Beyond benevolence – solidarity and welfare state transition in Sweden

For many decades the Swedish welfare system has served as an archetype of the modern comprehensive welfare state. When economic recession hit Sweden in the beginning of the 1990s, a period of half a century of continuous expansion and reforms in the welfare sector came to an end. The economic downturn enforced rationing measures in most welfare programs and was accompanied by a move towards privatisation of local welfare services and an endeavour to initiate market incentives in the care-giving systems. The focus was increasingly directed on welfare as a financial burden, and the issue of how diminishing resources should be allocated ranked high on the political agenda. In this article we depart from the concept of solidarity and discuss the development of Swedish welfare and welfare opinion. First, we articulate various representations of the concept of solidarity – societal cohesion, individual support for comprehensive welfare and the amount of universality in the provision of care. Second, we describe some fundamental traits in the route taken by Swedish welfare during the 1990s, focusing especially on care of elderly and the demographic challenge of an ageing population. Third, we summarise the evolution of public opinion regarding welfare provision and discuss the determinants of its variations. The article concludes with a discussion of how the (once salient) features of universalism have been affected by the development during the past decade, and the role of popular support in the route ahead for Swedish welfare.     

How the Experience of Emotion is Modulated by Facial Feedback

The facial feedback hypothesis states that facial actions modulate subjective experiences of emotion. Using the voluntary facial action technique, in which the participants react with instruction induced smiles and frowns when exposed to positive and negative emotional pictures and then rate the pleasantness of these stimuli, four questions were addressed in the present study. The results in Experiment 1 demonstrated a feedback effect because participants experienced the stimuli as more pleasant during smiling as compared to when frowning. However, this effect was present only during the critical actions of smiling and frowning, with no remaining effects after 5 min or after 1 day. In Experiment 2, feedback effects were found only when the facial action (smile/frown) was incongruent with the presented emotion (positive/negative), demonstrating attenuating but not enhancing modulation. Finally, no difference in the intensity of produced feedback effect was found between smiling and frowning, and no difference in feedback effect was found between positive and negative emotions. In conclusion, facial feedback appears to occur mainly during actual facial actions, and primarily attenuate ongoing emotional states.     

A senior manager with a knowledge management portfolio: the Santa Clara County experience

The agency director sought to create a systematically coordinated department that utilizes knowledge management strategies to promote evidence-informed practice. In his view, the organization was not providing needed information or organizational supports for practitioners to use knowledge effectively. To address this issue, he created a Director of Development and Operational Planning (DDOP) position with the responsibility to build structures and facilitate processes that support knowledge management. The DDOP oversees research and planning, government relations, legislative development and support, Board of Supervisors communications, staff development and training, community contracts, public information and in-house communication. The DDOP is reorganizing units under her supervision to create a knowledge management matrix that will implement new knowledge sharing strategies related to evaluation, contracts, legislation, organizational development, policy and planning, and staff development. The case study describes challenges and strategies related to: government regulations, size and complexity of the agency, staff resistance, and the developmental nature of the process.     

Boundary dimensions of social innovation: negotiating conflicts and compatibilities when developing a national agenda

In order to add to the existing knowledge on the complex institutional dynamics of negotiating conflicts and compatibilities in innovation processes that address societal challenges and social needs, this article scrutinizes the scientific and societal debate on the theoretical and practical application of “social innovation” by means of the concept “boundary object” linked to institutional theory. A participatory case study of the development of an R&I agenda for social innovation in Sweden, formulated through dialog between stakeholders from the public, private and non-profit sectors, is presented. The results show that the unpredictable, emergent, evolving and adaptable character of needs, challenges and solutions in social innovation processes is made more theoretically and practically manageable by acknowledging social innovation as a boundary object. This is since this concept, despite its ambiguous character, helps balance complexity and usefulness in a way that serves to expand existing knowledge on institutional dynamics.     

Parallel Subjective Well-Being and Choice Experiment Evaluation of Ecosystem Services: Marine and Forest Reserves in Coastal Oregon,USA

Social Indicators Research - There is significant policy and research interest in (a) ecosystem services as a framework for understanding the benefits humans receive from natural systems and (b)...     

Effects of neckbands on survival and fidelity of white-fronted and Canada geese captured as non-breeding adults

We conducted an experiment to examine the effect of neckbands, controlling for differences in sex, species and year of study (1991-1997), on probabilities of capture, survival, reporting, and fidelity in non-breeding small Canada ( Branta canadensis hutchinsi ) and white-fronted ( Anser albifrons frontalis ) geese. In Canada's central arctic, we systematically double-marked about half of the individuals from each species with neckbands and legbands, and we marked the other half only with legbands. We considered 48 a priori models that included combinations of sex, species, year, and neckband effects on the four population parameters produced by Burnham's (1993) model, using AIC for model selection. The four best approximating models each included a negative effect of neckbands on survival, and effect size varied among years. True survival probability of neckbanded birds annually ranged from 0.006 to 0.23 and 0.039 to 0.22 (Canada and white-fronted geese, respectively) lower than for conspecifics without neckbands. Changes in estimates of survival probability in neckbanded birds appeared to attenuate more recently, particularly in Canada Geese, a result that we suspect was related to lower retention rates of neckbands. We urge extreme caution in use of neckbands for estimation of certain population parameters, and discourage their use for estimation of unbiased survival probability in these two species.     

Estimating nest site fidelity of adult female black brant with multi-state modeling and geographic information systems

Nest site fidelity of adult female black brant breeding at the Tutakoke River, Alaska was evaluated from 1987 to 1993 by recording nest locations of brant marked (approx. 1500) with individually coded tarsal tags. We used two approaches to study fidelity. First, we examined fidelity to four geographic strata within the Tutakoke River colony. For our second analysis approach, we used ARC/INFO to map and measure distances between successive nesting attempts and then estimated the probability of fidelity to within 200 m of the previous nest site. We used program MSSURVIV to estimate movement probabilities and to test hypotheses about fidelity. Both of our analysis approaches indicate that female black brant exhibit a high (>0.72) probability of fidelity to previous nest sites. Our estimates of fidelity were not biased by the confounding of detection, survival and movement probabilities that have plagued previous studies of fidelity.     

Gender,Pubertal Development,and Peer Sexual Harassment Predict Objectified Body Consciousness in Early Adolescence

Objectified body consciousness (OBC)—the tendency to view one's body as an object for others to look at and evaluate—is theorized to emerge during sexual maturation as adolescents, particularly adolescent girls, experience sexual objectification. Although OBC generally is discussed in developmental terms, research so far has examined primarily the experiences of undergraduates and adults. Our goal in this study was to examine early adolescent experiences with OBC and to explicitly test the idea that OBC is linked to experiences of sexual objectification, such as peer sexual harassment, that early adolescents face as their bodies reach maturity. We tested several structural models of OBC and its relation to puberty, peer sexual harassment, and negative body experience. The prevailing model supported OBC theory's premise that pubertal development and peer sexual harassment increase adolescent girls' tendency toward self-surveillance, which in turn leads to greater body shame. Several pathways in the model were not significant for boys.