Search results for "political science"

The Janus face of social innovation in local welfare initiatives

2017

Competing institutional logics in Soviet industrial location policy

2018

The Soviet legacy has been widely demonstrated to have had negative impacts on the regional and economic development of Russia. This article studies the mechanisms of competing institutional logics in Soviet industrial location policies as a source of this adverse heritage. The results indicate that prolonged competition between three institutional logics complicated the adoption and practice of consistent industrial location strategies and contributed to structural problems in economic geography. An analysis of Soviet institutional logics demonstrates parallel forms of competition and coexistence with findings from other institutional environments, paving the way for a broader theoretical …

More educated, more mobile? Evidence from post-secondary education reform

2016

More educated, more mobile? Evidence from post-secondary education reform. Spatial Economic Analysis. This paper examines the causal impact of the level of education on within-country migration. To account for biases resulting from selection into post-secondary education, it uses a large-scale reform within the higher education system that gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics in Finland in the 1990s. This reform created quasi-exogenous variation in the supply of higher education over time and across regions. The results based on multinomial treatment effects models and population register data show that, overall, polytechnic graduates have a significantly highe…

Is there a Nordic model of final disposal of spent nuclear fuel? Governance insights from Finland and Sweden

2017

This paper explores citizen participation in Swedish and Finnish regulatory processes for final disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). Finland and Sweden are considered the most advanced worldwide in term of SNF disposal plans. Our aim is to analyze the institutional waste management frameworks, focusing on the role of civil society organizations (CSOs); how lay-people and civil society organizations have been able to participate and contribute to radioactive waste licensing processes; and the nature of radioactive waste risk debates. We review official documents of the waste companies and nuclear safety authorities, plus information from civil society organizations and laypeople. Our theore…

Enterprising Culture : Discourses on Entrepreneurship in Nordic Cultural Policy

2017

ABSTRACTThe sphere of arts and culture has been going through a process of economic reevaluation during the last few decades. Parallel to the rise of a creative economy discourse, which both in its political and scientific forms has highlighted the economic significance of culture and arts, entrepreneurship has become a feature in the cultural policy of many countries. In this article, we compare how entrepreneurship is established and used as a concept in cultural policy discourses in two Nordic countries, Norway and Finland. Through analyzing policy plans and documents, we discuss what is seen as positive cultural or artistic activity in the framework of entrepreneurship, and we identify …

Democracy, poverty and civil society in Mozambique

2015

National elections were held in Mozambique for the fifth time in October 2014. As a state, Mozambique – like many ‘fourth-wave’ transition countries – fulfils the formal criteria of democracy. But to what extent are the mechanisms of accountability implemented? In Africa, two issues have been identified as key impediments for successful democratic transition: failure to improve the welfare of the poor and the ‘pre-modern’ character of civil society. In Mozambique, robust economic growth has been accompanied by growing inequality, while traditional civil society organisations (CSOs) have become increasingly visible on local level since the political transition in 1994. Based on the analysis …

Of Walls and Fences: Brexit and the History of Cross-Border Migration

2019

Champions of Brexit have employed a large arsenal of arguments to boost their case for a Britain better off on its own, freed from its current European entanglements. All kinds of supposed ills have been linked to the country’s EU membership in British public debates over the years, ranging from petty bureaucratic absurdities, such as directives regarding crooked bananas, to heavy-handed rulings on higher matters of domestic and foreign policy. Lamentations about continental meddling have been accompanied by grand, nostalgic visions of an unfettered future Great Britain, ready to return to its proper, independent role on the global stage once it manages to cast off the shackles imposed by B…

The International SoleTM of Finnish Higher Eduction: A Virtual Vanishing Act

2011

This participative inquiry critiques recent management trends in the Finnish higher education system. The six authors, presently working in three Finnish universities, focus on strategic internationalization policy to highlight the argument. Global trends in internationalization are introduced, followed by an experienced-based meta-analysis, drawing on several recent studies by the authors. This analysis points to significant challenges and blind spots that exist- well hidden- alongside the Finnish higher education system’s best features. The increasing use of ICT-based management routines are called into question with respect to higher education practices, capacity and linked societal chal…

Examining Bridge Employment From a Self-employment Perspective : Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study

2017

Moral distress among social workers : the role of insufficient resources

2015

The present study examined moral distress among Finnish social workers and the role of perceived resource insufficiencies in explaining it. The aim was to shed light on this understudied phenomenon in the field of social welfare. The study focused on work-related moral distress, defined as impaired wellbeing that is connected to the continual inability to implement actions that one considers morally appropriate. The survey data were collected with an electronic questionnaire between the years 2011 and 2012. The respondents (n = 817) were social workers in the public social welfare services and the overall response rate was 46.5 per cent. Nearly 11 per cent of the respondents reported experi…