De senaste åren har begreppet “civilsamhällets demokratiska utrymme”börjat användas mer frekvent i Sverige. Det finns dock ganska lite forskning på området utifrån en svensk kontext och det kan som verksam i civilsamhället vara svårt att veta i vilken ända en ska börja läsa. Vi bad därför Anna Ardin, doktorand på Ersta Sköndal Bräcke Högskola, att ge oss en teoretisk ram för vad civilsamhällets demokratiska utrymme egentligen är.

OBJECTIVES: As part of the process of de-institutionalization in the Swedish mental healthcare system, a reform was implemented in 1995, moving the responsibility for services and social support for people with severe mental illness (SMI) from the regional level to the municipalities. In many ways, older people with SMI were neglected in this changing landscape of psychiatric care. The aim of this study is to investigate functional levels, living conditions, need of support in daily life, and how these aspects changed over time for older people with SMI.

METHODS: In this study we used data from surveys collected in 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 and data from national registers. A group of older adults with severe persistent mental illness (SMI-O:P) was identified and divided into those who experienced shorter stays (less than 3 years) in a mental hospital (N = 118) and longer stays (N = 117).

RESULTS: After correcting for longitudinal changes with age, the longer-stay group was more likely than the shorter-stay group to experience functional difficulties and as a result, were more likely to have experienced "re-institutionalization" to another care setting, as opposed to living independently.

CONCLUSIONS: The length of mental illness hospitalization has significant effects on the living conditions of older people with SMI and their ability to participate in social life. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

We examine the effects of school choice reforms implemented in the early 1990s in two different settings: Sweden and Milwaukee (WI, U.S.). We show how both the ideological and theoretical arguments for choice reform were similar in the two contexts, yet the consequences in terms of the organizational outcome and institutional sector configuration ended up strikingly dissimilar. While the new group of actors in the Swedish school system consisted primarily of large-scale for-profit schools, with only a minor share of the expansion being catered to by nonprofit actors, the Milwaukee school choice program became dominated by small-scale nonprofit schools operated by religious communities. We seek to explicate these differences by drawing on the welfare state literature and social origins theory, as well as from organizational and historical institutional theory. We argue that the resulting composition of providers is directly related to the deep-seated differences in the civil society regimes operating in the two contexts.

The study provides an overview of published research on nonprofit welfare provision in Sweden and identifies potential gaps for future research. Taking the growing interest in civil society in general and nonprofit welfare in particular as our starting point, the article seeks to answer a series of questions. What scientific perspectives are utilized in the studies? When were they published? What welfare areas are studied? And ”are” the studies primarily concerned with users of welfare services, professionals, welfare-producing organizations or the welfare of society at large? We ana-lyse 161 published studies identified through a systematic search in three academic databases. The results are summarized using graphs and a narrative synthesis. The results show that research on nonprofit welfare provision has grown steadily since the early 1990s. The existing research is primarily on changing political and societal perceptions regarding what roles civil society orga-nizations should assume in a welfare society in transition and how this relates to international trends. Based on these results, we argue that research is lacking on the actual production of welfare services performed by civil society organizations in Sweden, and its significance for individual users, notably concerning research on nonprofit education and healthcare.

Almost a decade ago, it was argued that scholarly knowledge largely overlooked the political nature of foundations in favor of issues related to legislation, board composition, management, and societal contributions. As this argument still seems to apply, the aim of this chapter is to explore the political nature of corporate foundations (CFs). To meet this aim, this chapter draws out the contours of an emergent social imaginary concerning welfare provision from the outlook of CFs. The analysis builds on both survey data regarding CFs in Sweden and interviews with representatives from four different Swedish CFs, concerning the interlock between organizational visions and perceived contributions to welfare in this national context. A main conclusion in the chapter relates to the intermediary position of these organizations as they straddle the boundaries of corporate contexts and a public welfare system where they have a potential to influence both these worlds simultaneously, by carrying norms, values, and practices between them. It is also here that parts of the political significance of CFs can be found—both as expressions and containers of an emergent political vision of welfare in society.

DEBATT. Covid-19 pandemin är en kris som påverkar samhällen i hela världen. Det är en utmanande tid för alla, men för socialt utsatta grupper, så som personer i hemlöshet, blir situationen ännu mer ohållbar.

DEBATT: Att forskare och personer som berörs av forskningen arbetar gemensamt kan stärka möjligheten att lösa samhällsproblem och ge bättre kunskap. Det märker vi i vårt arbete med hemlösa kvinnor, skriver forskargruppen Jämlik vård för kvinnor i hemlöshet.

DN DEBATT 27/12.

Forskarna Hanna Karlsson och Johan Vamstad: Inför nationella riktlinjer till landets regioner.

Antalet personer som lever med skyddad identitet har nästan ­fördubblats på tio år. Men denna växande grupp får inte tillgång till ­sjukvård på samma sätt som andra eftersom deras identitet inte alltid skyddas i vården.

I det här temanumret fokuseras de samhälleliga aspekterna av pandemin. Även om Covid-19 är en sjukdom som drabbar individer, så drabbas indirekt hela samhället och inte minst de grupper som redan är särskilt utsatta. Människors sociala livssituationer, ekonomier och relationer riskerar att skadas i kölvattnet av pandemin. Samtidigt finns gott om exempel på hur enskilda personer, grupper och organisationer uppvisar kreativitet, medmänsklighet och uthållighet när samhället prövas i sin helhet.

En stor andel av de medborgare som har rätt till socialt stöd från detoffentliga får aldrig del av det. Även om sådana icke-mottagare finns i allasamhällsgrupper så är det rimligt att tro att de mest utsatta också i dethär fallet drabbas hårdast; de osynliggörs, drar sig undan och förlorar tillittill välfärdssamhället. Här diskuteras hur icke-mottagandet också blir ettproblem vid en samhällsstörning såsom den rådande corona-pandemin.

This paper explores the complex conditions for generalized

trust in the Indian state of Kerala and the potential role for social

work in improving them. Theory on trust and experiences drawn

from the international research field on trust and social capital are

used to disentangle the social structures and relations that form

and shape generalized trust in Kerala. Special attention is given to

the significance of social and economic equality, ethnic diversity

and justice institutions. It is concluded that Kerala faces several

challenges in addressing the low levels of generalized trust but

also that there are reasons for a cautious optimism, considering

the relatively high levels of trust in institutions and a sub-national

identity that supersedes ethnic divisions. Several constructive

suggestions are also made regarding the role of social work in

relation to generalized trust, addressing among other things the

present problems with corruption and the remittance economy in

Kerala.

This is a case study of how football associations in Stockholm handled the Corona pandemic in the spring of 2020. In Sweden, personal responsibility was emphasized, which meant that associations and voluntary leaders were given a great responsibility to interpret, manage and control compliance with the recommendations and restrictions decided. The results show that at all levels there were fears that even a temporary shut-down could have long term negative consequences. A key event was that the St Erikscup could be carried out, which during the pandemic added the unfamiliar role for the volunteers to try to keep certain hygiene rules and to ensure that no more than a maximum of 50 people gathered in connection with the matches.

Football is one of the most popular organized leisure activities, and sports clubs organize many volunteers. But participation is stratified, volunteering among parents is class based and especially immigrant girls participate less. The aim of this study is to explore volunteering for children's football as a social activity from a relational perspective. We analyse the dynamics in the clubs to understand how structures are shaped in interaction between individuals and organizations. The study has a mixed-methods approach with interviews among club employees and a survey to volunteers. Our analysis reveal that the dynamics of the recruitment process results in a homogenic group of volunteers from a more affluent area and that flexible working hours is a key mechanism in the stratification process. Even so the playing children seems to be a more heterogenic group and especially boys seem to be recruited from a wider community.

A critical, integrative review in the SocINDEX database was conducted to screen empirically grounded research on civil society and health among youth. Our initial search string resulted in 477 hits, and our final selection was 58 articles. We found both promotive and excluding processes emanating from civil society. The engaged participants seem to empower themselves and live healthier lives, but simultaneously, they tend to exclude those with poorer health and status. Civil society does not seem to have the ability to resolve the existing stratifications, and there are risks of reinforcing the existing inequalities. Partly due to insufficient theoretical detail, there was also significant room for circular reasoning since the operationalisations of participation in civil society, social capital and health often overlapped. Of the three mechanisms proposed by Robert Putnam as links between networks and health, social control seems to have the best support in the reviewed empirical studies.

Den organiserande idrottsrörelsen har länge haft en central ställning i det svenska samhället och möjliggjort fysisk aktivitet för flera generationer. Samtidigt är flickor, och speciellt de med utomeuropisk bakgrund, underrepresenterade vad gäller deltagande i idrottsrörelsen. Mot bakgrund av detta syftar denna rapport att kasta ljus över flickors lägre deltagande. Rapporten bygger på fokusgruppsintervjuer med föräldrar födda i Syrien, Somalia, Eritrea och Sverige där föräldrars uppfattningar och erfarenheter kring idrott, barndom, hälsa och föreningsliv samt skillnader mellan pojkar och flickor behandlades.

This article contributes with a nuanced picture of the importance of civil society for young people’s democratic socialisation and opportunities for influence, by studying public statistics on changes in membership rates in national youth organisations. Young people have long been given a special status in society and they are often perceived as either a threat or a promise. Young people’s special status is based on the fact that they do not really belong to the rest of society. They depend in different ways on others for their immediate livelihood, socialisation and for risk protection. But they also have the potential to contribute with new perspectives and change to outdated institutions. Because of their age, young people have been considered to need both democratic schooling and opportunities to find a context to express their commitment. Engagements in associations among young people has therefore been actively encouraged and supported by the state since at least the beginning of the 20th century. The results of this article show that until sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, participation in most types of national youth organisations increased, but that membership numbers subsequently decreased more or less drastically in organisations based on traditional popular mass movements, while others have increased or maintained their membership numbers.

We interpret the historical overview as evidence that the state subsidies since long has survived their purpose. The original mass movement organizations are declining in memberships, despite the efforts and those that are growing often follow the democratic procedures more to live up to the rules of the state than because of the desire to be governed by the will of the members and to change society.

This article examines a model for facilitating youth participation inlocal politics in Sweden. The Swedish youth councils are the responsibility of local authorities and they are designed to encourage political and civic interests among young people. These councils administrated by local bureaucracies are analyzed using institutional logics theory to determine the intentions, organization and outcomes of youth participation. The conclusions show that the institutional logic of the local public administration tends to dominate over the democratic logic of political participation for the young. The findings are based on mainly qualitative data from a two-year research project in Sweden.

In Sweden, as in many other European countries, governments and other public authorities increasingly seem to view religious communities as an important resource that should be included in welfare provision and help combat problems that societies are facing, thereby intentionally or unintentionally bringing religion back into the public arena. However, religious communities also seem to be perceived as a risk and a problem that needs to be further regulated and controlled. Given these conflicting signals, the aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of the contradictory and contested perspective of religion in the public realm today by describing, analysing and discussing changes in the Swedish state’s perception and handling of minority religious communities between 1952 and 2019. The point of departure is an assumption that the state has a central role in setting the terms and conditions that both enable and limit what religious communities can do, thus shaping the function and role of religion in the public realm. The studied governments documents have been analysed through a mix-method approach meaning that both an automated content analysis and an idea-analysis have been performed. A theoretical framework including theories regarding the governance of religious diversity and civil society state relations is used to analyse the material. The results show that the priorities of the state have been central in governing minority religious communities throughout the studied time period. Also, although the issue has become a new policy concern in the late 1990s, many of the recent controversies concerning minority religious communities are not new. Rather, such controversies are indicative of an ongoing story of Sweden’s handling of religious diversity. The conflicting view of minority religious communities today seems therefore to be deeply embedded in the inherent tensions of the Swedish social contract.

Vilken roll spelar trossamfunden i det svenska samhällsbygget – är de medspelare eller motståndare? Tittar vi på den politiska diskussionen under 2000-talet är det inte lätt att förstå hur vi ska placera de religiösa aktörerna. Vi gav civilsamhällsforskarna Linnea Lundgren och Lars Trägårdh utrymme att diskutera saken utifrån sitt perspektiv.

The importance of engaging patients in the development of healthcare services and policy has received increasing attention over the last decades. However, this attention has mainly been directed towards various forms of involvement of individual patients. This dissertation shifts focus to the collective forms of patient participation and the specific values they bring. The overall aim of the dissertationis to explore how collective patient participation is shaped, in an increasingly individualized and marketized society. The articles included in the dissertation analyze aspects such as advocacy work, representation mechanisms and coproduction practices at different levels of healthcare. These aspects are studied from the perspective of civil society organizations navigating current social trends such as individualization and marketization. Taken together, the findings point to the importance of considering the preconditions of the individual patient to engage in patient participation in a collective form. This appears to be an important factor in the shaping of collective patient participation, as well as a potential challenge for both advocacy and representation. The findings also indicate that individual and collective forms of participation should not be seen as two conflicting interests, but could rather be mutually strengthening, something that should be considered both by civil society organizations and healthcare policymakers. Furthermore, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the diverse nature of patient participation, and how these variations all play important yet distinct roles in improving democratic and quality aspects of healthcare.

Patient organizations such as those in Sweden face individualization processes on two fronts, both in their own voluntary sector and in the healthcare sector. The aim of this study is to investigate how the patient organizations are handling the two-front individualization process internally in their organizations, as well as externally towards a more patient-centred healthcare system.With more diverse stakeholders and individual patients given increased influence, we would expect a corresponding adjustment in the strategies of the patient organizations. The article’s focus is on the organizations’ representative role, and theories on advocacy strategies are used to identify the nature of the patient organizations’ advocacy work. To find out how adjustments are made, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from local branches of three large Swedish patient organizations. The interviews show a low tendency to adjust as a response to this two-front individualization and illustrate a paralyzed rather than modified behaviour in these organizations. Individualization being a global trend, we believe these results are of interest to scholars of collective participation in all parts of the world.

It is, today, widely accepted that market structures, logics, identities and activities are spreading throughout society, including civil society and its organisations. Scholars increasingly use the marketisation concept to describe these tendencies. This paper reviews the meaning attached to this concept, when used in the context of civil society. A sample of 210 peer-reviewed articles in civil society studies published between 1993 and 2017 is explored in an analysis that suggests that marketisation is being used with much variation in the literature. The analysis also shows that apart from more generic descriptions of persistent attempts to privatise and commodify various goods and services, few articles seem to involve more detailed definitions or profound conceptual arguments. Taken together, this indicates a development where the concept of marketisation runs the risk of losing its analytical powers. To avoid this, the paper proposes a stricter and more transparent use of the term ‘marketisation’ and suggests ways to further develop this concept in research.

This is the third themed issue in the Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership (JNEL) in which researchers around the world examine regional and national training and education programs for individuals with civil society leadership roles. When we as editors set our sails in the early years of the last decade, the third issue was always our planned destination. However, as with most voyages, things do not always go according to plan. As we now proudly present the third issue, we are already hard at work with two more themed issues—one with a focus on a set of countries in Southeast Asia and another with a focus on regional mappings and studies. Over time have we come to realize that this voyage has no one harbor, to arrive at once and for all, and that the true delight is the cruise itself.

In Europe, a demographic transition has occurred meaning that countries have larger older adult populations who are increasingly living alone and receiving homecare rather than institutional care. Given that living alone is the greatest individual risk factor for fire mortality amongst older adults and that large differences exist in terms of both fire mortality risk and living arrangements between countries, this study investigates the association between co-living rates and fire mortality rates among older adults in Europe. Freely available datasets with aggregated European data on fire mortality, living arrangements among older adults, population statistics and GDP were analyzed using Poisson regression models. The results show that fire-related mortality rates amongst older adults in Europe is correlated with living arrangements after adjusting for GDP. Specifically, in Europe, when the share of older adults living alone increases by one percentage point, fire mortality rates increase by roughly 4 percent for both sexes.

In 2019 we organized a conference casting light on the housing crisis and especially on the historical and contemporary organization of tenants to contest housing inequalities. By placing housing struggles and tenants’ organization at the centre of the debate we aimed at exposing and politicizing current capitalist development and, hopefully, at proposing a different view of how housing can be organized and imagined by discussing how resistance can be used, with what effects and how it can be connected to other struggles. This special issue is a result of this conference dealing with tenants’ organization in different contexts examining how tenants organize(d), why and what could be learned from it. In this introducing text we give an overview of this field of research by asking why tenants’ mobilizations are important to study, what is still under-studied in the field and which perspectives are important to raise in future research.

“Islamophobia in Sweden: National Report 2022” presents an overview of rapidly growing Islamophobia in the broader Swedish context, including an increasingly arbitrary securitization of Muslim civil society groups and organizations, as well as increased anti-Muslim radicalization in online spaces and platforms. In recent years, Islamophobic narratives have quickly entered the political mainstream as political parties and media outlets across the spectrum have engaged in securitization of the Muslim presence in Sweden and calling for increasingly draconian measures against Muslim minorities. A noteworthy new level in anti-Muslim rhetoric was set in the spring of 2022, when the Christian Democratic Party leader called for police to shoot more “Islamists” following riots responding to an anti-Muslim farright Danish extremist burning the Quran.2 As the conservative parties have started cooperating with the previously overtly fascist Sweden Democrats, a long and ongoing history of aggressive Islamophobic rhetoric and politics risk becoming legitimized to many voters. Local politicians’ attempts to regulate traditional Muslim women’s garments have largely failed as courts overrule them with reference to the Swedish constitution. A small but influential group of thought leaders, consisting of a network of politicians, journalists, and academics, has become important for the development of Islamophobic discourse in Sweden in recent years. They produce a range of materials that significantly impacts national and local institutional policies in a consistently negative way for Muslim communities in Sweden. Muslims are increasingly withdrawing from the public sphere due to widespread accusations of extremism and a lack of political allies. Islamophobic news sites and media channels are now receiving state subsidies meant for support of independent media outlets. Meanwhile, Muslim organizations in civil society find it increasingly difficult to find people willing to act as their spokespeople, due to personal security concerns and frequently unbalanced and negative media coverage of Muslim organizations.

This study set out to explore the organizational repertoire of involvement in four socially oriented CSOs in Sweden from 1996 to 2015. Data are drawn from a content analysis of organizations archived websites. Over time, tentative results indicate a looser connection between being a formal member and doing voluntary work for that same organization, a significant increase regarding forms of involvement categorized as voluntary work as well as giving and, a shift in terminology. Finally, in light of comparison to prior studies the authors suggest adding yet another empirical dimension to the organizational repertoire of involvement – attention.

The Swedish Union of Tenants is known today as perhaps the strongest tenants’ organisation in the world, with an established institutional role in the rent-setting system and a mandate to collectively bargain rents. What is relatively unknown, however, is that this system emerged out of a period of widespread rent struggle during the mid-war period. This was especially noteworthy in the city of Gothenburg. During the 19th Century, Gothenburg had become an important industrial centre and its population multiplied tenfold. Together with other groups, such as clerks and small shop owners, the workers formed a distinct popular class culture with organisational expressions and collective mobilisation that changed the social and political order of the city forever. One of these expressions was the tenants’ unions, seen as a sort of trade unions for the rented home. Tenants’ unions advocated protective legislation for tenants and confronted landlords, both with legal means and with militant methods such as rent strikes and blockades. This militancy reached its highest levels from 1932 to 1937. The collective mobilisation and organisation of the tenants altered the power relations between landlords and tenants, which can be seen both in the concessions made by landlords in numerous conflicts and in the fact that the landlords altered their organisations to defend themselves against the tenant offensive. By the time of the rent control act of 1942, centralised collective bargaining had been largely implemented and the collective organisations had become established and recognised interest organisations. The historical relationship between organised labour and tenants, and the effect of tenant organising on the rental market, are still under-researched subjects. This article is intended to both explore the historic rise of the tenants’ movement and to show the very real historical conflict between independent grassroot organisations and political parties in housing and labour history.

Efter den kollektiva organiseringens genombrott på arbetsmark­naden runt förra sekelskiftet började sådan organisering att bli en viktig faktor även på hyresmarknaderna i vissa industristäder: hyresgäst­föreningarna växte fram. Vad som lätt kommer i skymundan i dag är att dessa föreningar en gång i tiden satte en rad skilda kamp­metoder i bruk i sin strävan att flytta fram sina positioner. Hannes Rolf har gått till arkiven.

This thesis is a study of the collective mobilisation and organisation of tenants in Gothenburg and Stockholm between 1875 and 1942. Of special interest are the power relations and the power struggle between the landlords and the organised tenants in the same period. The similarities and differences between the tenants’ movement in Gothenburg and Stockholm played an important role in the historical process and both cities thus need to be studied and compared to each other. The concept of contentious repertoire, developed mainly in the works of Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, is used to explain the methods employed by the tenants in their collective mobilisation. Other important factors considered in the thesis are the opportunity structures available and the periods of international radicalisation where the rent struggle also seems to have intensified worldwide. Both the Swedish organised landlords and tenants modelled their organisations after labour market organisation and both parties came to understand their relation as part of a class struggle. A concept borrowed from Klas Åmark, exchangeability, will be used to illustrate an important factor – the harder it was for a landlord to replace a tenant with another tenant, the better the tenants’ position. The tenants’ unions knew this and tried with militant means as well as with advocacy for tenants’ rights and increased housing construction to make it harder for the landlords to replace their tenants. Episodes of tenant militancy were frequent, in Gothenburg especially between 1923 and 1937 and in Stockholm especially between 1928 and 1936. The collective mobilisation and organisation of the tenants did alter the power relations between landlords and tenants, which can be seen both in the concessions made by landlords in numerous conflicts and in the fact that the landlords altered their organisations to defend themselves against the tenant offensive. By the end of the period, centralised collective bargaining had been largely implemented. Other strategies aimed at reducing the exchangeability were also used by the tenants. Tenant housing cooperative enterprises, first seen as a form of protest action and as an alternative to privately owned housing, eventually took on more centralised form in the organisation HSB. The close ties between HSB and the tenants’ unions gave the latter some economical backing and the former some additional legitimacy. By the end of the research period, the idea of large-scale municipal housing had taken over the role the idea of cooperative housing once had, and even though HSB was to play an important part in the post-war housing projects it would be reduced to a secondary position. When it comes to new legislation, the rent law of 1939 did little to alter the power relations,even though it did recognise the tenants’ movement as the natural representative for the tenants’ cause. The 1942 rent act, however, did give the tenants some leverage but it also overrode the system of collective bargaining that had been worked out by the tenants and landlords. All in all, the directactions, the housing production and the new legislation reduced the exchangeability of the tenants and altered the power relations in favour of the tenants.

I dag riskerar hyresgäster att bli renovräkta när hyror chockhöjs efter renoveringar.

Hannes Rolf analyserar hur vi hamnade där, hur vi bygger en rörelse som på riktigt kan förändra och vilka lärdomar vi kan dra från den stridbara hyresgäströrelse som fanns på 1930-talet.

Historien om den svenska bostadspolitiken under 1900-talet skrivs oftasom en historia där bostadspolitiken kommit ovanifrån, men vad som glöms bort är att ett starkt tryck underifrån i hög grad spelade in. Inte minst den alls inte konflikträdda hyresgäströrelse som under mellankrigstiden växte fram i Sverige spelade en viktig roll, både politiskt och mer direkt. Hyresstrejker och andra militanta metoder användes här i en inte ringa omfattning, något som i principär bortglömt i dag men som förtjänar att lyftas fram.

Den historiska bilden av arbetarrörelsen har länge varit en bild där framför allt rörelsens politiska och fackliga organisationer har lyfts fram. Utöver detta har andra delar, såsom folkbildningen, med rätta tillskrivits en viktig betydelse för arbetarrörelsens utveckling. Ett exempel på en del av rörelsen som har fått relativt lite uppmärksamhet är hyresgäströrelsen. Att hyresgästernas organisationer har uppmärksammats så pass lite som har varit fallet är intressant. Detta gäller inte minst då den svenska hyresgäströrelsen sedan andra halvan av 1900-talet, internationellt sett har varit anmärkningsvärt stark och inflytelserik och haft en mycket hög anslutningsgrad. Det unika svenska systemet med kollektivförhandlade hyror är bara ett uttryck för rörelsens historiska styrka. Denna styrka var dock inte given utan fick i mångt och mycket erövras i konfrontation med motparten, fastighetsägarna. I denna text undersöks kortfattat några av formerna som dessa konfrontationer tog.