Lena Johannesson
Biographic Data
| ID | 878312 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lena Johannesson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lena |
| FAMILY NAME | Johannesson |
| SIGNATURE | JOHANNESSON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stockholm University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6582-2011 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Predictable patterns of unpredictability
Migration control policies are marked by contradictory policy goals set in a complex web of intersecting international, national, and local regulations. This grants significant discretion to frontline workers. Despite the extensive research undertaken on discretion in migration control, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge on how discretionary practices are patterned across countries and policy domains, what consequences these patterns have…
The Symbolic Life of Courts
Asylum determinations are highly complex and difficult decisions. At the heart of this decision lies a credibility assessment of the asylum claimant’s narrative, which confronts the decision-maker with a seemingly straightforward question: do I believe this person’s story? To uphold legitimacy of this assessment, semi-legal criteria have been established internationally. However, these criteria have been criticized for relying on inaccurate and s…
Silence and Voice in Oral Hearings
The legal right to be heard by a judge is an important human right. However, what happens if a claimant does not meet the requirements of legal communication when given the opportunity to be heard in court? In this article, I address this question by exploring how temporal, spatial, and relational conditions encourage or silence vulnerable claimants’ voices in asylum hearings and compulsory psychiatric care hearings in Swedish administrative cour…
Just another benefit? Administrative judges' constructions of sameness and difference in asylum adjudications
This ethnographic study examines how Swedish administrative judges apply the principle of treating like cases the same and unlike cases differently when adjudicating asylum claims. The findings suggest that judges construct asylum claims like citizens’ claims for welfare benefits and unlike protection claims made by citizens. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s critique of the state-centric foundation of contemporary human rights framework, I demonstrate …
Navigating the policy stream
In the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), policy entrepreneurs are primarily defined by their ability to promote and seek support for policy solutions. Recent research, however, points to the importance of policy entrepreneurs as “arena shapers” who attempt to create favorable conditions for their solutions in conflictual policy settings. In this paper, we seek to incorporate such strategies into the MSF by drawing on the organizational foundation…
How to blame and make a difference
In this paper, we explore the assumption that blame-attribution can be an effective rhetorical strategy for non-elite interest groups who want power holders to be attentive to their demands. Through a qualitative analysis of two pro-migrant campaigns led by grassroot activists in Sweden, one taking place in 2005 and the other in 2017, we offer a nuanced empirical examination of non-elite initiated blame-games. We show how perceived responsibility…
Exploring the “Liberal Paradox” from the Inside
Courts are influential actors during the implementation of immigration policies in liberal democracies. The “liberal paradox” thesis stipulates that courts are driven by logics that hamper restrictionist immigration policies. This study contributes to this theory by exploring the norm construction of impartiality among judicial workers in Swedish migration courts when deciding asylum appeals. Its findings contradict the liberal paradox assumption…
What about the Future? The Troubled Relationship between Futures and Feminism
This position paper argues that issues related to the future are worth emphasizing and discussing with more feminist fervour and engagement than is now the case within feminist studies and futures studies. It is concluded that feminists cannot just be critical from an outside perspective, but must engage in creating alternative futures. These futures should not be common goals around which to unite, but a way to inspire feminist thinking about di…
Anti-Heroic Heroes in More or Less Heroic Media. Notes on Visual Folklore of Modern Sweden
Symbolic representations in the visual arts are defined not only by their contents and formal arrangements but also by the media in which they are presented. The Swedish preference for deheroized heroes has created a national heroic iconography far from that of the public bronze monuments. It was in the illustrated weeklies of the nineteenth century, in the comic strips and the photographic journalism of this century that the national ideal of th…
Kvinnor som konstnarer (Women as Artists)
Exploring the “Liberal Paradox” from the Inside
Courts are influential actors during the implementation of immigration policies in liberal democracies. The “liberal paradox” thesis stipulates that courts are driven by logics that hamper restrictionist immigration policies. This study contributes to this theory by exploring the norm construction of impartiality among judicial workers in Swedish migration courts when deciding asylum appeals. Its findings contradict the liberal paradox assumption…
How to blame and make a difference
In this paper, we explore the assumption that blame-attribution can be an effective rhetorical strategy for non-elite interest groups who want power holders to be attentive to their demands. Through a qualitative analysis of two pro-migrant campaigns led by grassroot activists in Sweden, one taking place in 2005 and the other in 2017, we offer a nuanced empirical examination of non-elite initiated blame-games. We show how perceived responsibility…
Just another benefit? Administrative judges' constructions of sameness and difference in asylum adjudications
This ethnographic study examines how Swedish administrative judges apply the principle of treating like cases the same and unlike cases differently when adjudicating asylum claims. The findings suggest that judges construct asylum claims like citizens’ claims for welfare benefits and unlike protection claims made by citizens. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s critique of the state-centric foundation of contemporary human rights framework, I demonstrate …
What about the Future? The Troubled Relationship between Futures and Feminism
This position paper argues that issues related to the future are worth emphasizing and discussing with more feminist fervour and engagement than is now the case within feminist studies and futures studies. It is concluded that feminists cannot just be critical from an outside perspective, but must engage in creating alternative futures. These futures should not be common goals around which to unite, but a way to inspire feminist thinking about di…
Silence and Voice in Oral Hearings
The legal right to be heard by a judge is an important human right. However, what happens if a claimant does not meet the requirements of legal communication when given the opportunity to be heard in court? In this article, I address this question by exploring how temporal, spatial, and relational conditions encourage or silence vulnerable claimants’ voices in asylum hearings and compulsory psychiatric care hearings in Swedish administrative cour…
Navigating the policy stream
In the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), policy entrepreneurs are primarily defined by their ability to promote and seek support for policy solutions. Recent research, however, points to the importance of policy entrepreneurs as “arena shapers” who attempt to create favorable conditions for their solutions in conflictual policy settings. In this paper, we seek to incorporate such strategies into the MSF by drawing on the organizational foundation…
Kvinnor som konstnarer (Women as Artists)
Anti-Heroic Heroes in More or Less Heroic Media. Notes on Visual Folklore of Modern Sweden
Symbolic representations in the visual arts are defined not only by their contents and formal arrangements but also by the media in which they are presented. The Swedish preference for deheroized heroes has created a national heroic iconography far from that of the public bronze monuments. It was in the illustrated weeklies of the nineteenth century, in the comic strips and the photographic journalism of this century that the national ideal of th…
What about the Future? The Troubled Relationship between Futures and Feminism
This position paper argues that issues related to the future are worth emphasizing and discussing with more feminist fervour and engagement than is now the case within feminist studies and futures studies. It is concluded that feminists cannot just be critical from an outside perspective, but must engage in creating alternative futures. These futures should not be common goals around which to unite, but a way to inspire feminist thinking about di…
Exploring the “Liberal Paradox” from the Inside
Courts are influential actors during the implementation of immigration policies in liberal democracies. The “liberal paradox” thesis stipulates that courts are driven by logics that hamper restrictionist immigration policies. This study contributes to this theory by exploring the norm construction of impartiality among judicial workers in Swedish migration courts when deciding asylum appeals. Its findings contradict the liberal paradox assumption…
Navigating the policy stream
In the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), policy entrepreneurs are primarily defined by their ability to promote and seek support for policy solutions. Recent research, however, points to the importance of policy entrepreneurs as “arena shapers” who attempt to create favorable conditions for their solutions in conflictual policy settings. In this paper, we seek to incorporate such strategies into the MSF by drawing on the organizational foundation…
How to blame and make a difference
In this paper, we explore the assumption that blame-attribution can be an effective rhetorical strategy for non-elite interest groups who want power holders to be attentive to their demands. Through a qualitative analysis of two pro-migrant campaigns led by grassroot activists in Sweden, one taking place in 2005 and the other in 2017, we offer a nuanced empirical examination of non-elite initiated blame-games. We show how perceived responsibility…
Silence and Voice in Oral Hearings
The legal right to be heard by a judge is an important human right. However, what happens if a claimant does not meet the requirements of legal communication when given the opportunity to be heard in court? In this article, I address this question by exploring how temporal, spatial, and relational conditions encourage or silence vulnerable claimants’ voices in asylum hearings and compulsory psychiatric care hearings in Swedish administrative cour…
Just another benefit? Administrative judges' constructions of sameness and difference in asylum adjudications
This ethnographic study examines how Swedish administrative judges apply the principle of treating like cases the same and unlike cases differently when adjudicating asylum claims. The findings suggest that judges construct asylum claims like citizens’ claims for welfare benefits and unlike protection claims made by citizens. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s critique of the state-centric foundation of contemporary human rights framework, I demonstrate …
The Symbolic Life of Courts
Asylum determinations are highly complex and difficult decisions. At the heart of this decision lies a credibility assessment of the asylum claimant’s narrative, which confronts the decision-maker with a seemingly straightforward question: do I believe this person’s story? To uphold legitimacy of this assessment, semi-legal criteria have been established internationally. However, these criteria have been criticized for relying on inaccurate and s…
Predictable patterns of unpredictability
Migration control policies are marked by contradictory policy goals set in a complex web of intersecting international, national, and local regulations. This grants significant discretion to frontline workers. Despite the extensive research undertaken on discretion in migration control, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge on how discretionary practices are patterned across countries and policy domains, what consequences these patterns have…
Sociology (9 works) · Political science (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Legitimacy (3 works) · Psychology (3 works) · Art (2 works)