PhD students supervised collectively rather than individually are quicker to complete their theses

Given the choice, most PhD students would prefer to receive individual supervision rather than be supervised alongside their peers as part of a collective. This is understandable, given the undivided attention and precise, directly relevant advice one would receive. However, Hans Agné and Ulf Mörkenstam have compared the experiences of individually and collectively supervised students on the same doctoral programme and found that collective supervision, during the first year at least, is correlated with significantly shorter times to thesis completion compared to individual supervision

The Swedish Sámi Parliament: A challenged recognition?

Work Package 4: National Case Studies of Challenges to Tolerance in Political LifeThe ACCEPT PLURALISM project (2010-2013) is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities. (Call FP7-SSH-2009-A, Grant Agreement no: 243837). Coordinator: Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute

Saamelaisten oikeuksien toteutuminen: kansainvälinen oikeusvertaileva tutkimus

Saamelaisten oikeuksien eteenpäin vieminen Suomessa on kohdannut haasteita. Tämä tutkimus pyrkii vastaamaan valtioneuvoston määrittelemään tietotarpeeseen, joka liittyy erityisesti saamelaisten maa- ja osallistumisoikeuksiin sekä saamelaismääritelmään. Kyseessä on kansainvälinen oikeusvertaileva tutkimus, joka pyrkii tarjoamaan uutta tietoa sekä kansainvälisen alkuperäiskansaoikeuden kehityksestä että siitä, miten muissa aiheen kannalta keskeisissä valtioissa on ratkaistu alkuperäiskansojen oikeuksiin liittyviä kysymyksiä. Tutkimusraportti koostuu neljästä pääosiosta. Ensimmäinen osio tarkastelee saamelaisten oikeusasemaa Suomessa sekä siihen liittyviä ehdotuksia, joita tarkastellaan kansainvälisen oikeuden luomien velvoitteiden näkökulmasta. Toinen kokonaisuus pitää sisällään saamelaismääritelmän problematiikan tarkastelua kansainvälisen oikeuden sekä korkeimman hallinto-oikeuden tapauskäytännön valossa, sisältäen myös kuvauksen saamelaisuuden määrittelyyn liittyvien kiistojen taustoista ja syistä. Kolmas pääosio keskittyy alkuperäiskansojen kansainvälisoikeudellisen aseman ja oikeuksien kehitykseen pääfokuksena ns. ennakkosuostumuksen periaate (FPIC). Tämä osio pitää sisällään myös ILO sopimus 169:n sisältämien maaoikeuksien analyysiin. Neljäs pääkokonaisuus on oikeusvertaileva osio, jossa on mukana Norjaa, Ruotsia, Uutta-Seelantia, Kanadaa ja Latinalaisen Amerikan maita koskevat maaraportit. Tämä kappalekokonaisuus sisältää myös yhteenvedon vertailun piirissä olleiden valtioiden oikeuskäytänteiden keskeisistä elementeistä, joista voidaan löytää parhaita käytänteitä Suomen saamelaisten oikeuksien toteuttamiseksi

Om ”Lapparnes privilegier” : Föreställningar om samiskhet i svensk samepolitik 1883-1997

In discussions on the rights of minority groups, the group itself is generally taken for granted. It appears either irrelevant or timeless — unaffected by historical change and political practice. In the present thesis the role of this presumptive view of the group as a base for minority politics is problematised. The study’s point of departure is the notion that minority politics is dependent on certain conceptions of the group, in order to legitimate divergences from the ideal of equal treatment of citizens. These conceptions define what rights may be accorded to the group. However, these conceptions are also partly constituted in and through political practice, since special treatment presupposes a set of fundamental distinctions, categories and definitions to single out a particular group from the body of citizens. Groups are therefore in some respect the outcome of politics. The study investigates the relationship between conceptions of the Sami group in Swedish Sami policy and the system of special rights granted to the Sami minority between 1883 and 1997. By analysing policy problems formulated and solutions proposed in Swedish Sami policy, the dissertation makes explicit the construction of Samihood in public policy itself, its relevance for political practice and for rights accorded to the group. The study problematises dominant conceptions of Samihood in public discourse and seemingly given categories and definitions that have been institutionalised in and through a system of special rights. One analytical aspect here is the extent to which a publicly constituted Sami identity has maintained a specific relation of power between the dominant Swedish society and the Sami group. The thesis also discusses the consequences of this dependence on a certain conception of the group for the contemporary debate on minority rights in political theory. Theories about equal rights that ignore the embeddedness of the construction of political identity in power relationships are rejected, as are arguments for special rights that either receive their normative edge by taking the historically given character of minority groups for granted, or ignore the role of public policy in the constitution of minority groups. By analysing more than a century of Swedish Sami policy, a political theoretical approach is formulated regarding the question which rights should be accorded to minority groups, and for what reasons

Tolerance in Swedish political life

Work Package 4: National Case Studies of Challenges to Tolerance in Political LifeThe ACCEPT PLURALISM project (2010-2013) is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities. (Call FP7-SSH-2009-A, Grant Agreement no: 243837). Coordinator: Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute

Tolerance and cultural diversity discourses and practices in Sweden

Work Package 5: New Knowledge on Tolerance and Cultural Diversity in EuropeThe ACCEPT PLURALISM project (2010-2013) is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities. (Call FP7-SSH-2009-A, Grant Agreement no: 243837). Coordinator: Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute