In this article we explore and analyse Swedish Civil Defence Directors' views on coordination and cooperation in crisis management. The directors work at County Administrative Boards (CABs) which by law are required to coordinate all relevant actorsnational agencies, municipal, private and voluntary -by leading their cooperation in extraordinary events. How do CABs manage this, especially against a backdrop of increasing demands on clarity, command, control and explicit goals in crisis management?Through the lens of research on governance we analyse the directors' views and find that although they support horizontal, inter-organizational network based coordination and cooperation, there is frustration regarding the decision-making capacities of the CABs, the lack of conflict management mechanisms in networks and resource allocation.

Settling in a new host country as an unaccompanied minor holds a lot of challenges such as adaptation of new social norms, learning a new language and understanding a new culture. Social networks may foster good conditions for settlement in the host community but little is known about the availability, quality and significance of social networks for unaccompanied minors (UM) in Sweden. The aim of this qualitative grounded-theory situational study was to explore experiences of social networks among UM and the significance of those networks for becoming established in Sweden, based on data from in-depth interviews with 11 young persons. Unaccompanied young persons were broadly found to be involved in three different kinds of networks: professional carers, like-ethnic friends and ‘Swedes’ in general. Networks with professionals (i.e. linking social capital) were perceived as both a secure base and a source of rejection, and could either facilitate or obstruct the establishment. Supporting networks with like-ethnic friends (bonding social capital) proved to be the most available and important resource for becoming established, while access to networks with Swedes (bridging social capital) was in general low but still perceived as important for becoming established, not least for reducing language and cultural barriers.

In this article we describe and analyse the Swedish reception of unaccompanied refugee children and efforts to promote their integration into Swedish society. We identify the actors involved in the reception and promotion of the children's integration and investigate their efforts through the lens of social ecological systems theory. We show that reception is fraught with challenges that concern lack of interconnections between actors, lack of an articulated political vision of integration and absence of systematic evaluations and long-term follow-ups of how the reception affects integration.

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Citation for the original published paper (version of record):Hansson, J., Ghazinour, M., Wimelius, M. (2015) Police officers' use of discretion in forced repatriations of unaccompanied, asylum-seeking refugee children: balancing efficiency and dignity. AbstractMany countries in the European Union (EU)-among them Sweden-are engaged in accelerated removals of refugees, including unaccompanied, asylum-seeking refugee children. Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), international directives and national policies prescribe that the dignity of refugees must be respected when they are forcibly repatriated to their countries of origin. Simultaneously however, the government demands that police services improve their efficiency by continuously increasing the number of forced repatriations, something that prompts a question on the relationship between efficiency and dignity. To what extent is there a conflict between these two goals? Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to explore and analyse how Swedish police officers perceive their participation in forced repatriations of unaccompanied, asylum-seeking refugee children. Interviews with police officers were conducted and analysed drawing on Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy perspective. The findings show that police officers use discretion to create individual perceptions of what constitutes an efficient and dignified repatriation. One main conclusion is that they perceive no conflict between efficiency and dignity. The police officers' own interpretations of what dignity is make it cognitively possible for them to combine efficiency and dignity.

In this research note, we present results from a review of research on local resilience in relation to radicalization in public health, social work, crisis management, and community policing using terrorism studies as a point of departure. In order to identify agreements between literatures, we focus on how local resilience is understood, how it is said to be promoted, and how this knowledge could be synthesized. We show that resilience by and large is understood as both a process and a capacity underpinned by cooperation, social networks, and community resources and that an initial mapping of existing strengths and resources is pivotal for local resilience-building.

In this article, a storm named Hilde is the entry point for an exploration and analysis of the consequences of public sector reforms on the crisis management system in Sweden. We are particularly interested in reforms of decentralization, privatization, and the adoption of New Public Management (NPM) mechanisms. Empirically, we study the views of Civil Defence Directors at County Administration Boards (CABs). The 21 CABs represent the central government at the regional level and are required by law to coordinate crisis management between national agencies, municipalities, and private interests. Our empirical investigations indicate that the Defence Directors perceive and adapt to reforms differently depending on the size of CABs, thereby bringing to the fore critical matters of equivalence. It also appears as if the discretion that the reforms were supposed to provide for crisis management actors is severely hampered by NPM inspired regulations, competitive features, and instruments of control.

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