Diversity and integration strategic work – can a participatory approach to policy lead to social change?

Communication for Development Malmö University

January 30th ₂₀₁₄

Diversity and integration strategic work –

can a participatory approach to policy lead to social

change?

Author: Jessica Vidberg Supervisor: Oscar Hemer

Thank you

I would like to thank the Communication for Development program for all the knowledge they have helped me gain throughout these years. A special thanks to my degree project supervisor Oscar Hemer for his constructive criticism and help during this process.

To Falu Municipality for hiring me and therefor making this paper possible!

To my American best friend Nicole Baker for all the time she has put on proofreading my paper and answering complaining text messages when I was doubting everything in life.

I would also like to thank my family; my older sister for all her help with the project, my brother, their spouses and my four amazing nieces for always being there and adding a wonderful twist to my life. And to my two partners-in-crime; my mother and my younger sister Julia - I could not have done this without your endless love and support; despite my frantic emotions and crazy ideas you always keep my grounded.

I  dedicate  this  paper  to  the  one  person  who  would  have  bragged  about  my  achievement  of  a  Master’s  degree the most. My late grandmother, Ingrid Norlander. I love you and miss you!

Abstract

This degree project will include a document and discourse analysis on diversity and integration

strategic work in the Falun municipality. Three steering documents will be evaluated regarding

diversity in Falun municipality in relation to appropriate guidelines, as well as collected information

from executive directors of administration regarding implementation of steering documents and of

diversity and integration work, as well as evaluation material on the public health policy and other

written material connected to the policies. The aim is to understand and evaluate the diversity and

integration strategic work within Falun and Falu Municipality (both as geographical area/city and as

the employer), understand if you can reach social change through the policies related to diversity

and integration strategic work, and what role the citizen plays in that process. I aim to analyse and

highlight the major findings and concluding with ideas for further research or development areas.

The research question is; How are diversity and integration strategic work defined and

communicated in Falun municipality through their policies and can a participatory approach to

policy and policy-making lead to social change?

The result show that steering documents – policies - somewhat works as the platform for strategic

diversity and integration work in theory, but not in practice. National and international guidelines

regarding the subject has proven to be used very well in the case of Local Public Health Program,

but not as well in the Integration Policy Program or in the Plan for equal rights and possibilities

2012-2014. Collected information from executive directors of administration regarding

implementation of the Integration Policy Program and implementation of diversity work, as well as

evaluation material on the public health policy showed very little implementation, and very little

participation from the executive directors, employees and the citizens, which raises questions

regarding availability of the programs. In order for policy making to be successful executive

directors, employees and citizens need to be participating in the policy-making process, as well as

the implementation and evaluation. If not; policymaking is only by politicians, for politicians and

therefor it will not reflect on the developing society as a whole.

Table of content

Background 5

Relevance 5

Relationship between diversity and integrationen 7

Falun – the municipality and the employer 7

Communicator for diversity 8

Diversity, equality and public health 8

Plain talk 9

Method discussions 10

Aim and purpose 10

Research question 10

Discourse analysis, document analysis and policy discourse 11

The theoretical framework 13

Participatory communication and social change 13

Citizenship and public policy 15

Acknowledgements and limitations 18

Result 18

Integration Policy Program 18

2011 and 2013 follow-up of Integration Policy Program 20

Local Public Health Programmet 21

Report  on  the  current  situation  2011  (“Nulägesrapport  2011”)  of  local  Public  Health  Program   23

Plan for equal rights and possibilities 2012-2014 24

Analysis 25

Policy-making in relation to diversity, equality and public health 25 Bringing policy-making with participatory communication and social change together 28

Participatory communication and social change 30

Access and availability 33

Policy process – reciever or participant? 34

Public policy and citizenship 35

Conclusion 37 References 39 Attachment 1 45 Attachment 2 68 Attachment 3 78 Attachment 4 80

Background

One may wonder what the correlation between communication for development and diversity and

integration strategic work are. For me as a municipal officer it becomes evident in my everyday

work. But in this section I will try to give you as a reader an understanding of the correlation I

believe exist. I will attempt to give the reader some background to where Falun position themselves

as a municipality and as an employer in the issues regarding policy, policy-making as well as

diversity and integration strategic work. My research question within this research has been: How

are diversity and integration strategic work defined and communicated in Falun municipality

through their policies and can a participatory approach to policy and policy-making lead to social

change?

Relevance

Diversity and integration are highly relevant topics as Sweden is preparing for the election year of

2014. The political platform for integration, equality and anti-discrimination is what decides how

the municipalities plan their strategic work. Communication for development becomes relevant

within the areas of communication, society, change and development. Communication as it is how

we manage change, society as it is where the change takes place, change as the world is

transforming in to a more globally interrelated unit, and development working as the umbrella for

communication, society and change. As all steering documents contain goals to sustain and develop

certain areas, communication for development and a discursive approach put the policy making on

the map for developing the municipality.

Recent happenings in Europe regarding war, immigration and political standpoints have lead to a lot

of attention in international, national and local press. And the attention has highlighted the

importance of these issues and that we should not assume that it does not affect my country, my

community or me.

Sweden is a part of the European Union, and Falun as a municipality signed the European

declaration for equality between women and men on a local and regional level – Council of

European Municipalities and Regions; CEMR (CEMR, 2013) in 2009, which should regulate their

policy-making, strategic work and work as a tool for the municipalities in their equality work.

However, the question about how to ensure that the declaration is followed regarding equal citizen

service was brought up in the city council meeting in April 2013 (Kommunstyrelsen, 2013), where

it was decided that the board of equal treatment would come up with an action plan. This is almost

four years after the declaration was signed, which raises question regarding earlier interventions,

and how useful the policies are in practice. Falun is also part of the network Healthy Cities (Healthy

Cities, 2013; Falun, 2013f) where municipalities work together to ensure the health of the citizens.

For me public health and diversity and integration strategic work are connected, and Falun works

with these issues in an interrelated way, which will be discussed further on in this paper.

Sweden  is  the  only  European  country  that  has  added  the  “gender  transgressing  identity  or  

expression”  as  a  new  discrimination  ground in 2009.

(European Commission, 2009). Both Falun’s

membership in Healthy Cities and Sweden’s ground breaking approach to discrimination grounds

positions Sweden, and Falun specifically, in an interesting light as it shows that there is an interest

in these types of issues on a national and local level.

The Falun municipality has increased its profile regarding democracy, diversity and integration this

year as they have made a direct act on the European Union's declaration to make the year of 2013

the year for citizen participation. In September 2013, Falun hosted Democracy Week where a

democracy passport was produced. The passport presented information about active citizenship, as

well as what rights and responsibilities you have as a citizen. In addition to this, there was a

democracy market where political parties, businesses, and different administrative areas within the

municipal board were participating in order to inform and inspire citizens to be active. There were

lectures and workshops with nationally and internationally known politicians, as well as

representatives  from  Falun’s  twin  town  in  Poland.  (Falun,  2013d).  Falun  were  rewarded  for  their  

democracy work at the international Democracy Conference in Malaysia in December 2013. (Falun,

2014) which I believe makes this research even more relevant to present. They are rewarded for

their democracy work – but do their policies and strategic work reflect this democracy aim?

There are three major steering documents – policies - that are concerned with issues related to

diversity  and  integration  in  the    Falun  municipality.  The  broadest  one  being  “Lokalt  

Folkhälsoprogram”  (Falu  kommun,  2007b)  (called  Local Public Health Program in this research

paper) which covers all aspects of public health and covers the connection between individual,

society  and  health  as  it  was  produced  in  2007.  The  second  program  is  “Plan  för  lika  rättigheter  och  

möjligheter 2012-2014”    (Falu  kommun,  2012a)  (called  Plan for equal rights and possibilities

around the relationship between the employer and employees. The third program is

“Integrationspolitiska  programmet”  (called  Integration policy program) (Falu kommun, 2006)

which has its focus solely on integration aspects and was produced in 2006. Falun municipality

operations are run through political decisions and through execution within the municipal body. The

documents  can  be  called  ”program”,  ”plan”,  ”action  plan”,  ”policy”,  ”guidelines”,  ”instructions”  

among other labels. Guiding definitions of these concepts is currently being formed in connection to

the investigation regarding municipal steering documents and policies (Falun, 2013b) so a lot of

work is being done to create better policies and better logistics around the policy-making process.

As always within a municipality, change is a time consuming process, so even though work is being

done within this area – I believe that the policies and the policy-making process we have today is

here to stay for awhile. And as the change is occurring, evaluation of the existing organisation is

extremely relevant in order to make sure the change is actually better than the existing format.

Relationship between diversity and integration

There is a complex relationship between the two concepts of diversity and integration, some may

regard them as one, and some may regard them as two completely separate concept and issues.

Diversity  is  sometimes  regarded  as  the  “umbrella-concept”  under  which  integration falls, and

sometimes  integration  is  thought  of  as  the  “umbrella”  under  which  diversity  occur.  Integration  is  in  

Falun municipality referred to as a mutual process within a community that believe in the

importance of an understanding relationship between all citizens on equal terms (Falu kommun,

2006).  Diversity  is  on  the  other  hand  referred  to  as  people’s  differences.  Some  may  refer  to  the  

concept of integration to only relate to immigrants, but integration occur within almost everything –

technical integration, mechanical integration, integration of IT-systems; integration is the process

when two different actors need to learn how to cohabitate on the same area. It is about giving,

taking and sharing – mutually agreeing to coexist. Diversity is also a concept some may think only

applies to ethnical differences, but it is rather all differences such as age, gender, disabilities,

language, but also cultural differences and our experiences and how we are as a person.

Although this is a complex relationship, one that we could discuss for a whole thesis, that might

remind  us  more  of  “What  came  first?  The  hen  or  the  egg?”  These  are  the  understandings  used  in  

this thesis; integration is the process that enables diversity to exist and occur.

Falun – the municipality and the employer

In this research I refer to Falun, Falu Municipality and Falun municipality. Falun is simply the city

itself, Falu Municipality is the employer and Falun municipality is the municipality as the

geographical area including both the municipal organisation but the citizens as well. These different

ways of referring might be confusing, but I hope that I can at least make the reader see the

difference between the municipality as a geographical area- including its citizens – and as an

employer.

Communicator for diversity

Within the lines of this research I believe it is important to position myself as well, not just position

Sweden and Falun. I have a great interest in diversity and integration strategic work, but it is also

what I do for a living. Since May of 2013 I work for Falu Municipality as a communicator for

diversity. The aim and purpose of my work is to increase the knowledge and understanding

regarding diversity and integration issues among the municipal organisation but also among the

citizens. I cover both the municipal organisation as well as the citizens with my work. This may of

course affect this research, the limitations and challenges will be discussed further on in this paper.

Diversity, equality and public health

Integration and diversity can be strictly ideological questions. But within Falu Municipality the two

areas are often discussed as key stones in the municipal aim that every citizen should have equal

opportunities. Therefor public health and equality are often discussed in relation to and with

diversity and integration. In this section I will highlight some important definitions and concepts to

place the diversity and integration issues within my research aim and question.

The Swedish government uses Westin (2004) as a source on diversity and integration issues. Westin

claims that diversity is strictly related to integration politics. The UNHCR (2011) refers to diversity

as  ”different  values,  attitudes,  cultural  perspectives,  beliefs,  ethnic  background,  nationality, sexual

orientation, gender identity, ability, health, social status, skill and other specific personal

characteristics”.  While  the  age  and  gender  dimensions  are  present  for  everyone,  other  characteristics  

vary from person to person. These differences must be recognized, understood and valued by

UNHCR in each specific context and operation in order to ensure protection for all people. In this

paper I will refer to diversity as issues regarding equality, integration and anti-discrimination with

the seven discrimination areas of Europe and Sweden as guideline: age, gender, sexual orientation,

racial or ethnic orientation, assumed or associated discrimination, disability and religion and/or

other belief system, gender transgressing identity or expression.

When discussing diversity it is important to take equality in to consideration. Equality can stand

alone, but can also fall under the diversity category (UNHCR, 2011). The common thoughts for

managers in the work place, according to Keil, Amershi, Holmes, Jablonski, Lüthi, Matoba, Plett &

von Unruh (2007), has usually been to assume that workplace diversity is about increasing gender,

national or ethnical representation. With the new Constitutional Amendments in 1974 and 1975 in

the United States of America, the US government put companies under pressure to hire more

minorities and women and give them more opportunity to move up the company hierarchies.

Diversity experts then noticed that issues regarding diversity and equality often remained isolated

and in the Human Resource (HR) department and could not move out into the whole company and

its environment. Studies by the European Commission (2003: 3), The Costs and Benefits of

Diversity has  shown  that,  the  most  significant  advantages  “companies  with  active  diversity  policies”  

themselves ascribe to diversity are: strengthening cultural values within the organization, enhancing

corporate reputation, helping to attract and retain highly talented people, improving motivation and

efficiency of existing staff, improving innovation and creativity amongst employees, thus the most

significant advantages from diversity is when it is moving beyond the HR department.

Diversity and integration can be regarded as public health issues, and as mentioned earlier – within

my position, the three concepts are often discussed in relation to each other.

Integration and a diverse community must fall under The Public Health Group (Folkhälsogruppen,

1991) definition of public health. According to The Public Health Group there are no exact

definitions of public health or public health work, but rather a few closely related definitions. The

Public  Health  Group  explains  the  distinction  between  ”health”  and  ”public  health”  as  ”health  is  a  

resource for the individual, while public health  is  a  goal  for  the  community”.  As well as physical or

mental health, an integrated community must be a goal for the community, as health also is

concerned with social well being. Health is  defined  by  WHO  (2003)  as:  “...  a  state  of  complete  

physical, mental  and  social  well  being  and  not  merely  the  absence  of  disease  or  infirmity”.  These  

understandings of health and public health will be discussed in relation to the definitions in the

steering documents used for this research.

Plain talk

Since 2009 there  has  been  a  “plain  talk  paragraph”  in  the  Swedish  language  law  (Riksdagen,  2013).  

Recently the newspaper Dagens Nyheter (Lagerwall, 2013) posted an article regarding an authority

that did not meet the legal requirements regarding the text to be understandable to the common

citizen. This happening is most likely not uncommon; rather it is likely that most authorities have

steering documents, applications and transcripts that are inaccessible for the common citizen. This

will be discussed further in this project in relation to the citizen and what role the citizen play in the

policies and the policy-making process.

Method discussion

Aim and purpose

The aim of this research is to understand and evaluate the diversity and integration strategic work

within Falun municipality and Falu Municipality (both as geographical area/city and as the

employer). I want to know if you can reach social change through the policies related to diversity

and integration strategic work, and what role the citizen plays in that.

With  ”strategic  work”  I  mean  the  work  that  derives  from  the  policies  analyzed  in  this  research,  but  

the strategic work is also how the policies are created and communicated to the municipal

organisation as well as to the citizens. As a municipal officer I strongly feel that my work rest upon

the policies to a great extent and it is through the policies and the policy making I somehow have to

define and communicate my work. The understanding of the strategic work and the relation to

policy and policy-making will be helpful for me as a communicator for diversity in my further work

with the municipal organisation and the citizens.

To understand, and in some sense evaluate, the diversity and integration strategic work better I will

be looking at the three steering documents presented earlier in this paper, but also all relevant

material that is connected to the steering documents and their policies, such as intervention plas,

evaluation material for example. I believe that by evaluating the steering documents, and the

policies they are constructed from, I will get an understanding of what diversity and integration

strategic  work  ”should”  look  like  as  according  to  the  policies  they  rest  upon.  The  steering  

documents, the material from the executive directors and the evaluation material available on the

public health program will be analyzed through a document analysis and framed by a discourse

analysis, putting it within the theory of policy discourse.

Research question

My research question is: How are diversity and integration strategic work defined and

communicated in Falun municipality through their policies and can a participatory approach to

policy and policy-making lead to social change?

The  concepts  of  diversity,  integration,  equality  and  public  health’s relation to diversity and

integration, citizen participation, policy-making/discourse within the documents and

interview replies will be investigated. Questions taken in to consideration when analysing

the material are;

How are the key areas defined? Do they mirror underlying definitions?

Have documents been revised and updated continuously? In what form does the evaluation

and follow-up take place?

What are the guidelines to make sure diversity and integration strategic work is

implemented?

What guidelines are there to make sure diversity and integration strategic work is

communicated to the public and to the municipal organisation itself?

What role do the citizens play in the policy making process?

Are diversity and integration strategic work, documents and information public,

understandable and available? Are the municipal organisations and corporations available to

all citizens?

These guiding questions will hopefully help me understand how the policy is organised within the

documents and how the strategic work derives from it.

Discourse analysis, document analysis and policy discourse

Discourse analysis is the method used for this research as according to The Handbook of Discourse

Analysis by Schiffrin, Tannen & Hamilton (ed. 2008). The social structure in a municipality can

create a gap between politicians and their decisions, and the common citizen. The steering

documents have to be legally binding, thus creating a gap between the actual content of the

document and what the citizen is presented with. As a lawyer you might be perfectly clear about the

content, but as an unemployed refugee, or a stay at home mother of three, there might be a barrier.

If the gap exist - looking at diversity and integration strategic work as a discourse can give us a

better understanding of the structure of the gap and how to overcome it. (ibid.)

Nederveen Pieterse (2010) claims that discourse analysis can add reflexivity. According to Rapley

(2007:2)  discourse  analysis  is  more  concerned  with  “how the language is used in  a  certain  context”

in a document and that the documents produce specific realities; therefor the realities that are

produced have effects (ibid.). This research will show what those effects are, through the

combination of discourse analysis and a document analysis (Bowen, 2009) as I am collecting my

data through a document analysis and framing the data through I discursive approach. I will look at

the definitions and accessibility of the text in the documents, but maybe the context will be more

important than the static information?

Apthorpe and Gasper (1996) argue that policy discourse within the fields of national and

international  development  can  screen  out  certain  aspects,  “frame”  the  issues  to  revolve  around  some  

matters and by that, exclude others that might be just as important. They claim that this way of

constructing the world in a distinctive way might require some reviewing, however, I believe that

this approach will help me understand the diversity and integration strategic work better.

Policy discourse can be seen as a potential means of democratization, democracy might be

enhanced through policy discourse. Torgesson (2003) claims that with the idea of a network society

there is a shift from government to governance. National states do no longer have the power to

make all their decisions on their own. Economical globalization and the development of the

European Union (and other collaborations between nation states) has lead to a change in politics

over all. This, however, raises questions. Will the privileged domain of policy discourse just sway

over the larger society or can complex patterns of interaction extend the policy beyond its official

power? The network society has a capacity to focus on interchanges between the administrative

sphere (where policy discourse have its greatest concerns) and the public sphere of society. This

notion of change from government to governance as well as the interaction and interchanges

between the two spheres, put in relation to the claims regarding participatory communication

(Servaes, Jacobson & White, 1996), is highly relevant for this research and will be discussed further

in the chapter of theoretical framework.

Apthorpe (1986) believes that more focus should be on policy discourse and that policy is the

practice of policy, and practice is the policy of practice. Apthorpe further claims that objections

regarding policies usually are not taken in to such great consideration, and it is not just constricted

to national plans, but rather just as often local documents. The documents analysed in this research

will  be  reviewed  with  the  distinction  between  ”policy-making”  and  policy  itself.  Document  analysis  

is an important step in evaluating a program or policy (Caulley, 1983) and is the easiest and most

time and cost efficient way to evaluate the purpose of a program without collecting new data.

Document analysis is most effective in the beginning of a policy making process, but as revision

work on policy-making and its processes is being done within the Municipality of Falun (Falun,

2013b) the timing for this research is actually close to perfect. Through looking at the documents

behind the policy-making and the policy purpose and aim can be understood and therefor I have

chosen to collect my data through the method of document analysis (Bowen, 2009).

The theoretical framework

The theoretical framework will be within citizen participation/participatory communication and

social change.

“Steering  documents”  is  a  collective  term  for  all  plans,  programs,  aims, policies and by-laws that

the municipal council has voted through which are all connected to the organizations budget (Falun,

2013). I use steering documents and policy interchangeably in this research, as the steering

documents are the physical construction of the policies.

Participatory communication and social change

When you consider questions regarding citizens and availability it is important to incorporate

participatory communication. Not all countries are participative democracies, but Sweden is, or

claims to be. Traditionally one may think of participatory development communication as referring

to the use of mass media in order to involve and mobilize people in social issues, often in

development countries. In this research I refer to participatory communication along the lines of the

“Rockefeller  process”  where  communication  for  social  change  is  referred  to  as  the  “process  of  

public and private dialogue through which people themselves define who they are, what they need

and how to get what they need…”  (see  Tufte  &  Mefalopulos,  2009:2).I  claim  that  this  applies  to  all  

development work, even in a Swedish municipality.

Edelman (2001) highlights the importance of the sender and receiver in communication and in order

to be able to participate, you need to take that relationship between the sender and receiver in to

consideration. The communication between the administrative sphere and the public sphere is

dependent on each other and on a common ground of understanding. According to Atkinson &

Marlier (2010) it is important that participatory approaches are adopted for the construction of

indicators.  There  must  be  intuitive  validity  and  produced  results  that  seem  “reasonable”  to  the  

citizens. An important dimension of social exclusion is concerned with citizens not being heard,

feeling powerless and not represented. It would not be good if the adoption of social indicators of

poverty and social exclusion were to add more to the sense of powerlessness or not being heard. All

in all - a social inclusion policy, such as the policies analysed in this research, can build on the

experience in other fields. But, not to forget, experience with participatory approaches in the past

has also highlighted how difficult it is to alter the balance of power between administrative and

public sphere (Torgesson, 2003).

Apthorpe (1986) further claims that objections regarding policies usually are not taken in to such

great consideration, and it is not just constricted to national plans, but rather just as often local

documents. Apthorpe means that the structure of policy documents, no matter who produced them,

always follow the same type of structure. All in all, there might not be anything wrong with this

structure, but the structure itself needs to be recognized as an important part of the development

policy, especially if we seek to understand and in some cases change them. Regarding politics and

discursive actions, language plays an important role. Language is used to legitimize the codes, rules

and roles. In many cases, that means that political language is filled with vagueness that creates a

gap between fact and value. The actual statement of policy has been claimed to be a defence

mechanism, question-begging and filled with vagueness (George Orwell, see Apthorpe 1986).

Practice of policy-making states the presence of policy (the  ”goods”,  the  ”priorities”)  as  the

 policy-making reference the things that should be done, as well as could and will be done. But, the entity

of policy as stated is sometimes also seen as the same thing as an achievement. The policy and the

achievement  that  arrive  from  it  are  often  seen  as  one.  There  is  a  difference  between

 ”policy-making”  and  the  policy  itself.  (Apthorpe,  1986).  

Research shows that it takes time to get people to actually participate (Servaes, Jacobson & White,

1996). As Sweden develops to a more diverse country there might be groups of people that are not

participating as they could and are allowed to. The mutual process can be referred to the importance

of listening and- trust. Servaes & Malikahao (2005) claim that trust and listening might help reduce

the social distance between communicators and receivers and aid in creating a more fair exchange

of ideas, knowledge and experiences. They put emphasis on the joint partnership of listening to one

another; it has to involve the governments and the citizens. Criticism regarding the traditional

dependency approach led to a new viewpoint on development and social change where the changes

in  a  society  takes  place  from  a  ”bottom-up”  perspective,  where  the  ”bottom”  is  the

 self-development of the local community. All societies are dependent in one way or another, but no

development is exclusively determined by external factors. The relationship between global,

national and local needs to be understood both separately and in relation to each other, and these

development paradigms can be found on a cultural and communication level as well as a political

level (Servaes & Malikahao, 2005).

According to Servaes & Malikahao (2005) there are two major approaches to participatory

communication. The first being the dialogical pedagogy that Paulo Freire constructed in the 70's.

Freire’s  theory  however,  excludes  the  notion  of  print,  radio  and  communication,  focusing  primarily  

on group dialogue. The second theory is more concerned with access, participation and

self-management, which were debated by UNESCO in the 1970's (Berigan, 1977). UNESCO's

discussion around access and participation becomes relevant for this research, although they focus

on access of media for public service – but the definition of access being the opportunities of

availability is still applicable. According to UNESCO participation implies more public

involvement in communication systems. It also includes the public being involved in the process of

producing, planning and managing communication systems. In addition, it involves equal sharing of

economic and political power, and the development of participatory communication put in relation

to a social emancipation process on a local, national and international level.

Servaes & Malikahao (2005) has summarized the different aspects of a communication model, two

of those aspects can be put in relation to participatory communication in a municipality and its

diversity strategic work; (a) Communication is a human need: communication is just as important

for a society as health, nutrition, housing, education and labour. Together with other social needs,

communication must give the citizen a chance towards emancipation. This is concerned with the

right to be informed and the right to communicate. (b) Communication is a delegated human right:

within each society's own context (economic, cultural, and political) they have to be able to define

how to organize their social communication process.

Citizenship and public policy

Citizenship and public policy has a long history. In a European context, public policy is directly

connected with social citizenship in the historical context of the development of the welfare state

and industrial capitalism. Social citizenship needs to be understood in the broader historical context

of social class relations, the modern capitalist economy and the nation state. (Turner, 2001)

According to Turner (2001) the modern development of an administrative framework of the modern

type state has lead to the formation of national identity, political integration and citizenship

claimed that under the creation of the nation state; public policy was also cultural policy. With

globalization the state has been compromised and the thoughts regarding public policy and

citizenship is now related to politics and the global economy. (ibid.)

The European Union debates regarding policy can be put in contrast with the American debate.

European policy debates have revolved around the possibility of equality in a capitalist economy,

the American legacy, however, has been concerned with democracy and political access. As the

American debate was more concerned with the democracy aspect, and citizens having more access

to the political arena, the American contribution has distinctively contributed to public policy

playing a big role in education for access and participation (Diggins, 1994)

Citizenship has established a broad legal and social guideline within which public policy works, but

public policy creates the administrative and legal framework within which citizens can effectively

enjoy their rights. Tuner (2001) claims that citizenship and public policy are interconnected and

interdependent. Citizenship is a collection of rights and obligations that gives individuals a formal

identity. Social citizenship involves social membership, the formation of identities, and a set of

virtues relating to obligation and responsibility. Social institutions such as the legal system, politics

and the welfare state constitute it.

The  notion  of  ‘public  policy’  is  a  general  term  to  describe  the  efforts  to  coordinate  the  provision  of  

a variety of governmental (in this case municipal) services and utilities. In this research, the public

policies cover the coordination of public health, equality and diversity. Public policy expresses the

political intentions and choices and creates the framework within which social planning takes place.

Turner  (2001)  explains  how  ‘public  policy’  can  also  be  referred  to  as  ‘social  policy,’  Social  policy  

is often distinguished from public policy by having a broader welfare dimension; it attempts to

regulate the provision of social services: housing, education, health, social security, and personal

social services. The connection between policy and citizenship is that social policy includes the

general policy of governments with regard to action having a direct and explicit impact on the

welfare of citizens by providing them with services or income.

As Turner (2001) puts it; both citizenship and public policy are modern institutions, and they could

not exist without the modern development of the administrative state. Historically, the relationship

between the state and the market has been the template of social citizenship and public policy.

Through public policy, one can be entitled to social resources, welfare, for example, has never been

an unconditional right, the entitlement has in reality been tied to the contribution, typically by

contributing  through  work,  war  and  reproduction.    The  legislation  of  ”civil  unions”  for  example,  

entitled gay couples to 300 rights and benefits that were before only under state law of heterosexual

married couples. The patterns of public policy have been transformed by economic, military and

social changes, and will keep transforming through out our globalizing development. Therefor it is

important for global, national and local public policy to be continuously analysed and put in the

development perspective, putting the connection between local and global in this research on the

agenda.

Stone,  Maxwell  &  Keating  (2001)  talk  about  the  ”implementation  gap”  that  is  public  policy-making

that leads to polic

y

failure due to inaccurate or incomplete research, flawed policy design,

insufficient resources, or problematic implementation. The principles underlying a policy may not

survive their reduction into a more workable structure and if one fail to plan for implementation, a

space  for  bargaining  between  different  pressure  groups,  for  example  between  politician’s  and  civil  

servants, is created.

Nanz and Steffek (2004) claim that "International governance is remote from citizens, its

procedures are opaque, and it is dominated by diplomats, bureaucrats and functional specialists."

An organized civil society plays the key role by bringing issues to the public surface and putting

citizens’  concerns  on  the  agenda.  Stone (2008) claims that limitations like this will lead to less

critical thinking. National policy making takes place within the nation state – which is true since the

municipal board consists of members elected by the citizens - but the policy making is still a matter

within governmental context.

How are policy meanings communicated to audiences? According to Yanow (1993) meanings can

be communicated through agency objects, language and acts that represent a policy and societal

values. The policy and the interpretations of them may be read as a text about societal values and

identity, making it even more important that the communication of the policies is suited to the

multiple  audiences  it  should  reach.  This  will  be  explained  in  relation  to  the  ”plain  talk  paragraph”  

(Riksdagen, 2013) as well as with participatory communication (Servaes, Jacobson & White, 1996:

Servaes & Malikahao, 2005) when measuring the level of availability/accessibility.

Acknowledgements and limitations

As the focus area of this paper is diversity and integration strategic work in Falun municipality, I as

a Falu municipal officer for diversity might be biased. However, as I have stated earlier in this

paper, I believe that the findings in this research might actually be helpful for me in my work. There

is of course a fine line when you start to look at your own employer and line of work through a

critical perspective, but as my aim was to understand diversity and integration strategic work better,

I feel that I have been able to stay as objective as possible as I knew that the true findings were what

would truly help me develop my work futher in the future.

My original method choice was to perform interviews among the citizens as well as the municipal

officers and by that being able to take a closer look at the implementaiton of the policies. However,

due to lack of time and response from the Human Resource department on how to proceed, I was

left with having to change my original idea. The interviews would have added some depth to this

research and given some reflections on questions I was now left to assume the answers to. It should

also be noted that I was due to my position as a communicator for diversity able to use material I

had previously conducted (referred to as Vidberg, 2013) which could be tricky when looking at it

critically for this research. Although, part of the material I had previously produced was to evaluate

the situation in the municipality regarding diversity and integration strategic work so therefor it

already had a critical character and I did not experience any issues myself in the analysis, but it

should be noted for the reader.

I have also been forced to translate the documents that I have used in my research. Hopefully the

material lost in translation is very limited, but should still be kept in mind when reading the paper.

Result

In this section I will present the documents used in the process of framing diversity and integration

as a discourse. I will present the content briefly and it is to be discussed further in the analysis

chapter. I, the author of this paper, including the citations from the steering documents and

evaluation material, have translated all the collected data.

Integration Policy Program

The two key terms described and defined in the Integration Policy Program (Falu kommun, 2006) is

The definition of integration in  the  Integration  Policy  Program  is:  “a  community  that  pervades  of  

equal and enriching relationships between all citizens with respect and understanding for particular

individuals  differences”  (Falu kommun, 2006:2).

The definition of diversity is:  “people  with  different  ethnicity,  culture,  language,  religion  and  life  

experience  live  together  with  equal  rights,  possibilities  and  obligations”  (Falu  kommun,  2006:2).

The five main aims of the Program  (Falu  kommun,  2006:2)  are;;  ”In  Falun  we  cherish  democratic  

values”;;  ”In  Falun  women  and  men  have  the  same  rights  and  possibilities”;;  “In  Falun  individuals  

are given the opportunities for self-sustentation  and  social  participation”;;  “Falun  is  a  good  model of

integration”;;  “The  composition  of  Falu  municipality's  employees  reflect,  as  far  as  possible,  the  

municipality's  population  composition”.  

There  is  a  paragraph  in  the  document  called  “follow-up  and  evaluation”  where  it  says  that  the  goals  

and aims of the program should be followed-up and evaluated annually whereas follow-up and

evaluation should take place in the same manner as practices within the Public Health Council. No

further explanation is presented. The Integration Policy Program was taken into act on May 8

2006

and has been revised once, on May 22

2006. (Falu kommun, 2006)

From February of 2013 the Falun Municipality decided that follow-up and serialization of policy

and steering documents must be revised (Falun, 2013c), as it earlier has been unclear who is

responsible for publishing steering documents and keeping them up to date.

In February of 2006 to December of 2007 (see attachment 4), Falu Municipality had a project

working for the implementation of the Integration Political Program (Falu kommun, 2006). Under

the  headline  “coordination,  cooperation  and  implementation”  it  is  stated  that  the  actions  for  

implementation should be coordinated with the public health goals and the Public Health Program

(Falu kommun, 2007b). That required the municipal organization to connect the integration political

interventions to the budget process.

In August 2007, a popular version of the Integration Policy Program was presented, an attempt to

make the content more available and easier to understand (Falu kommun, 2007a). The original text

is tough to navigate and understand unless you are working with the issues themselves.

2011 and 2013 follow-up of Integration Policy Program

In 2011, fourteen concerned actors were interviewed, one director of a municipal corporation, four

municipal executive directors and nine political parties. The results showed lack of knowledge and

lack of implementation within the organization and among the employees. The executives might

have known about the program, but very few had brought the subject up at employee meetings or

actively implemented the guidelines. (Gustavsson, 2011, see attachment 1)

In 2013 sixteen interviews took place. Twelve municipal executive directors and four directors of

municipal corporations were interviewed. The result did not vary much from the result produced in

2011, although all the interviewees except one had read the program at one point, a number slightly

better than in 2011. (Vidberg, 2013, see attachment 2)

It is clear when reading the interview transcripts from both the follow ups (Gustavsson, 2011,

Vidberg 2013 see attachment 1 and 2) of the Integration Policy Program (Falu kommun, 2006) that

a lot of concepts within the program are unclear and undefined for the person reading it. Most of the

interviewees did not know that they had indeed implemented the program, since they were unsure

of what the goals meant for them in their own strategic work.

As far as awareness and implementation of the program was concerned in 2011's follow up

(Gustavsson, 2011, see attachment 1), it was very low. The program was in general known by the

executive directors/presidents. Some of them had read it before, and some of them had read it just

before the follow up meeting, and a few had not read it at all. The employees or members partially

knew about the program, in some cases dependent on what type of work they were performing.

Most of the respondents (Vidberg, 2013, see attachment 2) believed that they had not implemented

the ideas in the program in their own organization. Reasons for non-implementation depend upon

the fact that the respondent did not think that the municipality was active enough or taking enough

responsibility for integration, and some of the respondents have not felt involved in the strategic

work. Some respondents were asking the municipality for a revision of the program and more

support in implementing the program. Some of the respondents claim that they have their own

policies and documents that are similar to the Integration Policy Program, and for some of them

integration is part of their mission. However, some highlight the fact that the integration within the

organization is lacking since they do not reach equality and social fairness statistically due to low

the balance between women and men, as well as the low statistic when it comes to employees with

non-Nordic background (ibid.).

The knowledge and implementation in 2011(Gustavsson, 2011, see attachment 1) was similar if you

compare the municipal administration and the political parties. Some of the political parties

representatives had been part of the process to produce the document, but some had only heard of it

or read it just before the meeting. Some political parties felt that they had implemented the aims of

the program by working with these types of questions.

The 2013 follow up (Vidberg, 2013, see attachment 2) show similar result as the 2011 follow up

regarding knowledge and implementation. None of the respondents felt that they had actively

implemented the program, however, there were good examples of interventions that the

administrations have done, but they have not consciously put the intervention in relation to the

program.

One of the follow-up questions was concerned with reaching the target group, in this case the

immigrants. This is an important aspect of the implementation of the program and reaching one the

main goals of the Integration Policy Program. However - in 2011 (Gustavsson, 2011, see

attachment 1) only one of the municipal administrations had some information available in another

language, and one was discussing future interventions like that. The political parties did not have

local information in another language, but there is multi lingual material on a national level. In 2013

(Vidberg, 2013, see attachment 2) the result showed that the administrations still do not present

material in other languages than Swedish, other than the social welfare office that due to their

clients have produced material in other languages. The official website of Falun municipality has a

Google  translate  function,  and  some  of  the  sites  are  available  in  an  “easy  read”  version  (ibid.).  

Local Public Health Program

Health is defined in the Public Health Program (Falu kommun, 2007b:4) with WHO (2003) as a

source: “the  highest  possible  physical,  spiritual,  psychological  and  social  wellbeing  for  the  

individual  and  not  just  lack  of  illness”.  

that aim to foster health and prevent illness. Health is a resource for the individual while public

health  is  a  goal  for  the  society”  (Falu  kommun,  2007b:4)  

Public Health work is  defined  as  ”  public  health  work  includes  planed  and  systematic  operations  to  

foster health and prevent illness. An announced intention is to affect factors (healthy, protect and

risk) and relationships (structure and environment) that contribute to a positive health development

on a citizen level. The operations can be on community- and/or group as well as  individual  level”  

(Falu kommun, 2007b:4).

There are eleven local goals, and they are all discussed in relation to the national guidelines in each

section of the program (Falu kommun, 2007b). The local goals are:

1. Participation and influence in the municipality of Falun

2. Economic and social security in the municipality of Falun

3. Safe and good growing conditions in the municipality of Falun

4. Healthier working life in the municipality of Falun

5. Healthy and safe environments and products in the municipality of Falun

6. A more health-promoting health care

7. Protection against infection spreading

8. Safe sexuality and good reproductive health in the municipality of Falun

9. Increased physical activity in the municipality of Falun

10. Good eating habits and safe food products in the municipality of Falun

11. Reduced use of tobacco and alcohol, a society free from drugs and doping and a reduction in

the harmful effects of exaggerated gambling

The first four goals are relevant in relation to diversity and integration, and the first goal is highly

relevant for this research.

Local public health goals are to be followed up and reported in the same manner as other follow-ups

within the municipal organisation. There is currently work being done on this end, with the last

evaluation taking place in 2011 (Falu kommun, 2011). Part of the public health goals will be

presented  in  ”Utveckling  Falun”.  A  collective  follow  up  will  occur  regarding  the  development  in  

relation to the three goal documents for sustainable development (Falun, 2012b).

For the local public health goals in the program to be reached it requires some interventions. The

Public Health Program does not tell what the concrete interventions that should take place are, but

gives examples on what needs to be done and important actors that need to contribute and what

activities that are required to reach the goals. The Falun municipality and the county council are

important both as organizations and as community actors. The interventions that should instituted

by municipal and county council will be presented in separate action plans and the construction of

these should take place within and be put in relation to the municipal annual budget process as well

as the county council operation plan. (Falun, 2007b).

There  is  an  ”Intervention  plan  2013  for  Falun  municipality’s  local  public  health  program”  

(sv.”Åtgärdsplan  2013  för  Falu  kommuns  lokala  folkhälsoprogram”)  (Falu  kommun,  2013).  The  

intervention plan has two parts; a description of how the work is proceeding, and a list of special

interventions that could be necessary to implement during 2013. The on-going work is a description

of what committees, board of directors and municipal corporations have in their work mission that

is related to the local public health goals. The intervention plan 2013 is an update of the intervention

plan of 2012. They emphasis that the description of the on-going work in the Falun municipality to

reach the local public health goals is not complete, and the same goes for the listed interventions of

2013. (Falu kommun, 2013)

The  Public  Health  Program  (Falu  kommun,  2007b)  is  a  public  document  and  part  of  “Falun  Framåt”  

which  is  the  official  aim  for  Falun  municipality  with  the  focus  areas:  “economy  and  growth”,  “a  

good health for the entire population”  and  “our  environment- a  challenge  for  everyone”  (Falun,  

2013e; Falun 2013f). With the eleven local goals the citizens are the target of the strategic work, but

it is unclear if they are active participants in reaching the goals or if they are just receiving the result

of the interventions. In relation to how easy it is to understand the material there is a reading guide.

The program has clear connections to national and local goals (Falu kommun, 2007b).

Report  on  the  current  situation  2011  (“Nulägesrapport  2011”)  of  local  Public  Health  

Program

In 2011 a report was published on the current state of the public health situation in Falun

shows that fifteen out of forty-five partial goals had been reached. Additionally out of the eleven

key areas, the prospect is that only two will be met as the situation was in 2011. An additional seven

goals can be met if the appropriate actions take place. (Falu kommun, 2011, Falu kommun, 2013)

Plan for Equal Rights and Possibilities 2012-2014

There  are  no  definitions  of  the  concepts  such  as  “equal  rights”  or  “possibilities”  within  the  context  

of the plan.

Based on the CEMR declaration (CEMR, 2013) Falun Municipality (Falu kommun, 2012a)

presented the following four focus areas: Sustainable development, women's integrity, increased

power and influence, increased minority influence. The Plan for equal rights and possibilities is

updated in two-year stints. The current plan is inclusive of 2012-2014 (Falu kommun, 2012a).

There  is  a  headline  called  “integration  of  the  plan”  where  it  is  stated  that  the  message,  commitment  

and knowledge areas outlined in the plan should be found within the organizations activities.

Examples include workplace meetings, conversations with co-workers, collaborations, leadership

development opportunities, work environment education, engagement of health in the work place

education, advanced knowledge for politics and introduction plans for new employees. It is

nowhere stated who is in charge of follow up reporting or who is to declare and ensure whether or

not implementation of the plan is taking place (Falu kommun 2012a).

There is a main document; Plan for equal rights and possibilities 2012-2014 (Falu kommun, 2012a)

and the appendix; Action plan to prevent harassment, victimization and bullying (Falun kommun

2012c). The action plan has definitions on harassments, victimization and bullying and more focus

on action rather than the structure of how Falun municipality works with the question. As of the

spring of 2013 an additional document on equal citizen service was introduced (see attachment 3).

Citizens are neither an audience nor participants in this program since it only applies to the

municipal administration. However, the employees are citizens, and the citizens are on the receiving

end of what is going on by way of the municipal administrations service actors. It is not stated how

the employees should act towards customer or client (Falun kommun, 2012a). In the Spring of

2013, as a reply to the CEMR-declaration (CEMR, 2009), a document on equal citizen service was

produced by the board of equal treatment, covering the service end of the municipal service actors.

Moreover, there is no follow-up available on the program.

Analysis

Evaluating and analysing documents might not be the most mind-blowing type of research.

However, as Caulley (1983) claims; it is an important step when you evaluate a program or a

policy. As with all research, you need to start somewhere and analysing already existing documents

is easy, time and cost efficient.

Analysing the documents presented in this research has brought on a better understanding of the

policy aim and purpose, and adding a reflexive approach (Nederveen Pieterse 2010) to participatory

communication in relation to policy documents concerning integration and diversity strategic work.

Although document analysis is most effective in the beginning of a policy making process,

according to Caulley (1983), it still served the purpose of understanding the policy aim and purpose

better as well as creating a better understanding of the policy making process itself, and what role

citizens, executive directors, employees and politicians play in this issue. It has also added a lot of

reflections to me as a municipal officer who work with diversity and integration strategic issues on

an everyday basis, which I hope to show in this analysis.

Policy-making in relation to diversity, equality and public health

For there to be a policy, there must be a problem. The problem is the root of the reason to why a

policy must be constructed. Steering documents contain policies regarding the problem area. Social

problems cannot easily be solved since there is nothing objective or neutral about the definition of

humanity. When we define a concept, we construct a meaning, based on what we have observed

and understood in that very specific moment. We apply our own understandings, values and

thoughts to the specific issue before we define what we find correct in relation to the understanding

we have of it (Rochefort & Cobb, 1994). Therefor the definition behind, inside and beyond the

policy-making, the policy itself and the implementation is vital in the understanding of the diversity

and integration strategic work. Westin (2004) claims that diversity is strictly related to integration

politics, which correlates with the key terms highlighted in the Integration Policy Program.

In the Plan for Equal rights and Possibilities 2012-2014 the focus is solely on gender issues, which

according to UNHCR (2011) is a dimension present in all individuals, in contrast to other diversity

issues that may vary from person to person. According to The Public Health Group

(Folkgälsogruppen, 1991) there are a few closely related definitions on health and public health and

there  are  no  definitions  of  the  concepts  such  as  “equal  rights”  or  “possibilities”  within  the  context  of  

the Plan for Equal Rights and Possibilities. However, the plan is based on the CEMR declaration

(CEMR, 2013). According to Rapley (2007) we need to focus on how the language is used in a

certain context in a document and documents produce specific realities and the realities they

produce have effects (2007:3), so maybe it is not important for the definitions to exactly match,

rather that the context of the issues is understandable to everyone so we share the same reality?

As  Apthorpe  and  Gasper  (1996)  argue  that  policy  discourse  can  “frame”  the  issues  to  revolve  

around some matters and by that, exclude others that might be just as important, but it leads me to

wonder - without any sort of frame – how can the concepts and the policies be understood?

Definitions and clarity within a policy document becomes very relevant both when it comes to the

availability- being  able  to  understand  the  document  is  part  of  it  being  “available”  to  the  common  

citizen, and when it comes to the implementation. How are you going to be able to implement

something you do not understand? As the review of the programs as well as the review of the

answers from the follow-ups on the Integration Policy Program shows – there is very little

implementation, and executive directors claim that the Integration Policy Program is tough to grasp.

Nanz and Steffek (2004) claim that an organized civil society plays the key role by bringing issues

to  the  public  surface  and  putting  citizens’  concerns  on  the  agenda.  Stone  (2008)  claims  that  national  

policy making takes place within the nation state – which is true since the municipal board consists

of members elected by the citizens - but the policy making is still a matter within governmental

context.

Keil, Amershi, Holmes, Jablonski, Lüthi, Matoba, Plett & von Unruh (2007) discuss diversity and

the workplace. The understanding of diversity in the workforce has been evolving since the 1970s

when the term was used to refer to minorities and women at the workplace. This research becomes

interesting since Falu Municipality is the biggest employer in Falun. Managers historically assumed

that workplace diversity is about increasing gender, national or ethnical representation, that it is

concerned  with  recruiting  and  retaining  more  people  from  so  called  underrepresented  “identity  

groups”.  But  with  the  new  US  Constitutional  Amendments in the seventies, the US government

pressured companies to employ more minorities and women and thereby give them more

opportunity to move up the company hierarchies. Soon diversity experts noticed this work often

remained isolated and in the Human Resource department (HR), being concerned only with the

actually recruitment process – to recruit more women and minorities - and could not move out into

the whole company and its environment. Even though the history presented by Keil et al. (2007)

focused on the US - the need to move beyond the HR department (and at the same time include it) is

evident in studies by the European Commission (2003: 3), The Costs and Benefits of Diversity.

According  to  this  study,  the  most  significant  advantages  “companies  with  active  diversity  policies”  

themselves ascribe to diversity are: strengthening cultural values within the organization, enhancing

corporate reputation, helping to attract and retain highly talented people, improving motivation and

efficiency of existing staff, improving innovation and creativity amongst employees. The follow-up

interviews conducted by myself on behalf of Falun municipality, and which worked as a

brainstorming possibility for this thesis where I realized the existing gaps within this area (Vidberg,

2013 and Gustavsson 2011see attachment 1 and 2) show that the executive directors know about the

policy regarding integration in the Falun municipality. However, the majority of the executive

directors claimed that the employees did not know about the policies and the aims of integration

strategic work.

The  definition  of  diversity  in  the  Falun  municipality  was  as  following:  “people  with  different  

ethnicity, culture, language, religion and life experience live together with equal rights, possibilities

and  obligations”,  and  even  though  the  definition  from  Keil,  Amershi,  Holmes,  Jablonski,  Lüthi,  

Matoba, Plett & von Unruh (2007) was vague, it does highlight certain areas that the Falun

municipality does not specify. The  Falun  definition  only  covers  “live  together”  - which are very

vague definitions and  could  include  or  exclude  “work  together”.  As  Falu  Municipality  is  the  biggest  

employer in Falun it is important that the steering documents also cover all aspects relevant to the

workforce. One could claim that this is where the Plan for Equal Rights and Possibilities 2012-2014

(Falu kommun, 2012a) steps in and covers issues present in the workforce. But the Plan for Equal

Rights and Possibilities seem to have more focus on equality than on diversity and integration

issues, which leaves areas uncovered by both of them, even when combined. But I cannot help but

wonder if I am overanalysing this issue and that it rather has more to do with the realities produced

by the document more than the exact definition or formulation regarding certain issues as according

to Rapley (2007). Maybe just the fact that the policies on equal rights and possibilities and

integration exist is enough, that just by existing they are producing a reality, but I still claim that it

takes more for a policy than just existing to overcome an issue. The same is true for the policies on

diversity.  The  UNHCR  (2011)  claims  that  diversity  has  to  be  “[...]  valued  and  understood  by  […]  in  

each  specific  context  and  operation  [...]”  which  is  not  a very specific explanation but it does not

exclude any areas, but rather includes them all. Putting the definitions in the Integration Policy