appears to have been consistent throughout the century, and that may have begun as soon as religious compulsion was lifted in the nineteenth century. This protracted decline mirrored the slow waning of orthodox Christian belief, but this was not a decline from a previous golden age of faith; rather there seems every likelihood that the adherence of many Scandinavian people to Christian faith had been quite tenuous ever since the region was first evangelized. Yet the Scandinavian countries also illustrate in a pointed way the possibility that in certain conditions, stable patterns of religious belonging can exist almost independently of personal religious belief. Meanwhile, the United States in the twentieth century was by some criteria a more “secular” nation than Sweden or Denmark. The American state from its inception has refused to give any religious body privileged status before the law. In consequence, religion in the United States has always been divorced from the apparatus of government and public institutions to a much greater extent than in the Scandinavian nations, and in the course of the twentieth century, that divorce became more absolute in certain spheres, notably in the universities, public education, and the media.

The Túatha Dé Danann are seemingly a pre-Christian survival in early medieval Irish literature, where they are portrayed as magicians, druids, or powerfully knowledgeable artisans. Traditionally slotted into the ‘pseudohistorical’ scheme, thus constituting one of the primeval waves of invaders who shaped the land and institutions of Ireland, the Túatha Dé Danann (and their opponents, the Fomoiri) have a narrative space to themselves in the text known as the Cath Maige Tuired ‘(Second) Battle of Mag Tuired’. The characters Lug and the Dagda, ‘Good God’, represent contrasting perspectives on the struggle taking place, which I argue is primarily concerned with the question of whether, after the Battle, the Túatha Dé Danann will continue resisting time and death, or will embrace these quotidian realities.

This chapter investigates students' political learning by unfolding the dynamic patterns of political learning that can be explored among Scandinavian students. To serve this purpose, the following research question is forwarded: What dynamic patterns of political learning can be uncovered among various upper secondary students in relation to participation in political institutions? By the incorporation of theories of learning in the analytical approach, it is shown how students display a complex pattern of political attentiveness. School-based civics education programs to some extent seem to have failed to equip young people with the tools, knowledge, and experience needed for participation in political institutions. Research in this area has traditionally been interested in either the political awareness of youth or the sources of influence on the youth. However, there has not been a lot of interest in the various offsprings initiating the political engagement and political development. Summing up, some recommendations for citizenship education are forwarded.

This chapter explores the legacy of The Silence of the Lambs. What is the most significant aspect of Thomas Harris's achievement, both on the page and on the screen? Certainly, there is the creation of a massively successful franchise which has proved itself to be both durable and renewable; the latest incarnation of Harris's signature character is a television series, Hannibal, with the British actor Hugh Dancy impressively nervous as Will Graham, and the Scandinavian Mads Mikkelsen as Harris's eponymous psychiatrist. What is perhaps most enduring about the legacy of The Silence of the Lambs and the writer's other books is the permanent change that malign screen characters have undergone since the appearance of Dr Lecter in the bowels of that psychiatric institution. Nowadays, most ambitious thrillers imbue their villains with a fierce intelligence and analytical intuitiveness. But even more important than this, Thomas Harris demonstrated that popular writing can boast the acumen, elegance, and masterly prose of the best literary fiction, and has inter alia raised the game of the whole genre of thriller writing. Similarly, Jonathan Demme's place in film history is assured thanks to his confident handling of the source material and its influence on horror cinema of the late twentieth century.

We here summarize and compare the empirical results found by our country authors, focusing on the coalition life cycle in seventeen countries. The chapter starts with a description of the changes that have occurred during the past decades in the party systems of Western Europe, and some institutional rules surrounding government formation and duration. We then turn to the comparing patterns of government formation across countries, showing that coalitions constitute almost 70 per cent of the cabinets in Western Europe, and that the Scandinavian countries have been dominated by minority cabinets. Focusing on the coalition governance stage, we analyse the variation in the use of different control mechanisms across countries, for example showing that many coalition governments draft extensive contracts to control their partners in cabinet. The comparative data we present also shows that such agreements have become longer over time. Focusing on the last stage of the life cycle, we show that in a majority of countries, it is more common that a cabinet terminates early than serves the full term. There has also been a clear trend towards more government instability, even though the variation in cabinet duration across countries is large. We conclude this chapter by returning to the three coalition governance models described earlier in this volume, classifying the countries as being closer to one of the three models, based on a number of indicators and the information provided by our country experts.

The clattering sound of a child’s shoes across the cold stone floors; the echo is magnificent. I am nine or ten years old and I make my way through the prehistoric exhibition at the National Museum in Copenhagen. The dimly lit display cases are filled with arrowheads, heavy beads of perforated amber, funnel beakers, and bronze artefacts. I reach my goal, the alluring Bronze Age oak cists where the buried men and women from the heaths of Jutland are looking back at me. I touch the glass. My eyes wander over their reddened hair and their clothes, stained in deep shades of peat brown. My eyes seek theirs in the hollow orbits of their skulls. I close mine and imagine a life thousands of years ago. My small hand moves across the glass, leaving an almost invisible trace. Small fingerprints; a dreaming child’s gesture. I would stay there forever, dreaming of the past. Feeling it. I know that it was moments like this, when I could see and feel the humanity of the past that made me want to become an archaeologist. The immediate encounter with an individual from the past is a privileged moment. For a brief moment our destinies cross paths, and hundreds, even thousands of years are transcended. Scenes like this one, of children gazing at the dead and seeing the past, are not unusual. In museums across Europe, the archaeological findings from burials, including both the human remains and the items that accompanied the dead, are often displayed with pride and confidence. The public expects this and is drawn in with fascination to stand face-to-face with the deep past. Beyond this, the display of the dead and of death itself, with all of the allure and drama that accompany it, becomes a privileged locus for pedagogy and communication. But while this confident attitude towards the display of the dead may be typical in Europe, it is not as evident in North America. In North American museums, it is rare to see human remains from archaeological contexts displayed in any form (exception seems to be given to Egyptian mummies, which still are prominently displayed by many institutions that have them among their collections).

This article analyses social networks by looking at the standard making processes. As a framework for analysis, actor network theory is chosen. Standards are of particular interest for actor network theory for they provide mechanisms to align interests of multiple social groups organized in networks that have a joint incentive in working with the standards and /or associated technologies. These social groups include scientific communities, government institutions and social movements (industrial groups, companies, and consumers) that are interested in regulating and innovating with new technologies. Standards provide the mechanisms to inscribe subsequent behaviors that are expected to become persistent over time. Standard making process is a social process. Actors are involved in the process of continuous negotiation of their interests. Due to this fact, standards became an object of analysis for scholars within the social shaping of technology theory (SST). Though usually scholars of this school take standards as material objects, they interpret technology as such, e.g., a bicycle, or a steam machines. In Information Technology (IT), domain standards are intangible. Those are electronic data exchange formats, communications protocols, signalling protocols, etc. Wireless and mobile communications in particular, being a large field of IT, represent an interesting case for analysis. Present in mobile telephony’s domain are de jure (e.g., GSM) and de facto standards (e.g., NMT). Also the broad scope and large scale of standardization processes suggests non-unified pattern of standard making and complex organizational structure. To make mobile telephony standards successful implies large networks and numerous mandatory passage points. In this paper we apply actor network theory based analysis (ANT) to the development of NMT wireless standards. Researchers interested in IT standardization, except for a few studies on electronic data interchange (EDI) by Hanseth (1997), have overlooked this approach. The acronym NMT stands for Nordisk MobilTelefon (Nordic Mobile Telephone) and it can be historically regarded as one of the best examples of Nordic cooperation in technology as NMT systems have spread quite widely around the world and it also formed an important stepping stone for the evolution of GSM standards. We chose for ANT analysis of the NMT standard making process to learn of the usefulness of theoretical framework and to understand the standard making process of NMT as a social and institutional change. In our opinion, this more than anything else, explains the success of this interesting historical incident that changed the telecommunication industry radically and made Scandinavia a powerhouse of the wireless technologies. Our approach expected to bring more understanding on how the enthusiasm of a small number of actors fostered successful development of the NMT cellular telephony standard. At the same time the NMT standard was based on concepts and visions of its developers. Yet, it was these visions and engagements that lead to distributed the big cake of the cellular world even before cutting it into pieces. The outline of the chapter is the following. In the next section, we discuss past theoretical analysis of the topic. Then we introduce new notions into ANT, such as a layer and a multilayered structure. Next we tell the story of the Nordic radio engineers’ gang. We then analyze the NMT standard’s development process as an instance of actor network mobilization. Some insights into future developments of cellular mobile communications, both from the technological and social perspectives are provided.

The 1980s and 1990s saw dramatic sea changes in the archaeological engagement with the dead in Australasia and North America, typified by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. However, it has only been far more recently that different, distinctive, but still fundamental challenges to the archaeological study, display, and curation of mortuary remains have affected the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia. While classic examples of disputes over the archaeological excavation of human remains have deep roots in the late twentieth century, the last decade has seen significant shifts and challenges for mortuary archaeology (see Sayer 2010a). In this regard, the UK situation is instructive, if not necessarily typical. At the turn of the millennium, the Working Group on Human Remains (whose final report was published in 2007) created a strong political climate which encouraged unconditional returns of ancestral remains acquired from elsewhere in the world and held in British museums. This was rejected by many institutions which had to balance such edicts against their acquisition policy (DCMS 2003), but its impact was to encourage a more open atmosphere of discussion. Slightly later, the impact of the 2005 DCMS ‘Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums’ provided a strong (if not binding) steer in terms of aspects of curatorial acquisition, research protocols, and collections management advice, designed to systematize best practice. Importantly, it enshrined a three-fold conceptual principle that human remains are of ‘unique status, are often of high research value, and should be treated with dignity and respect’ (DCMS 2005: 16). This document provided an important mandate for archaeological excavation, research, and curation, at a time when calls for repatriation and reburial were on the rise. However, it was an ‘aspirant code of ethics’ which as Redfern and Clegg (2013: 2) argue, was not enforceable: relying on the professionalism of both individuals and institutions for its implementation. (In addition, the 2004 Human Tissue Act also impacted on those institutions holding human remains or fragments of them, less than 100 years old, though archaeological examples of this are rare.) Some UK museums began repatriating parts of their ethnographic collections much earlier than this: Besterman (2004: 3) reported that Manchester Museum had decided to return human remains acquired as recently as 1992.