Governance, Welfare and Citizenship

The PhD programme focuses on how governance is performed, how welfare policies and services are developed and produced, and what role citizens play in this process.

Present and emerging forms of governance are studies and analysed with specific attention to questions concerning how these forms of governance affect the functioning of the political system and the actors who inhabit the public sector i.e. politicians, public administrators, professionals, as well as users and producers of public services. Drivers and effects of present and emerging welfare policies are uncovered and analysed at micro-, meso- and macro-levels of analysis, and studies are made of interrelatedness between new forms of governance, welfare policies and the ongoing transformation of understandings and practices of citizenship.

Currently, the programme pays specific attention to the challenges that globalisation and regionalisation poses to the governance of welfare states, and to the current search for new ways of enhancing policy and service innovation in the public sector.