Political Science » Research » Ulf Mörkenstam

Ulf Mörkenstam

Ph.D., Senior Lecturer

E-mail: ulf.morkenstam@statsvet.su.se
Contact information »

Research interests

Political theory, Minority rights, Political history, Policy analysis

Ulf Mörkenstam (b. 1964), PhD in Political Science (2000). He is currently working as senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University, and as Deputy Head of the Department. His main fields of research are political theory and policy analysis, applied in three extensive empirical studies. The first, focusing on indigenous rights, was his dissertation, ‘Om “Lapparnes privilegier”. Föreställningar om samiskhet i offentlig svensk samepolitik 1883-1997’ (Mörkenstam 1999; Conceptions of Samihood in Swedish Sami Policy 1883-1997), in which he analysed the relationship between conceptions of the Sami group in Swedish Sami policy and the system of special rights granted to the Sami during more than a century.

In the second project, focusing on the rights of immigrants, ‘The Inner Boundary of Democracy – the Construction of Immigrants in Swedish Politics’ (funded by The Swedish Research Council), he analysed Swedish immigration policy during the 20th century.

In the third (with Kristina Boréus), ‘Presumptions for Equality’ (funded by The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions) – a case study based on interviews and participatory observation – he analysed how inequalities between men and women, ethnic Swedes and immigrants are reproduced through daily practices within a medium-sized Swedish company.

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Mörkenstam has been at Yale University, New Haven, on a post-doctoral scholarship (2002). He is in a leading position in the Swedish Network in Political Theory, member of the editorial board of the Swedish journal Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, and member of the referee-panel for Politologiske studier, University of Copenhagen.

 

Current research projects

Indigenous rights to self-determination: The Institutional Design and Policy Process of the Swedish Sami Parliament

Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond

In the contemporary political debate the Swedish Sami Parliament (Sametinget) is considered to be the main body to ensure Sami self-determination. Ever since its inauguration, however, the institutional design of the parliament has been severely criticised by the parliament itself, Sami organisations and NGO’s for not meeting the requirements of the right to self-determination in international law. However, there is no extensive research done on if and how the Sami Parliament actually works to safeguard the publicly recognised Sami right to self-determination.

The PURPOSE of this project is to analyse the capacity of the Sami Parliament to safeguard the Sami right to self-determination.

The project has three parts: (i) a comparative analysis of various institutional arrangements to safeguard indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination; (ii) an analysis of the policy process within the Sami Parliament in its role as representative body of the Sami people; (iii) a normative analysis, evaluating the institutional design of the Parliament in relation to the meaning of the concept of self-determination in international law and contemporary political theory. What are the possibilities of the Sami Parliament to initiate political issues and to influence the actual outcome on a national level? To what extent does the Swedish state’s interpretation of the right to self-determination differ from the interpretation in other states, and from international law and political theory?

Globalisation and New Political Rights. The Challenges of the Rights to Inclusion, Self-Determination and Secession

Funded by The Swedish Research Council
(with Ludvig Beckman and Jouni Reinikainen)

Recent years have witnessed an increasing emphasis of political rights in international law and global political norms. In membership policy, various NGO’s and international organisations push for political inclusion of permanent resident non-citizens; in minority policy, there is a similar trend in several states towards recognition of self-determination for indigenous peoples; and, in international politics, the recent recognition of the independence of Kosovo by a large number of Western states puts pressure on other states to accept a right to secession. If these trends are further reinforced, we may actually be witnessing the nascence of new rights to inclusion, self-determination and secession, that challenges the nation-states’ far-reaching discretion in interpreting and institutionalizing political rights.

The PURPOSE of this project is to investigate—empirically as well as normatively—the afforcement of the rights to inclusion, self-determination and secession. Two research questions will structure the study. The first is descriptive and concerns the extent to which a new set of political rights have been institutionalized, politically and legally, by contemporary nation-states. The second question is normative and concerns if and when rights to inclusion, self-determination and secession ought to be recognised.

Publications

Books

(2010) Spjälorna i buren. En arbetsplatsstudie av ojämlikhet mellan kvinnor och män, invandrare och infödda. Med Kristina Boréus. Studentlitteratur.

(2009) Politisk teori. Malmö: Liber (co-edited with Ludvig Beckman)

(1999) Om ”Lapparnes privilegier”. Föreställningar om samiskhet i svensk samepolitik 1883-1997 [Conceptions of Samihood]. Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Politics 67.

(1996) Liberalismen och den moderna demokratin. Lund: Studentlitteratur (co-edited with Bo Lindensjö & Jouni Reinikainen).

Articles/chapters

— (2010) ’Ekonomi, kultur och jämlikhet: teman i svensk politik i invandrarfrågor decennierna efter det andra världskriget’, Historisk tidskrift för Finland 4, 2010, årg 95

— (2009) ”Det mångkulturella samhället”, in Ludvig Beckman & Ulf Mörkenstam (eds) Politisk teori (Malmö: Liber)

— (2009) ”Från ’Lapprivilegier’ till rättigheter som ursprungsfolk?”, in Váimmus ciegan sániid – I hjärtat gömmer jag orden (eds) Larsson, Lars-Gunnar & Torbjörn Söder. Uppsala: Opuscula Uralica 9

— (2008) ‘Sami Rights and Sami Challenges: The Modernization Process and the Swedish Sami Movement, 1886—2006’, Scandinavian Journal of History, Vol. 33, No. 1 (co-written with Patrik Lantto).

— (2007) ’Samerörelsen och offentlig svensk samepolitik’, in Migration och etnicitet: perspektiv på ett mångkulturellt Sverige, (eds) Westin, Charles m fl, Lund: Studentlitteratur.

— (2006) ’”Önskvärda och icke önskvärda folkelement”. Den normativa argumentationen i svensk invandringspolitik 1900-1950’, Historisk tidskrift för Finland 3, 2006, årg 91.

— (2005) ‘Indigenous Peoples and the Right to Self-Determination: The Case of the Swedish Sami People’, Canadian Journal of Native Studies/Le Revue Canadienne Des Etudes Autochtones, Vol. 25, No. 2.

— (2005) ‘Group-Specific Rights as Political Practice?’, in The Politics of Group Rights: The State and Multiculturalism, (ed) Ahmed, Ishtiaq, Washington: University Press of America.

— (2004) ’Minoritetspolitik och skapandet av kollektiva kategorier’, in Kategorisering och integration (eds) Borevi, Karin & Per Strömblad (SOU 2004:48).

— (2003) ”Demokratisk jämlikhet: Den blinda fläcken i debatten om mångkulturalism”, in Politologen, Våren 2003 (co-written with Jouni Reinikainen).

— (2002) ‘The Power to Define: The Saami in Swedish Legislation’, in Conflict and Cooperation in the North, (eds) Karpii, Kristiina & Eriksson, Johan, Umeå: Norrlands Universitetsförlag.

— (2000) ”’Rennäring är förutsättning för samisk kultur’”, in Den komplexa kontinenten. Staterna på Nordkalotten och samerna i ett historiskt perspektiv, (eds) Sköld, Peter & Lantto, Patrik, Umeå: Umeå universitet.

— (1996) ”Apolitisk liberalism”, in Liberalismen och den moderna demokratin, (eds) Lindensjö, Bo, Mörkenstam, Ulf & Reinikainen, Jouni, Lund: Studentlitteratur.

— (1995) ”Quentin Skinner: From Historian of Ideas to Political Scientist”, in Scandinavian Political Studies, vol 18, nr 2 (co-written with Max Edling)

— (1994) ”Identitet, frihet och erkännande. Charles Taylors kritik av individualismen”, in Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, årg 97, nr 4.

Educational books

— (2009) Elva texter i politisk teori. 2nd ed. Malmö: Liber förlag (co-edited with Peter Hallberg and Maria Jansson)

— (2008) Texter i samtida politisk teori. 2nd ed. Malmö: Liber förlag (co-edited with Ludvig Beckman et al)

— (2004) Texter i samtida politisk teori. Malmö: Liber förlag (co-edited with Maria Carbin et al)

— (2001) Elva texter i politisk teori. Malmö: Liber förlag (co-edited with Peter Hallberg and Maria Jansson).