Background

Bo Rothstein was born on July 12, 1954, in Malmo, Sweden, to Berth and Cecilia (Blecher) Rothstein.

Education

In 1979, Rothstein received the highest honor of Master of Arts in political science, economics, statistics, and public law from the University of Lund, and Ph.D. in political science in 1986.

Career

In 1986, Rothstein was an acting associate professor at the Institute of Political Science, the University of Copenhagen. From 1986 to 1992, he also was a research associate at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, and then, from 1992 to 94, an associate professor. At the Swedish Center for Work Life Research, he was a professor in industrial relations and labor market policy from 1994 to 1995. Also, from 1994 to 1997, he was an adjunct professor at the Department of Administration and Organizational Theory, University of Bergen, and then, in 1995, at Goeteborg University, in Sweden, he became an August Roehss Professor in Political Science. At the Institute of Political Studies, University of Copenhagen, in 1987, he was a visiting fellow, as well as at London School of Economics and Political Science, in 1990, and at Cornell University the same year. In 1991, Rothstein was also a visiting scholar at the Swedish Center for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, in 1992, at the Department of Political Science, University of Washington, in 1993, and at the Russell Sage Foundation from 1998 to 1999.

Together with professor Sören Holmberg, he is in charge of the The Quality of Government Institute at University of Gothenburg. His current research interests are comparative quality of government institutions, social capital, and political corruption.

Achievements

• Rothstein is known as a regular contributor in the Swedish public debate about politics and academic freedom. He has published more than twenty articles in international scholarly journals. He has been especially critical of what he perceives as politicized research at some universities in Sweden.
  
  In 2004, he was awarded a six-years research grant for "long term support to leading scholars" from the Swedish Research Council. In 2009, he received a similar five-year grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the largest private research fund in Sweden.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Quality of Government: Corruption, Social Trust, and Inequality in International Perspective

    (The relationship between government, virtue, and wealth h...)

    2011
  • The Social Democratic State: The Swedish Model and the Bureaucratic Problem of Social Reforms

    (This study of social democracy examines the importance of...)

    1995
  • Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare

    (In this book Bo Rothstein seeks to defend the universal w...)

    1998
  • Social Traps and the Problem of Trust

    (Bo Rothstein explores how social capital and social trust...)

    2005

Views

In 1996 political scientist and author Bo Rothstein published his debut book, The Social Democratic State: The Swedish Model and the Bureaucratic Problem of Social Reforms, adding a new dimension to the ongoing debate over the limits of reformism. The book is a case study of two specific reforms that took place in the nation of Sweden over the course of the last half-century. The two reforms that he concentrates on concern Sweden’s active labor market and its comprehensive school policies. Rothstein focuses on those two policies in an attempt to answer broader questions relative to the nature of social reform in democratic nations, particularly those run by social democratic parties. He also extensively explores previous research and theories dealing with the state, social democratic reformism, and bureaucracy.

At the beginning of The Social Democratic State, Rothstein poses several questions that become the basis of his treatise. How is it possible for popular social democratic parties who propose drastic social reforms to implement those policies when there is an existing bourgeois bureaucracy in place? Why were some attempted policies of Sweden’s social democrats more successful than others? What can other countries learn from the reforms, successes and failures, which were attempted in Sweden, and what do they tell us about the limits of reformist policies? In the course of the book, Rothstein unravels these questions for the reader. His main premise is that state apparatuses, such as certain agencies, often act as obstacles to innovative policies put forth by governing parties. Basically, he believes that the bureaucracies in charge of the implementation can either assist with or act as a barrier to such policies. Normally, in such an effort political scientists concentrate on macro-political or systemic barriers. In contrast, Rothstein emphasizes the micro-politics of government agencies and how they implement certain policies. He chooses to look at Sweden’s active labor market and the school reforms because both initiatives were very important in the Social Democrats designs for a more equal and egalitarian society. Essentially, Rothstein compares these two programs, how they were implemented, and to what degree they were successful. The Social Democratic State gained a reputation as a positive addition to the debate on social reform.

Interests

• Skiing, bicycling, sailing, horse racing

Connections

On June 22, 1982, Rothstein married Ann Christin Gustavsson. They have two children, Jonathan and Isabelle.

Father:

Berth Rothstein

Mother:

Cecilia (Blecher) Rothstein

Spouse:

Ann Christin Gustavsson

Daughter:

Isabelle Rothstein

Son:

Jonathan Rothstein