There is no consensus over the proper definition of ‘scientific misconduct.’ There are differences in opinion not only between countries but also between research institutions in the same country. This is unfortunate. Without a widely accepted definition it is difficult for scientists to adjust to new research milieux. This might hamper scientific innovation and make cooperation difficult. Furthermore, due to the potentially damaging consequences it is important to combat misconduct. But how frequent is it and what measures are efficient? Without (...) an appropriate definition there are no interesting answers to these questions. In order to achieve a high degree of consensus and to foster research integrity, the international dialogue over the proper definition of ‘scientific misconduct’ must be on going. Yet, the scientific community should not end up with the definition suggested by the Swedish Research Council. The definition the council advocates does not satisfy the ordinary language condition. That is, the definition is not consistent with how ‘scientific misconduct’ is used by scientists. I will show that this is due to the fact that it refers to false results. I generalise this and argue that no adequate definition of ‘scientific misconduct’ makes such a reference. (shrink)

BackgroundMoral distress has been described as an emotionally draining condition caused by being prevented from providing care according to one’s convictions. Studies have described the impact of moral distress on healthcare professionals, their situations and experiences. The Measure of Moral Distress for Healthcare Professionals (MMD-HP) is a questionnaire that measures moral distress experienced by healthcare professionals at three levels: patient, system and team. The aim of this project was to translate and make a cultural adaption of the MMD -HP to (...) the Swedish context.MethodsThe questionnaire comprises 27 items, rated according to frequency and intensity on a five-point Likert scale (0–4). The procedure for translating MMD-HP followed WHO guidelines (2020). These entailed a forward translation from English to Swedish, a back translation, expert panel validation, pretesting and cognitive face-to-face interviews with 10 healthcare professionals from various professions and healthcare contexts.ResultsThe Swedish version of MMD-HP corresponds essentially to the concept of the original version. Parts of some items’ had to be adjusted or removed in order to make the item relevant and comprehensible in a Swedish context. Overall, the cognitive interviewees recognized the content of the items which generally seemed relevant and comprehensible.ConclusionThe Swedish version of MMD-HP could be a useful tool for measuring moral distress among healthcare professionals in a Swedish healthcare context. (shrink)

Compared to more familiar varieties of Swedish, the dialects spoken in Finland have rather diverse syllable structures. The distribution of distinctive syllable weight is determined by grammatical factors, and by varying effects of final consonant weightlessness. In turn it constrains several gemination processes which create derived superheavy syllables, in an unexpected way which provides evidence for an anti-neutralization constraint. Stratal OT, which integrates OT with Lexical Phonology, sheds light on these complex quantity systems.

As the suspect interview is one of the key elements of a police investigation, it has received a great deal of merited attention from the scientific community. However, suspect interviews in child sexual abuse investigations is an understudied research area. In the present mixed-methods study, we examine Swedish and Norwegian police interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotional experiences when conducting interviews with suspected CSA offenders. The quantitative analyses found associations between the interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotions during these (...) types of suspect interviews. Interviewers who reported experiencing more negative emotions were more likely to employ confrontational tactics. Specifically, anger was positively associated with the goal of obtaining a confession and with aggressive tactics like raising one's voice and emphasizing the seriousness of the crime. Frustration and disgust displayed similar patterns. Somewhat contrasting these quantitative results, the thematic analysis identified a strong consensus that emotions should not and do not affect the police interviewers' work. Furthermore, the police interviewers described a range of strategies for managing emotions during the interview and for processing their emotional reactions afterwards. The present findings highlight the relevance of emotional processes in CSA suspect interviews and provide an initial exploration of the potentially complex relationship between the goals, tactics, and emotional experiences of police interviewers who question CSA suspects. (shrink)

State provision of “merit goods” and of narrowly targeted cash payments has higher priority than large universal cash grants. Analysis of the Swedish budget shows that advanced countries do not have the taxing capacity to do both at once. Other problems with cash payments schemes include the disincentive to work for pay, reducing taxpaying capacity, and retrograde effects on gender equality. After the achievement of a welfare state, rises over time in productivity may gradually open up room in the (...) national budget for universal cash payments. (shrink)

The events in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, and the Russian attitude towards Ukraine show an evident change in European relations. The escalation of conflict between Russia and Ukraine however does not affect only those two countries, but also those in the nearest vicinity. Especially in Scandinavian and Nordic countries change in social ambience can be observed. The aim of this article is essentially to analyze Swedish reaction to the Ukrainian Crisis, the change in Swedish attitude towards international (...) security systems, especially NATO, and Swedish perception of its national safety. (shrink)

José Antonio Antón-Pacheco exercises his expertise in philosophy in this meditation on the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg. In this book he tackles subjects as diverse as the nature of unity and the way that the Divine manifests in the world; the nature of human beings as they relate to the higher realms, and specifically Swedenborg’s concept of the Grand Man or Universal Human; the mystical nature of Swedenborg’s interpretation of the Bible; and the nature of time and space in the (...) spiritual world. Alongside his exploration of Swedenborg’s thought are examinations of Swedenborg’s influence on a variety of different thinkers and authors, from Jorge Luis Borges to Ibn ’Arabi. This book was originally published in Spanish as _El profeta del norte: Un libro sobre Swedenborg_. Perfect for scholars and serious students of Swedenborg’s thought, Antón Pacheco’s powerful writing casts a new light on the Swedish prophet. (shrink)

The historical roots of the Swedish welfare state are surveyed in an attempt to show how culture accounts for certain peculiarities of the ?Swedish Model,?; as compared to other welfare states like Germany or the U.S. It is argued that most of the socio?cultural patterns that have become firmly associated with the past fifty years of Social Democratic hegemony in fact are of ancient origins and are perhaps most aptly described as simply ?Swedish.?; From this perspective the (...) relevance and usefulness of the Swedish experience for the reformers in Eastern Europe are also considered. (shrink)

Sweden features near the top of most gender-equality rankings. The World Economic Forum rates it as having one of the narrowest gender gaps in the world. But Sweden is not only a good place to be a woman: it also appears to be an idyll for new dads. Close to 90% of Swedish fathers take paternity leave. In 2013, some 340,000 dads took a total of 12 million days’ leave, equivalent to about seven weeks each. Women take even more (...) leave days to spend time with their children, but the gap is shrinking. Why do Swedish dads take so much time off work to raise their children? (shrink)

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to explore Swedish managers’ and HR-officers’ experiences and perceptions of skills training including a development and implementation of an alcohol policy.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with Swedish managers and HR-officers from nine different organizations whom had received skills training and an organizational policy implementation. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analyses.ResultsIn total, nine themes were identified as: The prevalence of alcohol problems: a wake-up call; a reminder to intervene immediately; an altered view of (...) the responsibility of the employer; initiating conversations about alcohol: a useful toolbox; an imprecise, yet positive, memory; increased awareness of issues related to alcohol culture; I have not heard a word about a new alcohol policy; the alcohol policy: a mere piece of paper; and alcohol problem prevention: hardly a low-hanging fruit. Participants’ experiences of the skills training were positive overall.ConclusionVarious aspects of the skills training were appreciated by managers and HR-officers, including insight of prevalence statistics and employer responsibilities. Participants emphasized the value of repeated skills training occasions for retaining knowledge. Future research may investigate further in what way skills training may affect managers’ willingness to engage in workplace alcohol prevention. Since the implementation of any policy had gone unnoticed to participants, a reason for which could be related to the notion of the existing policy as “good enough” in its current condition, implementation and organizational issues, or a reluctance to address alcohol-related matters unless necessary; future research may focus on investigating in what manner alcohol policies are in fact utilized within organizations. (shrink)

This paper describes the first known translation from the Confucian classics into Swedish, a collection of eighty quotations from the Lunyu published as an appendix to J. A. Bellman’s Wishetenes råd (1707). The work is a third-generation translation, made from the French La morale de Confucius (1688), which is itself an abridged translation of the Latin Confucius Sinarum philosophus (1687). This paper selects ten of the eighty quotations for detailed analysis and commentary. The main findings are that the translation (...) removes so much of the Chinese context and Confucian technical vocabulary that the text becomes almost indistinguishable from generic wisdom literature. Furthermore, the Swedish translator adds a layer of “Christian” vocabulary, which was not present in the Latin and French versions. However, at a time when Sweden had almost no contact with non-Christian cultures, the translation may have played a valuable role in making the Swedish public positively disposed toward Chinese culture. (shrink)

This paper gives an overview of the present state of Swedish agriculture and discusses some problems and experiences of general interest. After an introductory section on the characteristics of Swedish agriculture, a number of problems are described, such as social problems, market imbalances, environmental damage, changes in landscape amenities, and animal health. Possible causes of these problems are discussed. Recent attempts to solve the problems as well as the current Swedish debate on more radical changes in agricultural (...) policy are also discussed. The main components of a suggested program are subsidies to farmers based on their acreage of grazed land or grassland and elimination of the present price supports and market regulations. (shrink)

AimsTo examine attitudes towards physician-assisted suicide (PAS) among physicians in Sweden and compare these with the results from a similar cross-sectional study performed in 2007.ParticipantsA random selection of 250 physicians from each of six specialties (general practice, geriatrics, internal medicine, oncology, surgery and psychiatry) and all 127 palliative care physicians in Sweden were invited to participate in this study.SettingA postal questionnaire commissioned by the Swedish Medical Society in collaboration with Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. ResultsThe total response rate was 59.2%. (...) Slightly fewer than half [47.1% (95% CI 43.7–50.5)] of the respondents from the six specialties accepted PAS, which is significantly more than accepted PAS in the 2007 study [34.9% (95% CI 31.5–38.3)]. Thirty-three percent of respondents were prepared to prescribe the needed drugs. When asked what would happen to the respondent’s own trust in healthcare, a majority [67.1% (95% CI 63.9–70.3)] stated that legalizing PAS would either not influence their own trust in healthcare, or that their trust would increase. This number is an increase compared to the 2007 survey, when just over half [51.9% (95% CI 48.0–55.2)] indicated that their own trust would either not be influenced, or would increase.ConclusionsThe study reveals a shift towards a more accepting attitude concerning PAS among physicians in Sweden. Only a minority of the respondents stated that they were against PAS, and a considerable proportion reported being prepared to prescribe the needed drugs for patient self-administration if PAS were legalized. (shrink)

The main causes of suicide and how suicide could and should be prevented are ongoing controversies in the scientific literature as well as in public media. In the bill on public health from 2008, the Swedish Parliament adopted an overarching “Vision Zero for Suicide” and nine strategies for suicide prevention. However, how the VZ should be interpreted in healthcare is unclear. The VZ has been criticized both from a philosophical perspective and against the background of clinical experience and alleged (...) empirical claims regarding the consequences of regulating suicide prevention. This study is part of a larger research project in medical ethics with the overarching aim to explore whether the VZ is ethically justifiable. The aim is to enrich the normative discussion by investigating empirically how the VZ is perceived in healthcare. Interviews based on a semi-structured interview guide were performed with 12 Swedish psychiatrists. The interviews were analysed with descriptive qualitative content analysis aiming for identifying perceptions of the Vision Zero for Suicide as well as arguments for and against it. Though most of the participants mentioned at least some potential benefit of the Vision Zero for Suicide, the overall impression was a predominant skepticism. Some participants focused on why they consider the VZ to be unachievable, while others focused more on its potential consequences and normative implications. The VZ was perceived to be impossible to realize, nonconstructive or potentially counterproductive, and undesirable because of potential conflicts with other values and interests of patients as well as the general public. There were also important notions of the VZ having negative consequences for the working conditions of psychiatrists in Sweden, in increasing their work-related anxiety and thwarting the patient-physician relationship. (shrink)

After the death in 1934 of his father-in-law Samuel Fischer, founder of the well-known publishing house S. Fischer in Berlin, Gottfried Bermann Fischer moved to Vienna with the aim of publishing the works of prominent German-speaking Jewish and non-Jewish authors who could no longer publish in National Socialist Germany. After the ‘Anschluss’ to Nazi Germany in March 1938 he fled to Sweden with help from Karl Otto and Tor Bonnier, heads of Albert Bonniers Förlag. Eagerly observed by the Nazi authorities, (...) Gottfried Bermann Fischer published books of well-known German, Austrian, and Swedish writers. What did this German-language publishing work look like in a foreign-language environment? Who were the employees? Where were the sales markets? Why did this cooperation between Bermann Fischer and Bonnier fail in the end? The main focus of this article is on Bermann Fischer’s efforts on behalf of German-speaking authors outside Nazi Germany, and on the resentments against a (foreign) Jewish entrepreneur and Bonniers’ engagement in this last remaining large German publishing house in exile after May 1940, even after Gottfried Bermann Fischer’s expulsion from Sweden. (shrink)

Swedish lexical word accents have been repeatedly said to have a low functional load. Even so, the language has kept these tones ever since they emerged probably over a thousand years ago. This article proposes that the primary function of word accents is for listeners to be able to predict upcoming morphological structures and narrow down the lexical competition rather than being lexically distinctive. Psycho- and neurophysiological evidence for the predictive function of word accents is discussed. A novel analysis (...) displays that word accents have a facilitative role in word processing. Specifically, a correlation is revealed between how much incorrect word accents hinder listeners’ processing and how much they reduce response times when correct. Finally, a dual-route model of the predictive use of word accents with distinct neural substrates is put forth. (shrink)

Swedish beef and dairy farmers are currently facing a challenging financial situation. Simultaneously, beef farming contributes significant environmental impacts. To support farmers, actors from the whole value chain are now promoting Swedish beef as particularly ‘sustainable’. The paper draws on critical discourse analysis of interviews with and documents from the largest Swedish supermarket chain ICA, Swedish farmer organisations and farmers to study how ICA and farmers articulate sustainability and their responsibility for the same. Articulations are subsequently (...) discussed in the light of actual environmental impacts of beef production and the distribution of power in the beef value chain. The findings suggest that negative environmental impacts and farmers’ struggles are largely hidden in the dominant articulation of sustainability. Furthermore, ICA does not use the power it has to steer consumers toward reduced beef consumption. We conclude with suggesting more open deliberation about current levels of beef sales and consumption and about what compromises to make when striving for ‘sustainable’ beef consumption. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I carry out an analysis of an event in Sweden called ‘the spring turnout’. It is a traditional event where cows are allowed out into the fields after the winter. I show how i...

The paper discusses the publications of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) as part of a wider network of publication exchange, linking learned societies, libraries, and archives. The periodicals of the RSAS went through several reorganisations between 1813 and 1903, all to some extent related to their role in publication exchange. Although subject to many of the same deliberations of commercial value and institutional prestige as the expanding book trade, publication exchange offered a means of communication for institutions (...) with widely differing financial, linguistic and scientific status, and a forum for articulating a wide range of values significant in scientific publication. In the context of publication exchange, the roles of producers and consumers, and of publishers and repositories of scientific knowledge overlap, and librarians emerge alongside editors as central actors in scientific communication. Scientific editorship should be viewed not only as a means of disseminating scientific findings to wider audiences, but as designing a product that could be used to forge institutional connections, to acquire publications, and to build collections. The case of the RSAS periodicals highlights the importance of publication, not only for the distribution of scientific knowledge, but for its acquisition. (shrink)

Summary This paper reports on an analysis of organizational structures in Swedish elite ice hockey and is concerned with the organization at club level, its similarities and differences with regard to the clubs’ structural dimensions: specialization, standardization and centralization. Findings are based on structured interviews with the general managers of 11 clubs represented in the Swedish elite league and on official and unofficial documents. The results, categorizing the clubs for each of these three structural dimensions into Law, Medium, (...) and High, reveal some smaller variations in structural features, but mainly similarities, explained using the concept of adaptive isomorphism. (shrink)

SUMMARYThis article provides the first comprehensive and historically genuine analysis of Heinrich Ludwig von Hess's pamphlet Der Republickaner. Hess was an important figure in both the German and Swedish eighteenth-century political context. Firstly, I will show that the proper historiographical context for Hess's pamphlet is Sweden. In previous historiography on the subject it has been argued that Der Republickaner was a comment on the constitutional reality of Hamburg. My article demonstrates that the original context of Hess's pamphlet was the (...) power struggle between King Adolf Frederick of Sweden and the council of the realm. Secondly, I argue that Hess's pamphlet is the most elaborate defence of aristocratic republicanism written in Sweden in the Age of Liberty. As a result, Hess's pamphlet is the fiercest attack on absolutism written in German in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

The Swedish welfare debate increasingly focuses on market liberal notions and its healthcare perspective aims for more patient‐centered care. This article examines the new Swedish Patient Act describing and analyzing how the patient is constructed in government documents. This study takes a Foucauldian discourse analysis approach following Willig's analysis guide. The act contains an entitlement discourse for patients and a requirement discourse for healthcare personnel. These two discourses are governed by a values‐based healthcare discourse. Neo‐liberal ideology, in the (...) form of New Public Management discourse, focusing on the value of efficiency and competition, is given a hegemonic position as laws and regulations are used to strengthen it. The new Swedish Patient Act seems to further strengthen this development. The Act underlines the increased entitlement for patients, but it is not legally binding as it offers patients only indirect entitlement to influence and control their care. To safeguard the patient's entitlement under the Patient Act, healthcare personnel should be made aware of the contents of the Act, so that they can contribute to the creation of systems and working methods that facilitate respect of the Act's provisions in daily healthcare work. (shrink)

In 2015, the world's first self-defined feminist government was formed in Sweden with the explicit ambition of pursuing a feminist foreign policy. This essay seeks to unpack and highlight some of the substance and plausible future directions of a feminist foreign policy. The overarching ambition is three-fold: to probe the normative contents of feminist foreign policy in theory and in practice; to identify a number of potential challenges and ethical dilemmas that are detrimental to gender-sensitive global politics; and to advance (...) a research agenda that can deepen the normative and ethical notions of a feminist foreign policy. Sweden's feminist foreign policy is still in the making. Its conduct is mostly incremental and focused on international agenda setting and normative entrepreneurship, which is guided by an ethically informed framework of cosmopolitanism and human rights. Yet, this essay argues that this reorientation is distinct for two reasons: First, by adopting the “F-word” it elevates politics from a broadly consensual orientation of gender mainstreaming towards more controversial politics, which explicitly seeks to renegotiate and challenge power hierarchies and gendered institutions that hitherto defined global institutions and foreign and security policies. Second, it contains a normative reorientation of foreign policy, which is guided by an ethically informed framework based on broad cosmopolitan norms of global justice and peace. The article concludes by advancing a research agenda that draws upon feminist IR theory and enhances the ethical and transformative contents of the English School by making it more gender-sensitive and appropriate for the study of feminist foreign policy. (shrink)

Swedish welfare has for decades served as a role model foruniversalistic welfare. When the economic recession hit Swedish economyin the beginning of the 1990s, a period of more than 50 years ofcontinuous expansion and reforms in the welfare sector came to an end.Summing up the past decade, we can see that the economic downturnenforced rationing measures in most parts of the welfare state, althoughmost of this took place in the beginning of the decade. Today, most ofthe retrenchment has (...) stopped and in some areas we can see tendencies ofrestoration – but more so in financial benefits than in the caringsectors. In the article this process is discussed as a process ofreallocation where general principles of solidarity become manifest.Various levels of decision making are discussed within the context ofsocio-political action. Current transitions in Swedish health care aredescribed with respect to coverage rates, content, marketisation anddistribution. Basic principles of distribution are highlighted in orderto analyse the meaning of social solidarity in a concrete allocativesetting. The significance of popular opinion – it's shifts anddeterminants – is also considered. The article concludes with adiscussion of how the (once salient) features of universalism inwelfare and health care provision have been affected by the developmentsin the past decade in Sweden. (shrink)

This article examines Swedish migrant women to the United States. It asks how racially privileged European migrants adapt to US racial and gender hierarchies that require them to relinquish their economic security and gender autonomy in a neoliberal state? Drawing upon interviews and focus group discussions with 33 Swedish women and three of their spouses, and participant observation between 2006 and 2008 in a network for Swedish speaking women living in the US, the article discusses how a (...) group of ‘white’ migrant women who arrive in the US with an ideology of gender egalitarianism negotiate a more socially conservative and economically vulnerable lifestyle, as the wives of upper-middle-class men. The article argues that while Swedish women benefit from their racial and social privileges in the US they lose their sense of economic security, acquiring new anxieties that make them reluctant to renounce their Swedish citizenship which they conceive of as a ‘flexible’ resource. (shrink)

Since the late 1960's, a mix of government policies has prevented the loss of farmland in Sweden, “either to forest or asphalt”; these policies have also ensured the maintenance of soil fertility and groundwater resources. However, in Sweden as in several other European nations, a chronic and growing “grain glut” in recent years has undermined the economic logic of import protection and farm price supports—the principle means of promoting a sustainable agriculture. Mainstream economists, imbued with urban-biased and production-centered values, have (...) long criticized these costly mechanisms of public support as cost-ineffective and socially unjustified. They and many prominent politicians tend to minimize the non-production benefits of maintaining an open “working landscape” and rural communities dependent upon agriculture. Historically, Sweden's major farm organizations and its agrarian political party have resisted this economistic view with considerable success. Therefore it was a shock to many observers when, in 1986, leaders of the Swedish Federation of Farmers itself proposed planting trees on crop land as one element of a solution to overproduction.This essay traces the evolution of Swedish farm debates and policies since World War II, leading to the present critical juncture. It explores the incipient alliance between farmers and conservationists to protect farmland (as well as family farms and farm communities) and assesses the prospects for maintaining land in production through diversification into biomass energy crops and high protein fodder crops (the former option takes on new significance in the wake of the Chernobil disaster and pressure for early de-commissioning of Sweden's nuclear power plants; the latter would reduce Swedish dependence on imported soybeans). Finally, there is speculation on the relevance of Sweden's experience for American farmland policy. (shrink)