Ulf Mörkenstam, Policy, Stockholm University

2009-2014

The aim of this project has been to analyse the capacity of the Sámi Parliament to safeguard the Sámi right to self-determination. Initially, the project had three parts. The first was a descriptive and comparative analysis of contemporary political practice, in which the empirical task was to identity different ways of interpreting the right to self-determination and various institutional arrangements to safeguard this right. This part was, however, extended in a more ambitious fashion, when I started to gather information on the constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples all over the world - with the help of research assistants - a material I just have begun to analyse (with the ambition to write one or two more articles). The second part was an analysis of the internal work of the Sámi Parliament, and its influence as representative body of the Sámi people on a national level. However, when I began my study I soon realised that the construction of the parliament as a government agency with dual roles - a representative and an administrative - made it necessary to widen my analysis to its administrative role as well, and especially the relation and potential tension between the two roles of the parliament. The third part was a normative and constructive analysis, evaluating the institutional design of the Sámi Parliament in relation to the meaning of the concept of self-determination in international law and contemporary political theory.

When the project developed further I added a fourth part as the capacity of the Sámi Parliament to safeguard the Sámi right to self-determination is also dependent on the legitimacy of the institution itself in order to gain autonomy and influence. A representative body like the Sámi Parliament needs to be legitimate both in relation to its' electorate, and in relation to the national political system in Sweden. The former form of legitimacy became the starting-point in a new project (see New Research Questions below), and the latter raised two new research questions in this project: Is the Sámi right to self-determination widely accepted in the Swedish society? If not, what might the consequences be for the political representation of the Sámi, its autonomy and influence?

MAIN RESULTS

The main results of the project could be summarised in the answer to the general research question of the project: is the institutional design of the Swedish Sámi Parliament enough to guarantee the Sámi people self-determination? My studies clearly show that the answer is no, and here I will mention three results supporting this conclusion.

Firstly, in a comparison with Norway it is obvious that the early institutional choice to establish a government agency has restricted the influence and autonomy of the parliament. The Norwegian Sámi Parliament's formal position as a representative body of the Sámi people give them the right to take political initiatives on every institutional level - internationally, nationally, regionally and locally - and dispute public decisions, while the autonomy of the Swedish Sámi Parliament is limited due to its position within the government controlled hierarchy. Moreover, the early institutional choice seems to have affected later developments of the influence and autonomy of the Swedish Sámi Parliament in a restraining fashion in comparison to its Norwegian counterpart.

Secondly, the institutional design of the Sámi Parliament as a government agency does not only limit the mandate of parliament, it also creates problems in the internal work of the parliament. Most important in this context is the inherent conflict of interests between the role of the parliament as a popularly elected body representing the Sámi electorate, and its role as an administrative authority under the Swedish Government.

Thirdly, the normative arguments in defense of indigenous self-determination - in both international law and political theory - point towards a much more radical understanding of this right than what has been discussed in Swedish politics so far: indigenous self-determination is to be understood as a way to level the balance of power between indigenous peoples and the nation-states in which they live. In this perspective the right to self-determination ought to imply recognition of indigenous peoples as having a standing equal to nation-states, and what self-determination ought to mean in political practice would in this perspective be the outcome of negotiations between two equal political entities.

NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS GENEREATED

This project has generated several new research questions (see above). In this context I will mention the importance of legitimacy in order to analyse and understand the capacity of the Sámi Parliament to safeguard the Sámi right to self-determination. Empirical research on the parliament's position and function within the Sámi society is, however, rare, i.e. no electoral study has been done in connection with the elections to the Sámi Parliament. This lack within the field of research resulted in an application to FORMAS in 2012 together with a Norwegian research group, with the project title "The Sámi Parliaments as Representative Bodies: A Comparative Study of the Elections in Sweden and Norway 2013". The aim of the project is to analyse and compare the Sámi Parliaments' position and function within the Sámi communities in Sweden and Norway. I was the main applicant and we received funding for four years (8 550 000 SEK). Today the research group consists of eight senior researchers, two PhD students and two research assistants from seven universities/research institutes.

THE PROJECT WITHIN INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

Besides international publications, I have collaborated with a large European project, ACCEPT PLURALISM: Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion: Responding to the Challenges of the 21st Century in Europe (funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme), leading to an open-access article and a policy brief to the European Commission. Moreover, I have arranged an international symposium (with two colleagues) with the title: Wallenberg Symposium in Stockholm - Popular Sovereignty and Territory: The Challenge of Democracy in the Age of Globalization, Stockholm January 8-9, 2013, and a workshop during the conference The Dynamics of Citizenship in the Post-Political World, in Stockholm, May 26-28, 2010.

Moreover, I have participated in several international conferences, for instance, in the 20th International Conference of Europeanists in Amsterdam (2013), two times at the ECPR Joint Session of Workshops (in Mainz 2013 and St Gallen 2011), in Lyon (2013), Budapest (2012), Umeå (2011) and in Kuala Lumpur (2010) (see Publications for Conference papers).

INFORMATION ON THE RESEARCH PROJECT

To inform an audience outside of academia, the ambition has been to organise open seminars with representatives of the Sámi Parliament and organisations, and officials employed at the ministries. I have done that by several lectures or presentations of my project in different contexts:

o Björkvattnet, Björkvattnets kulturdag, August 2, 2013
o Stockholm, Government Offices of Sweden, March 11, 2013
o Umeå, Samiska veckan - Lars Thomasson Symposiet, March 6, 2013. Also recorded and sent on Swedish National Television (UR Samtiden, Kunskapskanalen). Available at: http://urplay.se/Produkter/175796-UR-Samtiden-Samiska-veckan-2013-Sjalvstyrande-parlament-eller-statlig-myndighet?play_category=f%C3%B6rel%C3%A4sningar+och+debatt
o Kiruna, Open panel discussion on Sámi politics before the election to the Sámi Parliament, March 2, 2013
o Stockholm, the conference Boundaries of Tolerance in Denmark and Sweden - Can the brother people learn anything from each other?, February 18, 2013
o Stockholm, Umeå 2014 European Capital of Culture, "Diehttu gáldu". Kunskapskällan - om samisk kultur och samtida uttryck, October 24, 2012.

I have also written a policy brief to the European Commission and appeared in Swedish media on several occasions in connection with the Sámi elections in 2013, for instance, with a debate article (March 17 2013) for Sveriges Radio, Vad röstar man på? Sametinget som både ett folkvalt organ och en myndighet. Available at: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=3387&artikel=5537605

THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS

The two most important publications so far are the one on the internal work of the Sámi Parliament (Lawrence & Mörkenstam 2012), and the article comparing the Swedish and Norwegian Sámi Parliaments (Josefsen, Mörkenstam & Saglie, forthcoming). In different ways these articles clearly show that the institutional design of the Sámi Parliament as a government agency has affected its capacity to safeguard the Sámi right to self-determination in a negative way. The first analysed how this construction hinders the internal work of the parliament by the inherent conflict of interests between the role of the parliament as representative body of the Sámi people, and its role as an administrative authority under the Swedish Government. This article also reached an audience outside of academia (see, for instance, http://www.sametinget.se/44463). The second clearly showed how Sweden's interpretation of the Sámi right to self-determination is delimited - in comparison with the Norwegian - and how the institutional design has hampered the further development of the Sámi Parliament in terms of autonomy and influence.

PUBLICATION STRATEGY

The goal of this project was to generate scientifically rigorous research findings to inform both academic debates and practical policymaking. To fulfil this double aim, my publication strategy has been twofold: firstly, to publish articles in international peer-reviewed journals or book chapters in anthologies within my field of research; secondly, to publish articles or book chapters in Swedish, and a book in Swedish to summarise the results in a popular version.

This strategy - following the four parts of my project - has so far resulted in four articles written in English (two in peer-reviewed journals, one open access, and one in an anthology), and two in Swedish (published in a peer-review journal and in an anthology). A third article in Swedish will be presented at the NOPSA conference (Nordic Political Science Association) in Gothenburg in August 2014, based on interviews with Members of the Sámi Parliament. A book-proposal in Swedish (co-written with Patrik Lantto, professor in History) has been sent to a major Swedish publishing house (Natur & Kultur). Moreover, the results have been presented in form of a policy brief (also available through open access) to the European Commission.

PUBLIKATIONER

Josefsen, E., U. Mörkenstam & J. Saglie (2014). “Different Institutions Within Similar States: The Norwegian and Swedish Sámediggis”, Ethnopolitics.

Lantto, P., & U. Mörkenstam (2014, kommande). “Action, Organization and Confrontation: Strategies of the Sámi movement in Sweden during the 20th century”, i Mikkel Berg-Nordlie, Jo Saglie & Ann Sullivan (RED), Indigenous Politics: Institutions, Representation, Mobilisation. Colchester: ECPR Press.

Mörkenstam, U., A. Gottardis & H-I. Roth (2013). Policy Brief: Tolerance in Swedish political life, EUI, Florens: ACCEPT PLURALISM (open access).

Mörkenstam, U. (2013). “Svensk samepolitik och rättfärdigandet av den inre kolonisationen av Sverige förr och nu”, i Bo Andersson et al (red) Samer. Om Nordmalingdomen och om ett urfolks rättigheter och identitet. Norsborg: Recito förlag.

Lawrence, R. & U. Mörkenstam (2012). “Självbestämmande genom myndighetsutövning? Sametingets dubbla roller”, Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, årg 115, nr 2.

Mörkenstam, U., A. Gottardis & H-I. Roth (2012). The Swedish Sami Parliament: A Challenged Recognition? EUI, Florens: ACCEPT PLURALISM (open access).

Mörkenstam, U. (kommande). “Recognition as if Sovereigns? A Procedural Understanding of Indigenous Self-Determination”, submitted to Citizenship Studies

Konferenspapers
NOPSA:s (Nordic Political Science Association) årsmöte, Göteborg, 12-15 augusti, 2014. Workshopledare (med Jo Saglie): Arbetsgrupp 17, Urfolk: deltakelse, representasjon, internasjonalisering.
Paper: kommande

STHM-SOTON Workshop, Spökslottet, Stockholm, 23-25 oktober 2013.
Paper: Different Institutions Within Similar States: The Norwegian and Swedish Sámi Parliaments.

Crisis & Contingency: States of (In)Stability. 20th International Conference of Europeanists,
Session 111. Who’s the Most Legitimate to protest? Immigration vs. Native Minority Claims in an Extended Europe, Amsterdam, 25-27 juni 2013.
Paper: The Swedish Sámi Parliament: A Challenged Recognition?

ECPR Joint Session of Workshops, Mainz, 11-16 mars 2013.
Paper: Different Institutions Within Similar States: The Norwegian and Swedish Sámi Parliaments (endast presentation av paper).

Regards sur l’(in)tolérance dans l’Europe d’aujourd’hui. Tolérance, pluralisme et cohésion
sociale : Répondre aux défis du XXIe siècle en Europe, Lyon, 24-25 januari 2013 (deltagande utan paper).

Wallenberg Symposium in Stockholm – Popular Sovereignty and Territory: The Challenge of Democracy in the Age of Globalization, Stockholm, 8-9 januari 2013. Konferensarrangör (med Ludvig Beckman och Jouni Reinikainen).
Paper: Recognition as if Sovereigns? A Procedural Understanding of Indigenous Self-Determination

Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion. Responding to the Challenges of the 21st Century in Europe. Budapest, 7-9 mars 2012.
Paper: The Swedish Sámi Parliament: A Challenged Recognition?

ECPR Joint Session of Workshops, St Gallen, 11-17 april 2011.
Paper: Action, Organization and Confrontation: Strategies of the Sámi movement in Sweden during the 20th century (endast presentation av paper).

Nordisk workshop: Urfolksrätt, Umeå, 19-20 maj 2011.
Key Note Speaker, föreläsningstitel: Det globala perspektivet
Paper: Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination: some implications for democratic theory

International Colloquium on Nordic Studies: Regionalism, Productive welfare, and culture engagement, Kuala Lumpur, 21-23 November 2010.
Paper: Indigenous rights in Sweden, Norway and Finland: A comparison (endast presentation av paper).

Citizenship as New Notions of Belonging and Identity under konferensen The Dynamics of Citizenship in the Post-Political World, Stockholm, 26-28 maj 2010. Workshopledare (med Johanna Kantola).
Paper: Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination: some implications for democratic theory