Presentation

Presentation: My research interests include democratic theory, comparative politics, voter behaviour, public policy and constitutional theory.

The 2 of October 2009 I defended my thesis Promising Democracy, Parties, Citizens and Election Promises. For an electronic version see http://gupea.ub.gu.se/dspace/handle/2077/20800?locale=en

The thesis give focus to what I call the Pledge Puzzle. Empirical studies show that parties mostly take their election promises seriously. In most contexts where pre-election statements in election manifestoes are compared to actual decisions from government, scholars come to rather positive conclusions. A majority of election promises are acted upon. Citizens however, think differently. In my PhD-thesis, I investigate what this "conventional wisdom" about parties election promises actually consists of. What do citizens mean when they say that politicians usually break their promises? A variety of methods are used: open and closed survey questions as well as longer research interviews. Since most interviews are done within the Swedish contexts I also present important new data on parties pledge fulfilment in Sweden. More specifically, I address the question on how successful single party minority governments (Swedish Social Democrats) are in fulfilling election promises.

The thesis is written within the project Demokratins mekanismer, financed by Riksbankens jubileumsfond.

The 25-26 of June 2009 the Comparative Party Pledge Group held its second meeting, this time at the Department of Political Science in Gothenburg. 15 scholars from 10 countries participated. A first draft of an edited volume on election pledge fulfilment will be presented in Lisbon in June 2010. For more information contact me, Terry Royed (University of Alabama, USA) or Robert Thomson (University of Trinity, Ireland).

My current teaching concerns democratic and constitutional theory and research methods. The teaching is comparative though with special focus on the Swedish constitution and the French political system. Together with Henrik Oscarsson I am responsible for the development of the project Grundlagskonventet at the department of Political Science, Göteborg university. Grundlagskonventet is a role play where undergraduate student act to create a new constitution for Sweden. For more information see Grundlagskonventet above or contact me or Henrik directly.