Publikationsliste KOPS

There is a broad international consensus about the importance of states recognizing Indigenous rights, and the number of them making respective policy provisions is steadily increasing. At the same time, across the world, Indigenous peoples still face considerable levels of inequality—in material, political, and social terms—in comparison to their countries’ ethnic majority populations. So how effective are states’ policies in realizing Indigenous rights, and what are the implications for the Indigenous people concerned?

In my dissertation, I explore this question by analyzing the situation of the Indigenous Sámi people in Norway and Sweden. This constitutes a unique case of one Indigenous people living in two affluent welfare states renowned for their comparatively low levels of economic inequality. Furthermore, the two countries differ considerably in how their policies implement Sámi rights, as Norwegian Sámi policies are generally more advanced in this respect.

In the first research article—An Efficacious Remedy for Status Inequality? Indigenous Policies in Norway and Sweden (accepted for publication in Politics, Groups, and Identities)—I ask whether these policy differences are linked to differences in social status perceptions. I argue that policies directed toward Indigenous people reflect the respect and esteem politics and society show for that group. Consequently, Indigenous people should perceive higher status inequality when policies advance their rights to a lesser extent.

The empirical results show that in Sweden, significant gaps exist between the ethnic majority’s and the Sámi’s perceptions of social status. The latter have comparatively low perceptions of both their individual socioeconomic position and the Sámi’s collective cultural status in Sweden’s society. In Norway, by contrast, I find no evidence that having a Sámi identity is correlated with lower status perceptions.

In the second article—Beyond the Obvious: A Nordic Tale of the Raveled Relationship Between Political Inequality and Indigenous People’s Satisfaction with Democracy (under review at Ethnic and Racial Studies)—I focus on inequality in the political dimension. As the recognition of Indigenous rights alters the relationship between Indigenous people and the state, stronger recognition provides Indigenous people with more collective political power. But does it also contribute to Indigenous people’s satisfaction with democracy? Based on conceptual research on how satisfaction with democracy is formed, I argue that it depends on whether Indigenous matters are politicized and play a relevant role in national politics.

I assume that if Indigenous issues lack political relevance, questions about Indigenous people’s rights and political influence are less likely to feature in Indigenous people’s conceptions of how a democracy should ideally work. Hence, they should also be less likely to affect Indigenous people’s satisfaction with the actual state of democracy. Empirically, I find that Swedes with an ethnic Sámi background have virtually similar satisfaction levels as their ethnic-majority compatriots. In Norway, by contrast, there is a considerable gap in how satisfied the groups are with the way democracy works. Despite arguably facing less political inequality, Norwegian Sámi’s lower satisfaction levels are closely associated with their evaluations of Sámi’s political influence.

In the third research article—Divided Attitudes Toward Rectifying Injustice: How Preferences for Indigenous Policies Differ Between the Indigenous and Majority Populations of Norway and Sweden (published in The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics)—I use original survey vignettes to find out about people’s views on different Sámi policies. That way, I explore whether policy preferences differ between the Sámi and ethnic majority populations of the two countries. Intergroup relationship theories predict that the latter would be hesitant to support policies substantially advancing Sámi rights, for which the former should have strong preferences.

In my analysis, I find that—on average—ethnic majority respondents prefer policies that realize Sámi rights only to a limited extent. Yet, they do not categorically oppose any recognition of Sámi rights. Sámi respondents, on the other hand, show the highest support for policies that would contribute to status equality between the two groups. Overall, there are hardly any differences between Norwegian and Swedish respondents’ preferences, suggesting that the countries’ actual Sámi policies do not play a significant role in their formation.

These three studies extend the current state of research in various important ways. They contribute to the knowledge about Sámi’s social and political realities in Norway and Sweden and advance the research about Indigenous policies’ consequences—particularly regarding perceptions of inequality. Finally, for the literature concerning ethnic inequality in general, they provide a novel focus on the challenges of achieving between-group equality in advanced democracies devoid of ethnic conflict.

The Internet and digitalisation profoundly shape our societies, economies, and politics. However, while there is a vast literature on Internet politics, i.e., political online communication, and its effects on democracy, political scientists have only started to analyse how democracies regulate the Internet. This is a significant gap because more than just a technical – and technocratic – regulation of a new technology, Internet policy is concerned with the allocation of political and material values in the digital age. By determining what is permissible online, Internet policy sets the legal framework in which Internet politics can unfold and digital markets can prosper.

In this cumulative dissertation, I analyse the coalitional politics behind the making of Internet policy and answer the overarching research question: “What are the patterns of political contestation in Internet policy and how can they be explained?” I argue that Internet policy raises both economic questions regarding the appropriate regulation of digital markets and civil rights concerns related to privacy and freedom of expression in a digital society. Therefore, I conceptualise Internet policy as a two-dimensional policy field combining an economic left-right and a socio-cultural libertarian-authoritarian dimension. However, these two dimensions cannot be neatly separated into different policies but are closely entangled. For example, data protection is considered a fundamental right in the EU and thus, clearly a civil rights issue. Personal data, however, is also an important economic asset in the digital economy. Consequently, policy-makers must trade off economic and civil rights considerations when formulating data protection regulations. I argue that this entanglement of civil rights and economic concerns makes Internet policy prone to unconventional political coalitions, for example, when civil society activists and “Big Tech” firms jointly oppose regulations or when leftist and liberal parties form voting coalitions.

In this dissertation, I investigate the conditions for and consequences of such “strange bedfellow” coalitions in three empirical studies. Specifically, I focus on the preferences of three types of actors: political parties, civil society groups, and business interest groups. I study the research question in the case of the European Union (EU), which is widely seen as the global front-runner in regulating the digital economy. The investigation period ranges from 1999 until 2019, when Internet policy emerged as an increasingly prominent and controversial policy field on European policy agendas.

Study I analyses party competition over Internet policy in the European Parliament (EP) across three legislative periods (1999-2014). Analysing all plenary roll call votes on Internet policy issues over time, I find that Internet policy in the EP has become increasingly contested among pro-EU parties, leading to a decline in grand coalition voting. Ideal point estimation shows that political competition in this policy field is best explained by the ‘libertarian-authoritarian’ dimension. A second, albeit less important, dimension captures attitudes towards European integration. Reinforcing this finding, two short case studies illustrate how civil rights concerns motivate left-wing parties and the liberal party group to form voting coalitions despite diverging economic preferences. My analysis advances the literature on party politics in Internet policy by examining actual parliamentary behaviour in contrast to party manifestos only.

Moving from the parliamentary to the societal level, Study II investigates interest group networks in Internet policy. Specifically, it studies under what conditions digital rights groups – NGOs focussed on the rights of Internet users – share policy preferences with Internet businesses. I argue that policy proposals determine preference alignment. Specifically, I theorise that the regulation of Internet intermediaries, such as social media platforms, Internet service providers, or app stores, shapes patterns of interest group contestation: When intermediary regulation seeks to constrain citizens’ online freedoms, the preferences of digital rights groups and intermediary firms align. Conversely, when intermediary regulation aims to limit the discretionary power of intermediaries to empower citizens and intermediary-dependent businesses, the preferences of activists and intermediaries diverge. I test and find support for this argument by conducting a discourse network analysis of four EU stakeholder consultations in the areas of data protection, online content, and Internet traffic management. The results contribute to our understanding of lobbyism and activism in digital capitalism.

Study III investigates the political consequences of such “heterogeneous lobbying coalitions” between digital rights groups and Internet businesses by zooming into one highly politicised case, the adoption of the 2019 EU Copyright Directive in the EP. Recent studies show that when salience is high, heterogeneous lobbying coalitions are more successful in achieving their lobbying objectives than homogeneous coalitions. However, in the copyright case, an alliance of activists and “Big Tech” firms failed to prevent policy change despite mobilising sizable public protests. I argue that proponents of the policy change – namely publishers from the music, film, and press industries and their party political allies – successfully undermined the lobbying coalition by invoking notions of “digital sovereignty” and delegitimising activists as Silicon Valley’s “useful idiots”. Combining a process-tracing analysis of the lobbying competition and a content analysis of EP plenary debates, I show how legislators employed delegitimation and sovereignty claims to justify their non-responsiveness to civil society opposition and public protests. This finding contributes to the growing debate about the notion of “digital sovereignty” by demonstrating its strategic use in the policy-making process.

In sum, the three studies advance our understanding of the political cleavages shaping digital capitalism. I provide a detailed picture of how parties, civil society, and business interest groups cooperate and compete over the rules and regulations that shape our digital society. This dissertation thus advances (I) the so far scarce research on political parties in Internet policy, and (II) the literature on (heterogeneous) interest group coalitions and their lobbying success.

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