Only for Citizens? Local Political Engagement in Sweden and Inclusiveness of Terms

Abstract

In both policy and research, civic engagement and citizen participation are concepts commonly used as important dimensions of social sustainability. However, as migration is a global phenomenon of huge magnitude and complexity, citizen participation is incomplete without considering the political and ethical concerns about immigrants being citizens or non-citizens, or ‘the others’. Although research on citizen participation has been a frequent topic in local government studies in Sweden, the inclusiveness and exclusiveness of terms used in the context of local political engagement, which are addressed in this article, has not received attention. This article examines the Swedish case by analyzing information provided by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and by websites of all 290 municipalities as well terms used in selected research publications on local participation. Additionally, this article studies the effectiveness of municipal websites in providing information to their residents about how they can participate in local democracy. The results show that the term citizen is commonly and incorrectly used both by local authorities and the Association. The article concludes that the term citizen is a social construction of exclusiveness and the use of the term citizen should be avoided in political and civic engagement except for the limited topics that require formal citizenship.

Relación entre la gestión pública y el desarrollo sostenible, revisión literaria

“…La gestión pública se convierte en un punto de encuentro donde estas áreas interactúan necesariamente (Ottaviani y otros, 2020) . El estudio comparado de la gestión pública es fundamental para comprender su relevancia como institución gubernamental, ya que abarca múltiples dimensiones, incluyendo estructuras de autoridad, prácticas y valores institucionalizados (Guziana, 2021). En conjunto, la gestión pública representa una intersección clave en la cual convergen aspectos esenciales de gobernanza, control administrativo, y toma de decisiones en la esfera gubernamental.…”