The Human Capital of Scandinavia?: Citizenship Dilemmas in the Cross-Border Øresund Region

<p>The Øresund Region of Eastern Denmark and Southern Sweden is an ambitious cross-border integration project, aiming to make the region “The Human Capital of Scandinavia”. Integration has deepened to include cross-border social rights, with regional proponents heralding the emergence of “Øresund citizens”. Yet the two welfare states, despite their common attributes, have developed dissimilar attitudes towards the rise of a multicultural society in recent years, establishing divergent national citizenship policies in response. This thesis uses the Øresund region as a critical case study, which contributes to wider European debates about the tension between regional freedom of movement and national determination over citizenship. To explore this regional integration — national citizenship nexus, this thesis asks; to what extent do divergent national citizenship models inhibit deeper cross-border integration and prospects for regional citizenship? Drawing on a range of primary and secondary information sources, including interviews with regional political actors, this thesis reveals how divergent national citizenship policies rouse political debate about belonging and entitlement of foreigners in the cross-border region. Discordant national citizenship policies have reinforced organisation and conceptual borders along national lines, revealing that the cultural proximity of these Nordic neighbours is no guarantee of seamless cross-border movement and integration. This thesis demonstrates that citizenship policies not only have a domestic impact but can also become a point of tension between member states, with implications for regional integration and citizenship.</p>

The Human Capital of Scandinavia?: Citizenship Dilemmas in the Cross-Border Øresund Region

<p>The Øresund Region of Eastern Denmark and Southern Sweden is an ambitious cross-border integration project, aiming to make the region “The Human Capital of Scandinavia”. Integration has deepened to include cross-border social rights, with regional proponents heralding the emergence of “Øresund citizens”. Yet the two welfare states, despite their common attributes, have developed dissimilar attitudes towards the rise of a multicultural society in recent years, establishing divergent national citizenship policies in response. This thesis uses the Øresund region as a critical case study, which contributes to wider European debates about the tension between regional freedom of movement and national determination over citizenship. To explore this regional integration — national citizenship nexus, this thesis asks; to what extent do divergent national citizenship models inhibit deeper cross-border integration and prospects for regional citizenship? Drawing on a range of primary and secondary information sources, including interviews with regional political actors, this thesis reveals how divergent national citizenship policies rouse political debate about belonging and entitlement of foreigners in the cross-border region. Discordant national citizenship policies have reinforced organisation and conceptual borders along national lines, revealing that the cultural proximity of these Nordic neighbours is no guarantee of seamless cross-border movement and integration. This thesis demonstrates that citizenship policies not only have a domestic impact but can also become a point of tension between member states, with implications for regional integration and citizenship.</p>

Journalistik over Øresund

In 2012, the world’s probably fi rst regional transnational news agency was founded in the Øresund region between Denmark and Sweden. News Øresund, as the agency is called, delivers free transnational news pertaining to the Øresund region to Danish and Swedish media. Such a transnational agency can ensure that the media publish more or diff erent transnational journalism than they would otherwise do, because the news media then does not need to do the transnational reporting themselves (Grieves, 2012). This article examines Danish media in the period before and after News Øresund, and it is argued that certain changes in the media content from the Øresund region can be traced before and after News Øresund. The changes in the media content can to a certain extent be attributed to News Øresund, as interviews with journalists on the examined media show that News Øresund is used daily in the newsrooms.

The phenomenon of collaboration in a life science network

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline the operative meaning of collaboration in a life science network.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through participatory observations and interviews between 2014 and 2015. The data presented were derived from field notes from participant observations, interviews and documents within a life science network in the Öresund region (southern part of Sweden and the Copenhagen area).FindingsThe findings suggest that collaboration within the life science network should be viewed as a lively, organizational assembly in the process of becoming, in contrast to the idea that it is operating on the basis of organic principles. Collaboration thus could be viewed as consisting of self-subsistent parts (participants and organizations) that are detached and plugged into different collaborative networks.Originality/valueIn the context of the emerging idea of re-building the state welfare system with the economic support of producing and selling knowledge, there seems to be a growing interest, especially from the point of view of policymakers, in the phenomenon of collaboration. This paper offers exclusive ethnographic illustrations into the heterogeneity of collaboration.

News Media and the Öresund Region

This article presents a first attempt to investigate the news content and news routines of Danish and Swedish news media covering the Öresund region. From a theoretical perspective, the Öresund region can be considered a possible best-case example of what is categorised as horizontal Europeanisation, in other words, of the potential for increased communication linkages in news media content among European Union (EU) member states. We investigate this topic by analysing news content published by selected media outlets from 2002 to 2012 and by interviewing Danish and Swedish journalists who cover the region. We find that most news content does not mention the Öresund region, and that one reason for this lack might be that neither Danish nor Swedish reporters consider the region to be newsworthy.