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AbstractThis article discusses Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht's (1718–63) poem Fruentimrets Försvar, Emot J. J. Rousseau Medborgare i Genève (Nordenflycht 1761) [Defense of the female sex against J. J. Rousseau, citizen of Geneva], written as a response to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Lettre sur les spectacles (1758; in Rousseau 1968). Heretofore, Nordenflycht's poem has been considered primarily from the perspective of national literary and intellectual history, but here it is maintained that the poem should be related to the context of the European Enlightenment. Specifically, I argue that Nordenflycht uses key political concepts to create an argument for women's rights as a form of natural, human rights. By focusing on Nordenflycht's contentions regarding natural equality and artificial inequality, the tyrannical treatment of women, and women's right to liberty and occupations, this article elucidates how a woman writer from the periphery of the Enlightenment had created and presented, by the 1760s, a sustained argument—in verse—for female liberty in public life, for the benefit not only of women but of all humankind.

Money and business firms are central to short-term nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth (as opposed to nominal GDP as a flow). Money is defined as the activation of purchasing power of an item/items on a balance sheet, flowing from the buyer of a real, GDP-affecting, product to its seller. Starting from accounting identities such as the equation of exchange, a method is developed that connects sectoral buyers to aggregate expenditure (AE) growth and sellers to aggregate income (AI) growth. The main finding, using National Accounts data for Sweden, US, UK, Japan and Germany over the 1994–2020 period, is that business firms drive short-term nominal GDP growth. Their median contribution to the yearly nominal growth is 105–128%, leaving the remaining sectors to contribute negatively to growth in net terms. This means that business firms finance growth by borrowing or drawing down on assets whereas the remaining sectors are net savers. Tying the real economy variable of net lending (NL) (+)/net borrowing (NB) (–) to its financial counterpart, net financial investments (NFIs), makes it possible to define money explicitly, here applied to Swedish business firms. They primarily use three items on the liability side of the balance sheet to finance expenditure growth: debt securities, loans and trade credit.

A central notion among green political theorists is that deliberative engagement enhances environmental values. Despite the centrality of this claim within green political theory, there is a lack of empirical research evaluating its promise outside formal deliberative forums. Here, an empirical large-N study is provided that tests whether everyday political discussion between individuals of different political orientations is positively associated with stronger pro-environmental attitudes in the US. The main finding is that individuals who engaged in this type of cross-cutting discussion reported significantly stronger pro-environmental attitudes compared to individuals who did not engage in this type of discussion. Moreover, the association remained positive for different clusters of individuals regardless of political engagement, party affiliation, or socio-demographics.

There is considerable disagreement among scholars as to whether social media fuels polarization in society. However, a few have considered the possibility that polarization may instead affect social media usage. To address this gap, the study uses Dutch panel data to test directionality in the relationship between social media use and affective polarization. No support was found for the hypothesis that social media use contributed to the level of affective polarization. Instead, the results lend support to the hypothesis that it was the level of affective polarization that affected subsequent use of social media. The results furthermore reveal heterogeneous patterns among individuals, depending on their previous level of social media usage, and across different social media platforms. The study gives reason to call into question the predominating assumption in previous research that social media is a major driver of polarization in society.

A description of the foundations and characteristics of the Swedish principle of open government written for the Government Offices. ; English version of Chapter 3 in Carl Fredrik Bergström and Mikael Ruotsi's report Grundlag i gungning? En ESO‐rapport om EU och den svenska offentlighetsprincipen. Translation by Carl Fredrik Bergström.