Researching Governance for Sustainable Development: Some Conceptual Clarifications

This article addresses two problems characterizing policy thinking on environmental change and sustainable development. First, the role of the social sciences in the wider processes of governance is sometimes misrepresented such that the likelihood of achieving consensual decision-making on environmental phenomena is overestimated. Second, the social science discourse on governance is plagued by conceptual confusion. This article seeks to address these problems by outlining an analytical framework for environmental governance research. In the view of this article, scientific knowledge claims are integral parts of governance processes. The article advocates a holistic understanding of governance that includes the production and diffusion of scientific knowledge, political interaction, and decision-making as well as the wider institutional context required for policy implementation and enforcement. The conclusion is that the entire governance process from the translation of scientific knowledge into policy proposals to the implementation will always be laden with politically charged opportunity costs

What Your Teacher Did Not Tell You About Abstinence: A Critical Analysis of the Arguments in Favor of the Teaching of Abstinence-Only Sexual Education in Public Schools

Although Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage programs have proven ineffective in reducing teenage pregnancy rates and the spread of STDs, thirteen states in the U.S still stress abstinence in their sexual education curricula. This in turn has created a big debate over what sexual education in public schools should contain. This paper intends to determine whether the arguments proposed by three advocacy groups for Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage can justify the teaching of the programs in public schools. The advocacy groups have been chosen because of their frequent participation in the debate, and because they bring the controversial issue of religion in sexual education into it. By using Ludvig Beckman’s methodology of a critical analysis of ideas it has been possible to test the logical validity, empirical strength, and normative plausibility of the three chosen arguments. The results of the analysis show that most of the arguments are logically valid; however, many of them lack empirical support, and cannot be considered normatively plausible. Therefore, the three arguments should not be taken into account in the formation of new and effective sexual education policies

Why history matters for gender balance in political representation

Why does the gender balance among politicians vary so substantially across different locations? Drawing on a new study, Moa Frödin Gruneau illustrates that the historical persistence of traditional family structures has a clear relationship with the number of women in politics today

Synergies, Stalemates and Social Dilemmas : Governance in South Africa in Comparative Perspective

This thesis focuses on the consequences of the institutional transformations in South Africa during the 1990s with specific reference to the introduction of a mode of local governance based on the direct participation of private and civic actors in policymaking and implementation. The study also aims to contribute to theory. The approach is that public, private and civic associations are best understood as components of the same formal institutional order rather than as distinct institutional spheres, with the focus on governance, defined as the coordination and conciliation of interdependent activities via institutions. In order to analyse governance, it is necessary to explain why actors draw on different logics of action in different institutional contexts. The assumption is that social life consists of various situations in which people invoke different roles prescribing different repertoires of socially acceptable practices applicable to different situations. Such mutually agreed-upon situation definitions are here called transaction domains, denoting a mu-tually agreed-upon definition of a situation according to which a particular logic of interaction, exchange or decision-making is considered socially acceptable. From this perspective, societies, i.e. large aggregations of actors, may appear like coherent ontological entities if a sufficient number of people establish domain consensus, defined as a general acceptance of a set of transaction domains. In order to achieve governance in contemporary societies, most actors and organizations have to accept and rely upon some formal institutions. The new democratic governance framework, introduced in South Africa during the 1990s, stipulates that local private and civic sector representatives are to work in partnership with the public sector representatives to promote socio-economic development. In the wake of this framework three types of outcomes were triggered in the case study localities. In the first type of outcome, synergy, the nodes in the network shared similar situation definitions, allowing domain consensus to be reached; they could thereby establish complementary relationships in the entire planning and implementation chain. In the second type of outcome, stalemate, the nodes did not identify with a shared sense of interdependence and domain consensus was not reached. As a result, the planning and implementation process deadlocked. In the third type of outcome, social dilemma, the establishment of a public-private link, through which development funds were channeled, triggered discontent in the local community on the part of those citizens who did not gain access to funding. The lack of domain consensus and well-established formal procedures drew the public and private actors involved in the resulting conflicts into a pattern of interaction in which they employed informal methods to pursue their conflicting objectives. On the basis of these case study results, supported by other studies, the thesis contends that the introduction of a networked model of governance in South Africa made local governments appear unpredictable. The South African local government framework tacitly requires both domain and goal consensus, since planning and implementation need to involve a high number of public and private actors located on different levels of society

Labor Migration from Third Countries to Swedish Low-wage Jobs

Since December 2008, Sweden has more liberal rules for labor immigration from ‘third countries’ – countries outside the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) – than any other country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The introduction of employer-driven labor immigration, motivated by the need to address labor shortages, resulted in large inflows of migrants in low-skilled occupations in labor surplus sectors. This article examines the situation of the approximately 500 restaurant and cleaning workers who were granted work permits in Stockholm in 2012. More than four out of ten labor migrants ‘switched track’ from asylum seekers, students, or family connection. Every second worker was recruited to companies without collective agreements. In several cases, a nationality/ethnic link between migrant and employer appears to exist. The reasons why so many low-skilled labor migrants in nonseasonal occupations were recruited are discussed. Finally, alternative explanations for the decline of this type of labor migration after 2011 are considered

Tumor microenvironment derived biomarkers in renal cell cancer

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the 13th most common malignancy worldwide, and constitutes around 2% of all malignant tumors. The entity renal cell carcinoma comprises a heterogenous group of malignant tumors that originates from the epithelial cells in the renal proximal tubule. The most frequently occurring subtype is clear cell renal cell carcinoma which is characterized by a mutation in the von-Hippel-Lindau gene leading to accumulation of hypoxia inducible factor and subsequent upregulation of growth factors involved in angiogenesis. RCC is inherently resistant to conventional chemotherapy, and thus radical surgery before metastasis has occurred still is the best chance for permanent cure. However, in recent years, the introduction of various targeted therapies and immunemodulators have changed the picture, and there are now numerous options which increases the hope for patients with metastatic disease. In this thesis, we investigated the tumor microenvironment to identify factors with impact on prognosis and response to anti-angiogenic therapy in patients with mRCC. We found that both high perivascular expression of PDGFR-β as well as high heterogeneity of perivascular PDGFR-β was significantly associated with shorter survival. In order to make an in-depth characterization of the tumor microenvironment, we compared vascular, perivascular and stromal features in renal, colorectal and ovarian cancer. This revealed significant differences regarding several metrics, but also similarities. We also studied the impact on tumor infiltrating B-lymphocytes in RCC and found that high infiltration conveyed a worse prognosis, counter to what is seen in many other tumor types, suggesting that high levels B-cells in RCC rather dampens the anti-tumor immune response than indicates an activated immune system. In the last paper, we investigated the role of intratumoral vessel size for response to anti-angiogenic treatment and found that tumors dominated by medium sized vessels was more sensitive to sunitinib. In summary, our findings indicate that the tumor microenvironment influences prognosis as well as response to treatment in a context dependent manner, and that this prompts further investigation within this field