The Faculty of Social Sciences

My research focuses on men with power. A common thread in my research is a gender perspective on political institutions and the individuals in privileged positions who operate within them – those who elect the candidates in political parties, military leaders, bureaucrats exercising official authority, and dictators. For example, I have investigated how corruption and male networks contribute to cementing male dominance in politics and how patriarchal values affect the tendency to use political violence.

My research results have been of practical significance for organisations working with political processes – for free and fair elections and against corruption. I have shown how the current understanding of these processes is based on male experiences, to the extent that both researchers and practitioners risk missing the sexualised forms of hate, threats and corruption that primarily affect women.

In recent years, I have taken an interest in how certain authoritarian countries use gender equality reforms to appear modern, progressive and democratic. My colleague Pär Zetterberg and I call this phenomenon ‘autocratic gender-washing’ and we have shown in our research how gender equality reforms in autocratic states are uncritically interpreted as democratic progress. Gender equality reforms may be important in themselves, but they cannot replace free and fair elections. Unless others see through autocrats’ gender-washing, gender equality policies risk being reduced to a play to gallery that could even strengthen a non-democratic regime.

My research deals with peace processes after war, with a special focus on gender and mental health. While studying the truth and reconciliation commissions in Rwanda and the Solomon Islands, I discovered that the processes carried with them unintended risks to the physical safety, mental health and relationships of participants.

In our research in Nepal and Sri Lanka, we recently found that women were more sceptical than men about peace initiatives that entail security risks in everyday life. For example, this can involve reintegrating former combatants into the community – which means that people who were perpetrators during the war should now live as neighbours to those they once menaced. This research shows how important it is that women are involved in formal peace work. Unfortunately, this is still more the exception than the rule around the world.

My research profile is varied, but a common thread is questions that concern taxation. My thesis dealt with taxes and their effectiveness from a theoretical point of view. After defending my thesis, my research has become more empirical, but still with a focus on taxes. I have used empirical methods in multiple studies to assess the extent of tax evasion with the aid of consumption data.

Another common thread in my research is randomised experiments, often conducted in collaboration with Swedish government agencies such as the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Swedish Pensions Agency, and the Swedish Tax Agency. A long-term collaboration with the Swedish Tax Agency has resulted in several projects related to taxes and behavioural economics. One of our studies investigated whether Swedish taxpayers are loss averse when they file their tax returns. Using modern statistical methods, we were able to confirm that taxpayers are more likely to claim deductions when they have taxes due than when they are anticipating a tax refund.

In another study, we are investigating whether the Swedish Tax Agency can increase willingness to pay taxes due through nudging, in other words influencing a person to choose one option over another. An example of nudging is a simple information letter that reminds the taxpayer that they have taxes due. Today’s system risks individuals being referred to the Swedish Enforcement Authority if they do not pay taxes due, which can have serious consequences. There is therefore much to gain if the Swedish Tax Agency can use softer, alternative methods, which our study shows is a viable option.

When I was growing up, the world was facing three important environmental challenges: the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain, and climate change. Since then, humanity has solved two of these challenges. So why not the third? Or other serious problems like the dramatic loss of biodiversity?

My research investigates what can be done to stop the damage humanity is doing to the planet in light of past successes and failures. As a sociologist, I study political barriers and various potential solutions to these sustainability challenges.

Important obstacles today include opposition from polluting industries, which have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, as well as scepticism among the general public about new environmental policies. I have shown that this kind of attitude largely stems from a distrust in politics. While most of the world’s population is aware of the planet’s environmental problems and they want their governments to act, they do not support polluter-pays taxation because they believe that decision-makers will misuse this revenue.

Few topics get the kind of space in the media and everyday discussions as the state of globalisation in the world. Over a long period of time, the world has become increasingly interconnected, and increasingly multinational corporations have become a presence in people’s everyday lives. My research deals with these multinational corporations and focuses on how they navigate the complexity in their global strategy and innovation. I am particularly interested in understanding how these corporations create and transfer knowledge between their entities around the world – a process that is crucial to maintaining their competitiveness in an increasingly global market.

My work explores the nuances of global innovation strategies, exploring what makes them succeed or fail. For example, it examines the effects of organisational structures, cultural differences and other contextual factors that can either help or hinder the flow of information within global corporations. In summary, my research helps us understand how multinational corporations can leverage their global presence while maintaining consistency in their strategy and operations.

The non-verbal communication of emotions is a fundamental component of human interactions. Through my research, I want to increase our understanding of how different aspects of the voice’s qualities, and the person’s facial expressions and body movements – and even music – can convey emotions, using an interdisciplinary approach.

Questions that I have investigated include the extent to which emotions are universal, how the ability to recognise emotions varies between individuals, the similarities and differences between acted and spontaneous expressions, and how the brain processes emotionally relevant information from faces and voices. The results show that it is possible to communicate a broader palette of emotions than previously assumed, including several positive emotions in addition to joy. Research on emotional expression has many applications and also contributes to theories of what emotions actually consist of and what their function is.

My research focuses on health, body composition and well-being in studies of food choices and behaviours. Food has great importance in our lives, but different environments, habits, attitudes and access to food can vary greatly. Interdisciplinary collaboration across health sciences, social sciences and education is important when attempting to answer complex questions about food and health with the goal of promoting well-being in the community.

My research spans families with children to elite athletes and aims to develop methods and interventions that take into account all the different aspects of health – physical, mental and social. My focus right now is on picky eaters among children, especially those with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD. Being a picky eater can be a problem for a child’s health but also for communication within the family and how mealtimes are experienced in the home. Children, especially those with neurodevelopmental disorders are often picky eaters because they are oversensitive or undersensitive to sensory stimuli. For elite athletes, the focus has been on relative energy deficiencies in sports and the risk that this entails. The common goal in all my research is to get these diverse groups to learn to enjoy food and meals in a healthy and sustainable way.

Migration is a global phenomenon that shapes national and local cultures, economies and politics. I have long been interested in the processes of mutual adaptation that occur between migrants and their host communities, especially in the case of highly qualified migrants. As a migrant who has lived and worked abroad, I have experienced myself what it is like to navigate new languages and cultures. These experiences have formed the basis of all my research projects.

I specialise in the labour market integration of highly qualified migrants. My research has investigated inclusion processes and the place-making practices of highly qualified migrants. Fieldwork in Sweden, Norway, Poland and India has provided site-specific insights into how integration processes function in labour markets and workplaces.

To better understand the institutional context of international migration, I have also studied how it is governed. These studies have examined the UN’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the EU Blue Card for highly qualified migrants and labour market integration policies for people with refugee backgrounds in Sweden and New Zealand.

These research projects have provided a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges that highly skilled migrants and people with refugee backgrounds face after moving to a new country, and how they navigate these structures in their everyday lives.

My research has three different specialisations. The first deals with the consequences of housing segregation and school segregation and how these are addressed through different types of measures and community planning. I am particularly interested in the importance ascribed to the neighbourhood over time. I am also interested in how social networks affect opportunities to get a job and start a business among the foreign-born. Lastly, I am interested in how community planning, or the organisation of society, can affect the transition to a more environment-friendly society.

In my research, I have seen how the neighbourhood constantly comes up in community planning as the place where important societal challenges should be solved. These include getting the population to actively participate in democratic processes, the social and economic integration of foreign-born people, and vulnerability and crime. The measures focus on those neighbourhoods that have the highest proportions of people on low incomes, high proportions of foreign-born people, and criminal networks.

But I have also observed the limited importance of the neighbourhood in terms of individuals’ chances in the labour market and of supporting themselves. Regulations governing migration, how the labour market works and how school choice is organised are important, but family background and the individual’s access to resources through their social networks still play the biggest role in how successful people are in their careers, regardless of having a migrant background.

I therefore believe that local measures and the importance of the neighbourhood need to be linked to structural mechanisms that create social exclusion, economic inequality, housing segregation and school segregation, and how a migrant background affects opportunities in the labour and housing markets.

My research is about why, globally, there are so few women in politics and what consequences this has when laws are introduced to address gender differences. I have paid particular attention to gender quotas in parliaments, which have been introduced in many countries. I have also shown that when quotas are introduced, and the proportion of women increases, countries’ budget priorities change – a greater share goes to health and medical care, and a smaller share goes to defence. In other words, the number of women in decision-making positions is important for the policies pursued by governments.

However, gender equality reforms are sometimes used for somewhat different, and less honourable, purposes than to solve gender equality problems. In my current research with my professorial colleague Elin Bjarnegård and US researchers, I am showing how governments in authoritarian states are successfully exploiting gender equality reforms to divert attention away from their undemocratic practices, and thereby appearing to be more legitimate. Thus, they are exploiting gender equality reforms in an effort to try to maintain authoritarian rule and prevent democratisation.