Tillit & kontroll i rikets tjänst : En kvalitativ fallstudie om förvaltningsstyrning inom utrikesförvaltningen
- Authors
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2024
- Source
- DiVA - Academic Archive On-line
- Keywords
- Language
- Swedish
- License
- Green
- External links
Abstract
This paper aims to highlight the Swedish foreign administration and its governance. This part of the Swedish administrative bureaucracy traces its roots to the war-ravaged 17th century and is a remarkably flexible, albeit traditional, case within the Swedish bureaucracy. The paper encompasses the governmental, departmental and agency level in relation to governance. It explores the bureaucracy’s boundedness to the dichotomous relationship of trust and control. The paper is theory-consuming and conceptualises two logics of governance through a revisit of the antique concepts of techne and phronesis in relation to the Weberian and Hegelian interpretations of a modern bureaucracy. This is further accomplished through gathering a plethora of theoretical perspectives within the concepts of bureaucracy, governance-government and rationality. The material covers both formal tools of government as well as informal governance methods. More precisely, the material mainly consists of regulation-letters and the experiences of several ambassadors. The analysis is carried out through a hermeneutical method. The results show, somewhat unsurprisingly, that the governance encompasses logics within both the Weberian and Hegelian school of thought. Rather, it suggests that this branch of the administrative bureaucracy does not differ too much from the rest in the sense of how logics are applied to governance. However, the study finds more variation in between the different sets of agencies within the foreign bureaucracy. On the one hand, some agencies are governed through technical instructions and economic incitements. The embassies, on the other hand, are governed with a large amount of trust ensued, while also being under strict consequences if deemed necessary. Within the embassies themselves, the governance is largely based on ad-hoc and professionalism, appealing to the idea of phronesis. A further development of the Swedish foreign policy is also highlighted, where the future of its modelling seems to lean more towards a logic of traditional self-interest of the state.
