Torsten Persson is Professor of Economics at Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University. ABSTRACT Can a democracy attract competent leaders, while attaining broad representation?

Research seminar with Bo Rothstein.AbstractMost definitions of democracy rely on a set of procedural rules for how political power should be accessed legitimately. The basic norm for these procedural ru realized by equal democratic rights. In this understanding of political legitimacy, democracy is a “partisan game” where various interests are given fair possibilities to compete for political power. The concept of “quality of government” relates to the legitimacy in the of political power and is based on the norm of  that is the opposite of partisanship. This is to be realized by, for example, the rule of law and a public administration built on meritocracy. Several tensions between these two bases for achieving political legitimacy will be present. For example, a democratically elected government may want to politicize the public administration and may establish public services and benefits directed only to their political supporters. The rule of law includes the principle of equality before the law, but a democratically elected government may take actions that put itself “above” the law. Various empirical measures and philosophical principles for understanding these type of tensions between democracy and the quality of government will be presented in this lecture.

Bo Rothstein: Is there a contradiction between democracy and quality of government?

Most definitions of democracy rely on a set of procedural rules for how political power should be accessed legitimately. The basic norm for these procedural rules is according to noted democracy theor

2010. The SAIS Review of International Affairs 30: 57-71. AbstractThis paper aims to present possible explanations as to why radical right-wing populist parties have been highly successful in Denmark but

Judgment abd Decision Making Abstract Prior research using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) has established that political ideology is associated with self-reported reliance on specific moral f

Join us in Visby during politician's week the first week of July! This year we are not arranging any activities ourselves but Gustaf Arrhenius, Anders Ekholm and Stefan Svallfors will be representing

International Journal of Public Administration, Vol 40 (7), s 548-558 (2017) DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2016.1157693 Abstract The article analyses the orientations of political employees in

During the Swedish politician's week in Visby, the government decided to appoint a scientific council for sustainable development. The council will strengthen the link between politics and academia. Th

Working Paper 2016 no. 2(Published in International Journal of Public Administration, Vol 40 (7), pp 548-558  (2017) DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2016.1157693) This paper analyses the orient

This project examines so called "policy professionals", people who are employed in order to affect policy and politics. What is the impact of them, rather than elected officials, gaining more influence over politics?