Esta tese investiga as mudanças ocorridas nas políticas sobre drogas no Brasil e em Portugal na última década do século XX e na primeira do século XXI. O argumento central, tomado em parte dos debates existentes entre as vertentes neoinstitucionais, é que tais mudanças só podem ser interpretadas a partir do conhecimento a respeito das trajetórias históricas das políticas e sua relação com o contexto internacional mais amplo no qual estão inseridas. Desta forma, construiu-se uma narrativa a respeito das mudanças em um processo indutivo baseado em investigação empírica que se articula em torno do conceito de dependência da trajetória. Nesse sentido, a ideia central da tese é que as diferentes naturezas das mudanças nas políticas analisadas podem ser compreendidas a partir da sua contextualização histórica e da importância dos efeitos que as escolhas e decisões tomadas em um dado momento têm no desenvolvimento posterior das políticas. / This thesis investigates the changes ocurred in the drug policies in Brazil and in Portugal in the last decade of the XXth century and in the first decade of the XXIst century. The central argument, taken in part of the existing debates within the neoinstitucionalist approaches, is that such changes can only be interpreted based on the knowledge regarding the historical trajectories of the policies and its relation with the broader international context in which they are imbedded. This way, a narrative was built concerning the changes on drug policies in these both countries, in an inductive process, grounded on empirical research that articulates itself around the concept of path dependence. In this sense, the central idea of the thesis is that the different natures of the changes in the analysed policies can be understood based on its historical contextualization and the importance of the effects that the choices and decisions taken in a certain moment have in the ulterior development of the policies.

One of the distinguishing features of successful societies is the ability to adapt to change, both social but also natural changes like climate change. Climate change is a complex, dynamic, non-linear process with a great deal of uncertainty concerning the time perspective, risks and consequences. A combination of factors like climate change, geographical vulnerability, a densely populated and highly built up coast line along with factors like deficient handling of surface runoff and a large usage of ground water leads to an increasingly vulnerable society. It also puts a greater pressure on the society to have preventive measures in place. The number of actors working with preparing society to the expected impacts of climate change and variability is increasing. However more than half of Sweden’s municipalities do not consider changing climatic conditions when planning, and many times even allow the construction of new living areas in known climatically vulnerable areas. Certain geographical areas in Sweden are characterized by environmental problems which enhance the predicted effects of climate change. The coast of Scania (Skåne) is one such area, where people for a long time have had to adjust to conditions like coastal erosion, recurring high tides, low lying areas and sinking land. The following study elaborates the politics of adaptive capacity. It is based on a comparative case study of two different policy processes regarding adjustments to climatic conditions in the coastal municipalities of Vellinge and Lomma in south-western Scania. In other words, this study explores the underlying factors that can explain what drives anticipatory measures to strengthen the ability and possibility to handle effects related to climate change. The theoretical framework consists of theories regarding policy changes in social ecological systems, and adaptation to climate. Structural actor based perspective, as well as system oriented and process oriented have been applied. The results are based on 14 interviews with key politicians, officials and stakeholders from non-governmental organizations. The study is also based on reports, a citizen’s survey from Statistics Sweden (SCB), newspaper articles, municipal documents, web sites and literature. The results show that the municipality of Vellinge implemented adaptation strategies years before Lomma municipality. Policy change was triggered by observed vulnerabilities in ecological systems which affected the social systems. It resulted in an intense debate (a window of opportunity), which in turn opened a policy window. The driving forces in policy process are central actors and shadow networks with access to knowledge. The results show that knowledge and understanding of ecological systems is essential for policy changes in climate adaptations. Research is needed, but research by itself will not be sufficient, research and knowledge must be transferred to decision-makers. Knowledge transferring is even important for officials and public. That means that an understanding of ecological systems is necessary for forming attitudes and for planning a society with the ability to meet climate change and the insecurities which are connected with it.

This study aims to explore if learning through policy change is possible after natural disastersoccur. Previous studies are divided concerning if natural disasters in fact lead to learning or policy change taking place. Thomas Birkland and his theory on “event related learning” suggest that it is possible for learning to take place after a ”focusing event” has occurred, which in turn forces policy to change. Through an operationalization of Birkland’s concept of learning, this study seeks to explore how learning can be understood to have occurred, due to and during the 10 years after the earthquake struck Haiti in 2010. The study concludes that there are many different indicators through multiple different sectors that suggest both learning and policy change has taken place on Haiti, due to the earthquake that occurred in 2010, viewed through Birkland’s theory of learning.

The attitude towards sustainability has vastly changed in the last few years.The European Green Deal(EGD) is a European law package that addresses the climate crisis and aims to transform businesseswithin the European Union towards more sustainable models. The automobile industry especially is atarget of transformation with the decarbonization efforts mandated by the Green Deal. As such, onewould expect a drastic change of how business is done around the time the Green Deal was passedand the years following it. This thesis has analyzed the annual reports of four large automobile firmsusing qualitative coding within the European Union from 2018 to 2022 in order to evaluate how thelaw package has influenced electrification research. This thesis used theoretical concepts such asinstitutional theory, theories about uncertainty and theories about innovation to analyze the results.Results indicated that while the Green Deal’s ambitions and targets are being set into motion, firmsmight not consider it as their guiding hand while moving towards sustainability. While theirconfidence levels in the EGD vary, there is plenty of opportunity for the EU to increase innovation atthis critical point in time through partnerships and infrastructural support.

For the last 60 years, Sweden has been known as a generous donor country. International development cooperation has become a principal objective of Swedish society.  My research aims to examine whether the recent changes in the domestic political scene concerning the uprising of the national right political party, the SD, has affected this international aid paradigm in Sweden. One particular focus of the study has been the aftermath of the 2015 migration crisis.  A qualitative desk study was adopted, and content analysis of official documents was conducted through abductive reasoning to make this study possible   The finding of this study is that solidarity and the moral duty towards those in need have been a very well consolidated motive in the Swedish aid thinking. Accordingly, no noticeable changes are yet to be observed as regards the official aid policy in Sweden. However, the SD´s rhetoric is increasingly echoing in both the press debate and the political scene in Swedish society and is slowly influencing the thinking of both other parties and the society at large.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of organizational policy changes within the Use-of-Force Continuum on taser usage and officer's perceptions of taser effectiveness. Tasers have been used by police since the 1970s and their use is increasing as the technology has improved. Data reveals that tasers are beneficial for controlling non-compliant suspects while preventing serious injuries and rarely has their use resulted in death. Much of the public controversy surrounding tasers centers on when and how often officers deploy them. Use of force data from 890 police citizen encounters during a two-year period was analyzed to examine how changes in organizational policy have affected taser deployments and how policy changes have affected taser use. The study's findings support that after the policy change, the frequency of taser use by officers decreased, while the levels of suspect resistance encountered by officers increased. The frequency and severity of suspect injuries did not change and the numbers of officers injured in use-of-force encounters also did not change. Survey response data from officers were compared to archival data, which revealed that while officers perceive an increased risk of harm to themselves as a result of the organizational policy change that was not supported in the findings. Officers did not perceive an increased risk of harm to suspects which was supported in the archival data findings. Officers also expressed a belief that the organizational change that placed the taser at a higher level on the Use-of-Force Continuum is appropriate for most use-of-force encounters. This study concludes with future directions and trends for taser use in law enforcement.

At the same time as the European Union’s (EU) influence has grown, path-breaking changes in Sweden’s social policy characteristics have appeared. Previous research gives contradictory evidence on whether and how these developments relate, and it remains unknown to what extent the EU contributed to the changes observed in Sweden.  By operationalising four theories on the mechanisms of social policy change (institutionalism, power resources approach, new politics, and new social risks), using the EU as a driving force, and two diverging policy developments as outcomes, this thesis cast the net wider than previous research and applies process tracing methods to a selection of 339 policy documents to answer: (i) How has Europeanisation affected unemployment policy and family policy in Sweden, 1990- 2019? (ii) To what extent can Europeanisation sufficiently explain the retrenchment in unemployment policy while family policies were expanded in the same period of time?  I find no support for the mechanisms of institutionalism and new politics, limited support for new social risk, and mixed support for the power resource approach explaining the Europeanisation of Swedish social policy. Although I found empirical support for parts of several, I conclude that no theory can sufficiently explain the complete causal chain of how the EU influence the two Swedish policy outcomes.

This study aims to empirically explore if there is an association between climate-related disasters and climate mitigation policy change in middle-income countries. This is important for understanding future climate mitigation policy, as disasters are predicted to increase in both frequency and severity. I explore this by studying climate mitigation policy activity change among countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The region is chosen due to a lack of previous studies in both the region specifically, as well as in middle-income countries generally. Due to uncertainties in the exact time lag between the disaster and policy response, different methods are used: one 5-year normalized scatterplot and two fixed effects (FE) regressions with 1- and 2-year time lags respectively. The results show no statistically significant effects between the variables when looking at a 1-year FE regression or a 5-year normalized scatterplot, however, it does find a negative correlation between extreme-impact events and affected people when using a 2-year FE regression. A possible interpretation of the results is that severe climate-related disasters pause climate mitigation policy development, but not the process of the policies already developed pre-disaster and that these are short-term effects. However, further studies are needed to confirm this.

This thesis aims to understand how Sweden managed to renounce its long-held military non-alignment policy and identity to join the military alliance NATO in the aftermath of Russia`s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In order to find out how Sweden achieved this policy shift the thesis builds on social constructivism and studies on ontological security that focuses on the security of identities and adopts the case study method. To answer the research question, the ontological security maximization framework -which presents two complementary strategies that agents must achieve to be able to undertake change-making action- is applied to the selected speeches of Magdalena Andersson, Peter Hultqvist, and Ann Linde, the three leading Swedish politicians that were involved in the decision-making process of the policy change. Regarding the first strategy, the strategy of being, eight distinct identity-signifiers that enhance the Swedish self-esteem and ensure biographical continuity have been identified in the Swedish narrative. When it comes to the second strategy, the strategy of doing, the action “joining NATO” is evaluated positively in three different ways and this was done in a way that consolidates the strategy of being. Furthermore, by addressing the obstacles optimistically- most notably the issue with Türkiye- the three politicians have successfully maximised the Swedish ontological security, thus enabling the initiation of this fundamental policy change.

The absence of federal government consensus on various nicotine policy matters, such as the legality of menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes, gives rise to distinct agendas, policy landscapes, and public attitudes at the state and local levels. As a result, nicotine activist groups and interested stakeholders are actively engaged in shaping the future of nicotine policy and use. This thesis explores the culture of local activist groups in Central Florida to understand how they influence nicotine-related policy change and set the tone for nicotine use in their communities. Drawing on data collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with activist group members, key actors, and nicotine users in Volusia County and Orange County, I argue that various external and internal factors compel activist groups to adopt a reactive strategy in addressing nicotine-related use and disparities rather than a proactive one. This thesis provides a novel, holistic perspective on nicotine-related policy change from both the activist and user viewpoints, and contributes significantly to scholarship on nicotine policy change by filling a previously unexplored gap in the anthropological literature.