Den här rapporten är ett av resultaten i ett forskningsprojekt om smarta städer och smart teknik i utsatta bostadsområden. Den presenterar resultat från en forskningsöversikt inom projektet Hur smarta är egentligen smarta städer, byggnader och boenden? Vad kan vi lära oss av forskning och kunskap på fältet, samt vad fattas? (Formas bidrag: 2022-00015). Vi tackar Forskningsrådet Formas för möjligheten att genomföra denna studie.

The aim of this study is to explore the contemporary role of the folk highschool as an educational pathway for Swedish MPs. Statistics from the folkhigh school register at Statistics Sweden are analysed. In summary, thereare still quite a large number of former folk high school participants inthe Swedish parliament (27%, 2014). The MPs’ folk high schoolparticipation mainly took the form of short courses. Over time, the folkhigh schools have increasingly come to be used by members of partieson the left of the political spectrum. The folk high schools arecommonly used as meeting places during the MPs’ political career, andthus not only as an educational pathway to power, as emphasised inearlier research.

14. The workings of political discourses

Description 

This section invites papers from the post-structuralist and anti/post-foundationalist approach to politics. Submissions may include case studies or theoretical work, or a combination of both. The papers may draw from a range of theoretical perspectives associated with the linguistic turn and poststructuralism (Foucault, Laclau, Mouffe, Derrida, Lacan, Rancière, Skinner, Freeden etc.).

The aim of the workshop is to highlight the workings and contents of political discourses, ideologies, hegemonic projects etc, in their contingent struggles and conflicts over the meaning and content of central social and political issues. Papers may approach this question in a variety of directions. 

Theoretical questions could include for example the following: What is radical politics and/or democracy today? What is the (radical) political subject? Does populism constitute a specific political form? What, if anything makes discourses political? Are political ideologies and hegemonic projects constituted by demands, political concepts or something else?  Are there specific organisational forms – movements, the party form – linked to radical politics?

Empirically we welcome analyses of political ideologies and projects all across the spectrum: local protests, new types of parties, to analysis of new forms of populism, Podemos and Syriza but also Putin, Trump and Sanders; global, glocal or national issues of climate change, political and institutional change, and questions of democracy. 

The language of the work-shop is in English.