Current research on sustainability transitions on aviation heavily favours technological innovation, largely overlooking the crucial socio-political dynamics that govern sustainability transitions. Achieving the aviation industry's ambitious Paris Agreement decarbonization targets requires more than technical solutions. This thesis bridges that gap by examining the role of political discourses within the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on the political acceptance of sustainable aviation and its corresponding niche innovations. The focus lies on politicization, polarization and policy implications. In this thesis, frames and narratives are key tools of sensemaking and influence, not only shaping perceptions but also being reshaped by policy actors to align with their objectives. This perspective enhances our understanding of how discourses operate at a deeper cognitive and cultural level, affecting the trajectory of sustainability transitions such as acceptance of particular sustainable niche innovations. This thesis explores how these dynamics influence the development, support, and opposition of niche innovations within the aviation sector. Specifically, it investigates how conflicting narratives can create lock-ins that hinder sustainability transition. This thesis highlights that while discourses can promote niche innovations by enhancing legitimacy and social acceptance, other discourses can obstruct progress by fostering social resistance and diminishing policy support. This dynamic is particularly evident in the Swedish transport sector, where sustainable aviation has encountered both support and resistance, influenced by competing political narratives. Using a comprehensive theoretical framework integrating discourse analysis, MLP and socio-technical transitions, the research examines how sense-making affects sustainable aviation's future, the factors enabling or hindering discursive governance, and how discursive pathways of sustainability transitions evolve with or without policy support. The thesis employs focus groups and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the Swedish aviation industry to uncover how niche innovations in sustainable aviation are discursively framed, supported, or opposed. The research findings reveal that politicization and polarization create lock-ins, characterized by polarization between opposing discourses, which are a critical barrier to sustainable aviation. These discursive lock-ins can obstruct policy leadership and limit the emergence of niche innovations, such as drones. The research argues that a nuanced understanding of politicization and polarization is essential for identifying pathways to overcome these barriers and for designing effective policies that support sustainable aviation transitions.

Forskning om hållbarhetsövergångar för flyget fokuserar på teknologisk innovation, men förbiser det avgörande sociopolitiska perspektivet. Att nå flygindustrins hållbarhetsmål kräver mer än enbart tekniska lösningar. Denna avhandling fyller detta forskningsgap genom att undersöka de politiska diskursernas roll inom Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), med fokus på politisk acceptans av hållbart flyg och dess nischinnovationer. Studien fokuserar på politisering, polarisering och policyimplikationer. Ramar och narrativ ses som centrala verktyg för meningsskapande, vilka formar och omformas av policyaktörer för att anpassas till deras mål och därmed påverkar acceptansen av hållbara nischinnovationer. Avhandlingen utforskar hur denna dynamik skapar låsningar som hindrar övergången. Diskurs kan antingen främja nischinnovationer genom ökad legitimitet och social acceptans, eller hindra dem genom att skapa motstånd och minska politiskt stöd. Denna dynamik är särskilt relevant i den svenska transportsektorn, där hållbart flyg har mött konkurrerande politiska narrativ. Med hjälp av ett ramverk som integrerar diskursanalys, MLP och socio-tekniska övergångar, undersöker denna avhandling hur meningsskapande påverkar hållbart flyg. Avhandlingen använder fokusgrupper och semi-strukturerade intervjuer med intressenter i den svenska flygindustrin för att analysera hur nischinnovationer diskursivt inramas. Resultaten visar att politisering och polarisering skapar kritiska, diskursiva låsningar som är ett betydande hinder för framtiden för hållbart flyg. Dessa låsningar hindrar politiskt ledarskap och begränsar framväxten av nischinnovationer (t.ex. drönare). Forskningen argumenterar att en nyanserad förståelse för politisering och polarisering är avgörande för att identifiera vägar för att övervinna dessa barriärer och för att utforma effektiva policyer som stöder övergången.

Digital government applications and models oftenadd layers to existing structures, organizations,and routines to facilitate public services. In most statesdigital government is thus added to established structuresand organizations, but what happens when egovernmentdevelop at as an integrated part of newstate building? This is the overall question in this paperpresenting an analysis of best practices of e-governmentin six countries in the Western Balkans – Albania,Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro,North Macedonia and Serbia. The cases of best practicehave been identified through an interactive researchprocess, and analyzed through a combined lensof eGovernment stage-models and core public values.The analysis shows how new digital government applicationsand innovations are designed and used innew democracies as part of new state building structures.The findings indicate a lack of new institutionalarrangements for digital government. Taken togetherit shows that the development of eGovernment in theWestern Balkans follows a path-dependence of otherstates, in spite of the opportunities for more innovativeand sustainable eGovernment by continuing the institutionalreformation.

Digital inclusion is the key for a sustainable andinclusive society. In particular, digital governmentalservices must be impartial, inclusive and available foreveryone eligible for the services. Digital inclusion is akey for trust of government in a more digital society.However, the motives access, use and competences to bedigital included varies in line with other forms socioeconomicstratification. It is also complicated to reachthose who are digital excluded in traditional surveymethods. This paper presents a field study on digitalinclusion in a disadvantaged Swedish suburb, where wemade a structured interview survey to reach groups thatare usually hard to survey. The analysis shows thatthose who find it easy to search on the Internet alsoexperience more inclusion in the Swedish society. Inaddition, more advanced use as on-line payments anduse of eID seems to increase the trust in publicauthorities. Thereby, digital inclusion can be seen as afactor enhancing even quality of government, that hasto be further investigated.