Statecraft and Liberal Reform in Advanced Democracies

PublicationBook
Australien, Företagandets villkor, Liberalisering, Nils Karlson, Reformer, Statskonst, Sverige

Abstract

This book explains how advanced democracies and welfare states can achieve welfare-enhancing, liberal institutional reform. It develops a general theory based on an extended comparative case study of Sweden and Australia over the last 25 years, and offers an in-depth contribution to the field of institutional change, explaining how to govern a country well and how to overcome different barriers to reform, such as special interests, negativity biases and media logic. It develops the concepts of the ‘reform cycle’, ‘reform strategies’ and ‘polycentric experiential’ learning in order to explain successful reforms, and the key role of policy entrepreneurs, who introduce and develop new ideas. The book further examines why these reforms came to an end. Karlson also applies the ideas of Popperian, Kuhnian and Machiavellian reform strategies, and explains why they are needed for reform to come about.

The theory of modern statecraft presented here involves a combination of knowing w hat and knowing how. It has the potential to be generally applicable in any advanced democracy with the ambition to improve its economy and society. This book is of interest for anyone who is concerned about budget deficits, slow growth, over regulation, lack of structural reforms and the rise of populism. It will appeal to scholars of political science, public policy and political economy.

Karlson, N. (2017). Statecraft and Liberal Reform in Advanced Democracies. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Read more and purchase the book here or at nilskarlson.com


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Published in

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Abstract

How can we fight back against the populist threat to liberty, free markets, and the open society?

This open access book by Nils Karlson explores the strategies used by left- and right-wing populists to make populism intelligible, recognizable, and contestable. Karlson argues that to fight back requires the revival of liberalism itself by defending and developing the liberal institutions, the liberal spirit, liberal narratives, and liberal statecraft. The book presents a synthesized explanatory model for how populists promote autocratization through the deliberate polarization of society and traces the ideational roots of the core populist ideas that form a collectivistic identity politics. Written within the tradition of political theory and institutional economics, this book uses a wide variety of sources, including results and analyses from social psychology, ethics, law, and history.

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Ratio Working Paper No. 353: From free competition to fair competition on the European internal market
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Karlson, N., Herold, T. & Dalbard, K.
Publication year

2022

Published in

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Abstract

This paper investigates whether an increased use and reinterpretation of what has been called “fair competition” has occurred at the expense of “free competition” among the central institutions of the European Union. We are also interested in assessing how frequently these terms have been used by the various EU institutions over time.

We have empirically examined this through a quantitative survey of more than 12,000 public documents, out of totally 242 000 documents containing 630 million words, in the EUR-lex database over the last 50 years, from 1970 to 2020. Our conclusion is that the emphasis of the common policies in the EU is likely to have shifted from free competition and an open market economy to “fair competition” in the sense of a level playing field, in official EU documents, such as treaties, EU acts institutions, preparatory documents relating to EU directives and recommendations including motions and resolutions, case law and more.

The European Commission has been a driving force in this development, followed closely by the European Parliament and subsequently by the Council of Ministers. This change entails a risk that the regulation of the European internal market has shifted so that the dynamics of the internal market and thus the EU’s competitiveness will weaken. The change also entails a centralization of decisions at EU level at the expense of the Member States.

Myten om centralisering – Om sjukvården som ett polycentriskt system
ReportsPublication
Karlson, N. & Lundbäck, M.
Publication year

2021

Published in

Ratioakademiens sjukvårdsprojekt

Abstract

Sammanfattning:
Syftet med denna rapport är att analysera sjukvården utifrån ett polycentriskt perspektiv, i jämförelse med ett monocentriskt, mer centraliserat, samt att diskutera hur ökade polycentriska inslag skulle kunna utveckla svensk vård och omsorg. Författarnas hypotes är att vård- och omsorgssystem som utmärks av en mångfald av finansiärer och utförare, med stora inslag av valfrihet och spritt ansvar, klarar vårduppdraget lika bra eller bättre än mer centraliserade och helt skattefinansierade system.

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