University of Gothenburg
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Kerstin Jacobsson

PROFESSOR

Department of Sociology and Work
Science
Telephone
+46 31-786 27 64
Mail
kerstin.jacobsson@gu.se
Visiting address
Skanstorget 18
41122 Göteborg
Room number
F316
Postal address
Box 720
40530 Göteborg

About Kerstin Jacobsson

Background Kerstin Jacobsson obtained her PhD in Sociology in 1997 at Uppsala University and became Associate Professor there in 2002. Since 2013, she is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Work Science at University of Gothenburg. Before that, Kerstin was employed at Södertörn University as senior lecturer and between 2010-2013 as Professor of Sociology.

Specialist Fields Jacobsson works in the field of political sociology. One research orientation concerns Europeanization, soft forms of governance, European employment and labour market policy, and discourses on employability and activation. Another research orientation concerns social movements and civil society. Jacobsson has here led several international research projects on social mobilization and social movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Other research interests concern social theory, sociology of morality, sociology of emotions, organization, governance and governmentality, democracy and legitimacy.

Current research 1) “Urban Gardens as Meeting Places in Göteborg, Budapest and Bucharest: Building Collaborative Capacity for Sustainability in Different Socio-economic Contexts,” The Swedish Research Council Formas, 2020- 2023 (PI)

2) ”Housing, Social Mobilisations and Urban Governance in Central and Eastern Europe”, funded by Formas 2017-20) (PI)

3) ”Audit Culture and the Case Worker: A Study of the Public Employment Service and the Social Insurance Agency”. Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond 2015-21. (PI)

Kerstin also participates in a research programme on "Civil Society Elites: Comparing Elite Composition, Reproduction, Integration and Contestation in European Civil Societies", funded by Riksbankens jubileumsfond (2018-2023) Project leader: Håkan Johansson, Lund University.

Teaching and tutoring Jacobsson's fields of teaching include European Union and Europeanization, civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, political sociology, sociological theory, and sociology of emotions. Jacobsson also supervises student essays and doctoral theses.

Cooperation Jacobsson is regularly invited by educational associations or government authorities to give public lectures.

Publications

Peer reviewed articles (the past 10 years):

Jacobsson, K. , Y. Wallinder & I. Seing (2020) Street-level bureaucrats under new managerialism: A comparative study of two welfare state bureuacracies, Journal of Professions and Organization.

Jacobsson, K. & E. Korolczuk (2020) Mobilizing Grassroots in the City: Lessons for Civil Society Research in Central and Eastern Europe, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 33(2): 125-142

Fröhlich, C. & K. Jacobsson (2019) “Performing Resistance: Liminality, Infrapolitics and Spatial Contestation in Contemporary Russia”, Antipode, 51(4), 1145-65.

Hollertz, K. , Jacobsson, K. & I. Seing (2018) Organizational Governance of Activation Policy: Transparency as an Organizational Ideal in a Swedish Welfare Agency, International Social Security Review,

Sunnerfjell, J. & K. Jacobsson (2018) Governing the Unemployable in the Neurochemical Age? The Case of Disability Coding at the Public Employment Service, Subjectivity, 11: 303-321.

Florea, I., Gagyi, A. & Jacobsson, K. (2018). A Field of Contention: Evidence from Housing Struggles in Bucharest and Budapest, Voluntas: Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(49, 712-724.

Bengtsson, M & K. Jacobsson (2018) The Institutionalization of a New Social Cleavage: Ideological Influences, Main Reforms and Social Inequality Outcomes of the 'New Work Strategy', Sociologisk Forskning, 55(2-3), 121-143.

Fröhlich, C. & K. Jacobsson (2017) States Shaping Civic Activism: Comparing Animal Rights Activism in Poland and Russia, The Sociological Quarterly, 52(18), 181-201.

Bengtsson, M., C. de la Porte & K. Jacobsson (2017) Labour Market Policy under Conditions of Permanent Austerity: Any Sign of Social Investment? Social Policy & Administration, 51(2), 367-388.

Jacobsson, K., Hollertz, K. & C. Garsten (2017) Local Worlds of Activation: The Diverse Pathways of Three Swedish Municipalities, Nordic Social Work Research.

Garsten, C. & K. Jacobsson (2016) Transparency as ideal and practice: Labour market policy and audit culture in the Swedish public employment service, Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 118(1), 69-92.

Karlberg, E. & K. Jacobsson (2015) A meta-organizational perspective on the Europeanization of civil society: The case of the Swedish Women’s Lobby, Voluntas. International Journal of Nonprofit or Voluntary Organizations. 26(4), 1438-1459.

Jacobsson, K. (2014) ”Elementary forms of religious life in animal rights activism”, Culture Unbound, vol. 6: 305-326.

Hansson, Niklas & Kerstin Jacobsson (2014) "Learning to be affected: Subjectivity, sense and sensibility in animal rights activism", Society & Animals, 22(3): 262-88.

Lindblom, J. & K. Jacobsson (2014) "A deviance perspective on social movements: The case of animal rights activism", Deviant Behavior, 35(2), 133-151.

Garsten, C. & K. Jacobsson (2013) "Sorting people out: the plasticity of the categories of employability, work capacity and disability as technologies of government", Ephemera. Theory & Politics in Organization, 13(4), 825-850.

Jacobsson, Kerstin & Jonas Lindblom (2013) “Emotion work in animal rights activism: A moral-sociological perspective", Acta Sociologica, 56(1),55-68.

Garsten, Christina & Kerstin Jacobsson (2013) "Post-political regulation: Soft power and post-political visions in global governance", Critical Sociology, 39(3), 421-437.

Jacobsson, Kerstin (2012) "Fragmentation of the collective action space: The animal rights movement in Poland", East European Politics, 28(4): 353-370.

Jacobsson, Kerstin and Jonas Lindblom (2012) 'Moral reflexivity and dramaturgical action in social movement activism: The case of the Plowshares and Animal Rights Sweden', Social Movement Studies, nr 1: 1-20.

Garsten, Christina & Kerstin Jacobsson (2011) 'Transparency and legibility in international institutions: The UN Global Compact and postpolitical global ethics', Social Anthropology. 19(4): 1-16.

Books:

Jacobsson, Kerstin & Elzbieta Korolczuk (eds) (2017) Civil Society Revisited. Lessons from Poland. Oxford: Berghahn.

Jacobsson, K. & J. Lindblom (2016) Animal Rights Activism. A Moral-Sociological Perspective on Social Movements. Amsterdam University Press.

Jacobsson, K. (ed) (2016) [2015] Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Abingdon: Routledge.

Jacobsson, Kerstin and Steven Saxonberg (eds) (2015) Social Movements in Post-communist Europe and Russia. London: Routledge. [Based on a special issue of East European Politics]

Jacobsson, Kerstin and Steven Saxonberg (eds) (2013) Beyond NGO-ization. The Development of Social Movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate. [Paperback Routledge 2016]

Jacobsson, Kerstin (ed.) (2010) Känslan for det allmänna. Medborgarnas relation till staten och varandra. Umeå: Boréa.

Garsten, Christina & Kerstin Jacobsson (eds.) (2004) Learning to be Employable. New Agendas on Work, Responsibility and Learning in a Globalizing World, Basingstoke, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Book chapters (the past 10 years):

Jacobsson, Kerstin & Håkan Johansson (2019) Europeanization of and by civil society: Towards an analytical framework, in: Towards a European Civil Society? Patterns of Europeanization through Swedish Lenses, edited by Anna Meeuwisse and Roberto Scaramuzzino. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.

Jacobsson, Kerstin & Elzbieta Korolczuk (2017) Rethinking Polish Civil Society, i: Civil Society Revisited. Lessons from Poland. Oxford: Berghahn, 1-35.

Jacobsson, Kerstin (2017) Rethinking Civic Privatism in a Postsocialist Context: Individualism and Personalization in Polish Civil Society Organizations, in: Civil Society Revisited: Lessons from Poland. Oxford: Berghahn, 81-104.

Jacobsson, Kerstin and Elzbieta Korolczuk (2017) Conclusion: Empirical and Theoretical Lessons from the Volume, in: Civil Society Revisited: Lessons from Poland. Oxford: Berghahn, 314-324.

Garsten, Christina, Jacobsson, Kerstin & Karolina Sztandar-Sztanderska (2016) Negotiating Social Citizenship at the Street-Level: Local Activation Policies and Individualization in Sweden and Poland, in: Martin Heidenreich and Deborah Rice (eds) Integrating Social and Employment Policies in Europe: Active Inclusion and Challenges for Local Welfare Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 265-293.

Jacobsson, Kerstin (2015) Introduction: The Development of Urban Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, in Kerstin Jacobsson (ed) Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, Farnham: Ashgate, 1-32.

Aidukaite, Jolanta & Kerstin Jacobsson (2015) Europeanisation and Urban Movements: Political Opportunities of Community Organizations in Lithuania, in Kerstin Jacobsson (ed) Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, Farnham: Ashgate, 247-272.

Jacobsson, Kerstin (2015) Conclusion: Towards a New Research Agenda, in Kerstin Jacobsson (ed) Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, Farnham: Ashgate, 273-287.

Jacobsson, Kerstin (2015) Fragmentation of the collective action space: The animal rights movement in Poland, in: Jacobsson, Kerstin and Steven Saxonberg (eds) (2015) Social Movements in Post-communist Europe and Russia. London: Routledge, 47-64.

Jacobsson, K. & Saxonberg, S. (2013) "Introduction: The development of social movements in Central and Eastern Europe" in: K. Jacobsson & S. Saxonberg (eds) Beyond NGO-ization. The Development of Social Movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate.

Jacobsson, Kerstin (2013) "Channeling and enrollment: The institutional shaping of animal rights activism in Poland", in: Jacobsson, Kerstin and Steven Saxonberg (eds) Beyond NGO-ization. The Development of Social Movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate.

Garsten, Christina & Kerstin Jacobsson (forthcoming 2013) "The ascent of post-political global ethics: Harmony thinking in the UN Global Compact", in: Catia Gregoratti & Bart Slob (eds) Rethinking The United Nations Global Compact. London: Pluto Press.

De la Porte, Caroline & Kerstin Jacobsson (2012) "Social investment or recommodification? Assessing the employment policies of the EU member states", in: N. Morel, B. Palier and J. Palme (eds) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges. Bristol: Policy Press.

Jacobsson, Kerstin & Niklas Noaksson (2010) "From deregulation to flexicurity. The makeover of the OECD Jobs Strategy", in Martens, Kerstin & Anja Jakobi (eds) Mechanisms of OECD Governance. International Incentives for National Policy Making?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jacobsson, Kerstin & Charlotte West (2010) "Europeanization of labor policy-making in the Baltic States", in: Bengt Jacobsson (ed) The European Union and the Baltic States: Changing Forms of Governance, London: Routledge, 98-120.