To Örebro University

Over the past four decades, Sweden's education system has undergone a profound transformation, shifting from a centralised structure to a market-oriented model characterised by independent schools, deregulation, and competition. This paper introduces an innovative methodological approach to studying this transformation by applying computational text analysis with large language models (LLMs) to 45 years of parliamentary debates. By leveraging these methods and extensive parliamentary open data, we identify thematic patterns, ideological shifts, and policy discourses that have shaped the marketisation of Swedish education. Our methodological contribution lies in demonstrating how LLMs can be employed to scale up traditional discourse analysis, bridging the gap between computational methods and qualitative interpretative approaches. We engage critically with the challenges of algorithmic opacity, validation strategies, and interpretative transparency, addressing concerns about bias and the risks of black-boxed analyses. Combining machine-assisted text analysis with traditional qualitative methodologies, we present a scalable yet nuanced framework for studying education policy debates over time.

Over the past four decades, Sweden's education system has undergone a profound transformation, shifting from a centralised structure to a market-oriented model characterised by independent schools, deregulation, and competition. This paper introduces an innovative methodological approach to studying this transformation by applying computational text analysis with large language models (LLMs) to 45 years of parliamentary debates. By leveraging these methods and extensive parliamentary open data, we identify thematic patterns, ideological shifts, and policy discourses that have shaped the marketisation of Swedish education. Our methodological contribution lies in demonstrating how LLMs can be employed to scale up traditional discourse analysis, bridging the gap between computational methods and qualitative interpretative approaches. We engage critically with the challenges of algorithmic opacity, validation strategies, and interpretative transparency, addressing concerns about bias and the risks of black-boxed analyses. Combining machine-assisted text analysis with traditional qualitative methodologies, we present a scalable yet nuanced framework for studying education policy debates over time.

This study addresses the issue of sampling error within research on subsets of parliamentary text corpora. Two samples of parliamentary speeches relating to the marketisation of the Swedish education system, drawn thr ough different sampling techniques, are analysed and compared. The analyses find that diverging sampling methodologies can be complementary as each method adds substantial quantities of unique documents to the dataset. Further, the diverging sampling methodologies employed produce documents with similar semantic content. However, analyses of the distributi on of speeches between party affiliations and speakers indicate va st differences between the two samples. These results indicate that sampling frames can substantially influence the findings of parliamentary text analyses. We conclude that combining different sampling techniques can be a way to reduce the ris k of sampling error, which in turn can have a strong influence on the conclusions drawn from analyses of parliamentary texts. 

During the last few decades, technologies to monitor, test, and analyze athletes’ performance have been developed, such as global positioning systems (GPS), stadium camcorders, and heart rate monitors (Cullinane et al., 2024; Svensson & Svensson, 2021). Data from these sources is central to sports clubs’ management of athletes’ performances, and Robertson (2020) argues that the development of data gathering in sport has led to a new scenario for coaching staff, athletes, and performance analysts, where adaptive tools are essentially required to understand the needs of sports performance. At the forefront are economically strong clubs in the major leagues (Krizkova et al., 2021), but considerable growth is occurring as technologies become more affordable (Brink & Lemmink, 2018).

However, there is a growing body of literature that points to negative consequences. ‘Tech-data’ tends to govern too much, resulting in a distortion of lived experience and the dehumanization of both athletes and coaches (Gamble et al., 2020; Woods et al., 2021). Ultimately, what is at stake is who and what should make the decisions regarding athletes’ performance. Studies in this area have mainly been conducted in the Anglosphere on men’s sports, which limits the relevance of the conclusions drawn (Mulvenna, 2024; Nicholls et al., 2018). To provide more informed recommendations to sports organizations, research is needed on contexts with different conditions and resources, as well as on women’s sports (Barker-Ruchti et al., 2021; Martin et al., 2018).

This study responds to this call. Using Swedish men’s and women’s elite football as an example—a context that has recently begun to invest in emerging technologies (Barker-Ruchti et al., 2021)—the purpose of this study is to advance the understanding of the effects of using technology in the management of athletes’ performance. The specific aims are: 1) to map the landscape of performance analysis technologies in Swedish elite football in terms of a) what is used, b) why it is used, and c) how it is used; and 2) to illuminate how the use of technology affects the power relations between managers, coaches, analysts, and athletes.

To collect data, a questionnaire has been sent to all elite clubs in Swedish men’s and women’s football. Analytically, the study builds on the perspective of governmentality (Foucault & Faubion, 2002; Walters, 2012), which facilitates an understanding of how governing processes constitute subject positions and the power relations between them (Primus, 2024). This study will analyze what subject positions (i.e., managers, coaches, analysts, and players) and power relations the ‘governmentality of technology’ constitutes in the context of Swedish elite soccer.

Data analysis has just started and has so far only focused on the mapping (aim 1). Preliminary findings show that most Swedish elite soccer clubs use GPS, video, and heart rate monitors to track tactical and physiological aspects, respectively. It is mostly the physio or the analyst who collects, interprets, and communicates the data. However, the scope depends significantly on the resources and number of individuals in the coaching staff of the club.

The variation in E-participation adoption and obstruction among non-democratic regimes is not sufficiently understood in earlier research. We attribute this to a lack of conceptual instruments for systematically studying the regime attributes of non-democratic states. Inspired by the work of Linz and Stepan (1), we demonstrate how a more fine-grained and multi-dimensional taxonomy of non-democratic regimes could differentiate between regime behaviours. Based on this categorisation, we further formulate expectations regarding four dimensions of E-participation in different types of non-democratic regimes. We argue that the proposed regime categorisation and identified expectations can form a basis for more nuanced comparative research on E-participation in non-democratic states.

In this paper, we argue that E-participation research is at a crossroads as its theories and empirical scope are increasingly detached from the contemporary relationship between information technology and political participation.  We illustrate this challenge through two developments: (1) the dissolving boundaries between online and offline spheres of political participation and (2) the growing dissociation between ICTs and democracy. In light of these developments, we present a potential path forward for the field, inspired by the so-called "systemic turn" in research on deliberative democracy and democratic innovations. We argue for a perspective that emphasises the relationship between E-participation and the political system in which it is enacted.  In our conclusion, this allows us to present alternative potential directions for future research within the field.

Two decades into the young history of e-participation research, we aim to take stock of the state of this field in the light of three developments that we argue have substantial implications for research on electronic participation: (1) dissolving boundaries between online and offline spheres of political participation; (2) academic isolation of e-participation research from other research fields related to political participation; and (3) the systemic turn in research on political participation. In relation to these developments, we discuss the potential role of the field in the future and make the case for a broader approach to e-participation research.

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the connection between different perceived organizational cultures and information security policy compliance among white-collar workers.

Design/methodology/approach: The survey using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument was sent to white-collar workers in Sweden (n = 674), asking about compliance with information security policies. The survey instrument is an operationalization of the Competing Values Framework that distinguishes between four different types of organizational culture: clan, adhocracy,market and bureaucracy.

Findings: The results indicate that organizational cultures with an internal focus are positively related to employees’ information security policy compliance. Differences in organizational culture with regards to control and flexibility seem to have less effect. The analysis shows that a bureaucratic form of organizational culture is most fruitful for fostering employees’ information security policy compliance.

Research limitations/implications: The results suggest that differences in organizational culture are important for employees’ information security policy compliance. This justifies further investigating the mechanisms linking organizational culture to information security compliance.

Practical implications: Practitioners should be aware that the different organizational cultures do matter for employees’ information security compliance. In businesses and the public sector, the authors see a development toward customer orientation and marketization, i.e. the opposite an internal focus, that may have negative ramifications for the information security of organizations.

Originality/value: Few information security policy compliance studies exist on the consequences of different organizational/information cultures.

Purpose: Technology access, digital skills, and digital services are increasingly prerequisites for public life and accessing public services. The digital divide in contemporary societies matters for efforts to digitalize the welfare state. Research has already mapped individual determinants of digital exclusion and the existence of an age-related digital divide. However, far less attention has been paid to variations in digital inclusion between countries and to their potential explanations related to political systems. This study explores the influence of variations in welfare regimes on the digital divide among seniors (aged 65+) in Europe.

Design/methodology/approach: This article presents time-series cross-sectional analyses of the relationship between welfare state regimes and digital inclusion among seniors in European countries. The analyses are based on data from Eurostat, the World Bank, and the UN E-Government Survey.

Findings: The authors find extensive variation in the digital inclusion of citizens between welfare regimes and argue that considering regime differences improves the understanding of these variations. The findings indicate that the age-related digital divide seems to be least evident in countries with more universalistic welfare regimes and most evident in countries where seniors rely more on their families.

Originality/value: This is the first comparative study of the association between welfare state regimes and digital inclusion among seniors.

The Estonian Citizens’ Assembly (ECA) was initiated in late 2012 as a direct consequence of a legitimacy crisis of Estonian political parties and representative institutions. The spark igniting this crisis was the unravelling of a scheme of illegal party financing. The response from the governmental institutions took the form of a democratic innovation involving public crowd-sourcing and deliberative mini-publics. This study reports on a survey among the participants in the online crowd-sourcing process of the ECA (n=847). The study examines how this democratic innovation influenced participants’ social and political trust as well as the impact of participants predispositions and level of satisfaction with the ECA on changes in trust. We find that participants that had positive predispositions and who were satisfied with the ECA were more likely to gain trust. Further, we also find that the participants in general became more distrustful of political institutions, while their participation fostered increased social trust. This outcome departs from the intentions of the Estonian institutions which organized the ECA, and sheds new light on the role of democratic innovations in the context of legitimacy crises. This is an important step forward in the scholarly understanding of the relationship between democratic innovation and trust.