Norm Building Processes and Forms of Policy Governance

Abstract

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?

Keywords:

Description

This project addresses the question of the interplay between norm building processes and form of policy governance and the relative role of different societal actors in implementing the antidiscrimination legislation in employment and labour market policies. The empirical studies analyse the norm building processes as a way of mainstreaming antidiscrimination legislation in employment and labour market policies on the three interdependent policy levels (EU/EES, national, local): how is the legislation or its requirements/arguments 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? The comparative study design helps to answer empirical questions about norm building processes in the field of antidiscrimination and diversity policies, and between the three levels of policy implementation. The empirical results will highlight the theoretical question about the impact of the form of policy governance on policy output, enforcement of the legislation. A comparative investigation of Dutch and the UK policy developments show that institutional legacy plays an important role in explaining differences in policy output. The legislative path of strong central government powers in the UK secures a legislative approach to antidiscrimination issue in the UK case while in the Dutch case the corporatist pillarisation model leads to using soft norm building as a main policy instrument (Soininen 2009a). The challenges involved in private public collaboration in implementing antidiscrimination legislation are mapped in an earlier study (Soininen 2006). The results from a study of the role of incentives and identities as explanatory factors behind private and public partners involvement in joint policy governance in the EU programme EQUAL and Swedish partnerships for economic growth, highlight the difficulties related to private actors engagement in joint policy ventures (Soininen 2009b). The voice and presence of excluded immigrants and minorities in political bodies designing inclusive employment measures is also a crucial topic. Research shows that it is possible to identify a number of institutional factors that have disadvantageous effects on immigrants' equal opportunities in political organisations (Soininen 2010a, 2010b, 2011a) but the findings also illustrate that it is possible to use norm building and changing incentives to unravel these problems (Soininen 2011b). The later developments of Swedish government's diversity and antidiscrimination policy will be analysed both in terms of organisational changes, as a result of the EU stress on integrated approach, and in terms of potential trade-off between elaborated diversity policies based on business arguments, and the requirements of the antidiscrimination legislation, based on the principle of equal rights. Dualism as a central characteristic of the Swedish state administration, together with the corporativist policy making tradition have an impact on institutional conditions for public (policy) norm building generally, and in the field of antidiscrimination policies in particular (Soininen 2011, forthcoming).

Publications

Soininen, M. (2009a) Institutions Matter - Governance Makes Difference: Making of Diversity and Antidiscrimination Policy - the Dutch and the UK Case, Report ThemES - Themes on Migration and Ethnic Studies, ISSN 1651-8306; 09/31: Linkoping University Electronic Press

Soininen, M. (2009b) Incentives and identities in joint policy governance: The EU programme EQUAL and Swedish partnerships for economic growth, Refereed Paper, at the Conference Unemployment and the Global Financial Crises: Policy, Partnerships and Practice, The Centre for Public Policy, University of Melbourne, Melbourne1-2 December 2009,
http://www.public-policy.unimelb.edu.au/unemployment09/Soininen.pdf

Soininen, M. (2010) Hacia una democracia incluynte? 30 anos de derechos elocterales para los immigrantes en los comicios suecos?, in Sufragio y participacion politica de los extranjeros extracommunitarios en Europa (eds) D. Moya & A. Vinas Ferrer, Pi I Sunyer Foundation and Institute of Public Law, University of Barcelona

Soininen, M. (2011a) Mechanisms of Exclusion - Ethnicity and Representation in Sweden: Local Party Nominations, in Migration and Representation: Challenges to Political Parties in Liberal Democracies, (eds) Andreas M Wüst, Thomas Saalfeld, and Karen Bird. New York: Routledge

Soininen, M. (2011b) From Problems to Solutions: Equal Opportunities in Political Representation, in Kön, makt, nation, Sainsbury, D and M Soininen (eds.). ISBN 978-91-633-8705-0. Stockholm: Elanders.

Other Academic Output

Towards inclusive democracy? at NOPSA (Nordic Political Science Association), Tromsø, Norge, 6-9 August 2008.

Key note addresses:

Political parties - perspectives on recruitment, at the Wie muss eine chancenge rechte Integrationspolitik aussehen? Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Forum Berlin, 2 December, 2010

How to increase the representation of immigrants in political organisations?, at the Successful Integration Policies in Scandinavia, Copenhagen 22 November, 2010, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung & CEVEA

Incentives and identities in joint policy governance, at the Unemployment and the Global Financial Crises: Policy, Partnerships and Practice, The Centre for Public Policy, University of Melbourne, Melbourne1-2 December 2009