Maritta Soininen

This project addresses the question of the interplay between norm building processes and form of policy governance. How do different governance legacies affect the way the antidiscrimination legislation or its requirements/arguments are used in/to motivate policies/policy measures, and which is the relative role of different societal actors/actor constellations - social partners, private sector actors and state agencies, - in promoting the mainstreaming of this legislation?

The multidisciplinary project Work, Market and Integration addresses the local public-private collaboration in developing novel methods for labour market integration. The main research question is how potential tensions between market-informed solutions and solutions based on strengthening target group involvement inform partnerships: project logic (means and goals), norm building and identities of partners and target groups, and dissemination, learning and communication of new methods.

This PhD-project examines the role of inter-organizational collaboration and partnership in the governance of local integration programs targeted towards refugees in Sweden. For decades these programs have been criticized for delaying entrance into the labour market and it has been a longstanding goal for the government to incorporate them in the Swedish employment strategy, 'arbetslinjen'. Governmental agencies have applied 'soft' policy measures such as guidelines, comparisons, knowledge dissemination and 'agreements' for voluntary policy coordination to create conditions for joint efforts at the local level. Drawing on institutional theory the PhD project examines the impact of this norm building process by focusing on how local actors respond to the governing strategies and in what way collaboration contributes to the development of the programs.