Helena Olofsdotter Stensöta

Professor

Department of Political Science

Telephone

+46 31-786 13 17

Mail

helena.stensota@pol.gu.se

Fax

+46 31-786 45 99

Visiting address

Sprängkullsgatan 19

41123 Göteborg

Room number

B534

Postal address

Box 711

40530 Göteborg

About Helena Olofsdotter Stensöta

Presentation

Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg since 2020. PhD in 2004 at the same department and has been employed at Linnaeus University (2009-2012) and Lund University (2012). I have been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, CA (2004-2005) and New York University (2015). I am on the board of Forte since 2025.

Areas of research interest

My research focuses on gender ethics, public administration, and policy. I am interested in how ethical considerations can contribute to good government and governance. I am also interested in how current gendered structures divide experiences and how this has consequences for politics, including how government and governance works. I have analyzed the nexus between gender, good governance/corruption, and conditions for child wellbeing. My newest research interest is how government and alternative authorities meet citizens in vulnerable areas.

* Ethics of care and political administration

While bureaucracy emphasising impartiality is a foundation for government, the state today also performs many other tasks for which different values and ways of reasoning are essential, such as care and responsibility. Ethics of care may help to meet these goals and demands.

I have contributed to theories and research on public ethics, by coining the concept of a public ethics of care (PEC) (Stensöta 2010). I elaborated what PECs are, using both quantitative (2010) and qualitative data (2019). I have further assessed the antecedents of PEC seems not to be more attached to women than men, but it would be better captured as an organisational feature; its reach does it include all areas of policy? I suggest that PEC is relevant whenever relations and/or contextual dependency are addressed (2015; 2016; 2020; also in German 2016). Together with Annica Kronsell, I have further argued that the green state benefits from using the ethics of care theory and proposed the form of women-friendly state 2.0 as the green state (2015).

* Frontline bureaucrats, public administration and local society

The interest in how policy is shaped in the frontline has also led me to explore the problem of local variation, for example, in the granting of sick leave (2009; 2018)

I have examined whether there are certain features and characteristics of frontline work in encompassing welfare states and have coined a typology, reserving the role "state-men" for these welfare states (W. Östergaard Muller 2017).

Stensöta, Olofsdotter, Helena. (2012). Political Influence on Street-Level Bureaucratic Outcome: Testing the Interaction between Bureaucratic Ideology and Local Community Political Orientation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 22 (3): 553–571. (Impact Factor 2010 2.086 (5-year 3.832) Ranking 2010: 2/39 PA). https://www.jstor.org/stable/23251264

Stensöta Olofsdotter, Helena. (2009). Sjukskrivningarna och välfärdens infriare. En studie i svensk sjukvårdsbyråkrati [Sick insurance and the realizers of welfare. A study in Swedish health-care bureaucracy] (pp 1–159). Stockholm: Hjalmarsson & Högberg.

Frykman, Jonas, Hammerlin Mia-Marie, Hansen Kjell, Rothstein Bo, Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena, & Schierenbeck Isabell. (2009). Sense of Community. Ethnologica Europaea Journal of European Ethnology. 39 (1): 5–74

Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena (2019). Street-level bureaucracy research and the assessment of ethical conduct. In: Peter Hupe (Ed.) Handbook in street level bureaucracy: the ground floor of government in context. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Research Handbooks. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/edcoll/9781786437624/9781786437624.00039.xml

* Gender and corruption

Why are women less corrupt than men? Together with Lena Wängnerud I have shown that the positive link between more women and lower corruption, established in research, is mediated by institutions, so that a bureaucratic logic suppresses it and an electoral arena logic enforces it (2015; 2018). We have further elaborated on how the gender difference in relation to corruption should be theoretically captured and suggested to see gender as a form of "raw-material" to institutions.

Stensöta Helena & Lena Wängnerud. (2018). (Eds.) Gender and Corruption. Historical Roots and New Avenues for Research (pp 1–301). London: Palgrave MacMillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-70929-1

Stensöta Olofsdotter, Helena, Lena Wängnerud & Richard Svensson. (2015). Gender and Corruption. The mediating power of institutional logics. Governance 28 (4) 475–496. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12120 ISI Journal Citation Reports © Ranking: 2013: 8/46 (PA); 22/156 (Pol Sci).

* Politics and gendered experiences

Dahlerup, D., Karlsson, D., & Stensöta, H. O. (2021). What does it mean to be a feminist MP? A comparative analysis of the Swedish and Danish parliaments. Party Politics, 27(6), 1198-1210. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354068820942690

Stensöta Olofsdotter, Helena. (2020). Does Care Experience Affect Policy Interests? Male Legislators, Parental Leave, and Political Priorities in Sweden. Politics & Gender 16 Special Issue 1 March 2020 pp.123–144. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X1800082X

Stensöta Olofsdotter, Helena. (2004). Den empatiska staten. Daghemspolitik och polispolitik 1950–2000. [The empathetic state. Childcare and Law Enforcement Policy 1950–2000] (pp 1-250). Doctoral dissertation. Monograph. Gothenburg Studies in Political Science No 80. Livrena.

* Child wellbeing

I have examined the problem of the welfare state and generation, especially the young, discussing how different welfare states invest differently in the young (W. Engster 2011; 2019). And I have examined gender, grades and wellbeing among your (w. Nordlander 2014).

Nordlander Erica, & Helena Olofsdotter Stensöta. (2014). Grades - for better or worse? The interplay of school performance and subjective well-being among boys and girls. Child Indicators Research 6 January 2014. pp 861–879

Engster Daniel & Helena Olofsdotter Stensöta. (2011). Do Family Policies Matter for Childrens´ Well Being? Social Politics. 18 (1): 82–124. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxr006

* Gender equality in practice

I have also conducted several investigations into gender equality to change organisational culture at Chalmers (2016; 2010), as part of a government assignment (2009; 2010), and at the University of Göteborg (2019).

Teaching

I teach governance and public administration in the undergraduate program in political science and for teacher training students: supplementary education at bachelor's and master's level, the latter at Chalmers. I also teach qualitative methods and policy analysis and project work.