Stockholm university
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Janne Flyghed

Research

Research interest

Surveillance vs. Civil Rights

Private Policing

Crimes by the Powerful

Political Criminality

Espionage in Sweden during the Second World War

 

Publications

Schoultz, I & Flyghed, J (2021) Performing unbelonging in court. Observations
from a transnational corporate bribery trial—a dramaturgical approach, Crime, Law and Social Change. DOI: org/10.1007/s10611-021-09990-x

Schoultz, I & Flyghed, J (2020)   “We have been thrown under the bus”. Corporate versus individual defense mechanisms against... (176 Kb) , Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime. DOI: 10.1177/2631309X20911883

Schoultz, I & Flyghed, J (2020) Denials and Confessions. An Analysis of the Temporalization of Neutralizations of Corporate Crime, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice.

Schoultz, I & Flyghed J (2019) From “We Didn’t Do It” to “We’ve Learned Our Lesson” (656 Kb) . Development of a theoretical framework on neutralizations of corporate crime, Critical Criminology.

Flyghed, J (2017) Privatisation of intelligence-led policing. Auditors doing forensic work, pp.204-219 in Moral Issues in Intelligence-led Policing, Fyfe; Gundhus & Rønn (eds.) London: Routledge.

Schoultz, I & Flyghed, J (2016) Doing business for a “higher loyalty”? How Swedish transnational corporations neutralize allegations of crime, Crime, Law and Social Change, vol.65, no.3.

Felipe Estrada, Janne Flyghed, Anders Nilsson och Karin Bäckman (2014). Why are occupational safety crimes increasing? Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention.

Flyghed, J (2013). Policing of Political Protest. The Security Police's Control of the Extra-parliamentary Opposition in Sweden During and after the Cold War, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, vol.14, no 1 2013.

Hörnqvist, M och Flyghed, J (2012) Exclusion or Culture? The rise and the ambiguity of the radicalisation debate, Critical Studies on Terrorism.

Flyghed, Janne (2010): Cover up or dig up? Inquiries of security services in the welfare state. The case of Norway, Sweden and Denmark (ej fulltext i länk), in Stuart Farson and Mark Phythian (eds.) Commissions of Inquiry and National Security: Comparative Approaches. ABC-CLIO.

Flyghed, Janne (2005): Crime-Control in the Post-Wall Era: The Menace of Security, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, Vol.6, pp.165-182, 2005.

Flyghed, Janne (2004): In the National Interest? Political control and registration in Norway and Sweden. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, Vol.5, pp.108-124, 2004.

Flyghed, Janne (2003): Normalising the Exceptional – the case of political violence, Policing and Society, vol. 13, no.1 March 2003, pp.23-41.

Flyghed, Janne (2002): Aussenpolitik und Recht. Spionage und Sabotage in Schweden während des zweiten Weltkrieges, Zeitung für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 24, nr.3/4 2002, pp.312-326.

Research projects

Juvenile crime in Sweden

Juvenile delinquency is one of the central problem areas both in criminological research and in Swedish public debate. Several of Sweden experts on juvenile delinquency are involved in this book project, which has been ongoing since 2001.

Cover photo: Den svenska ungdomsbrottsligheten

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Conscription Refusal as Pollitical Resistance

    2023. Janne Flyghed. Journal of Resistance Studies 9 (1), 10-29

    Article

    Since the law on universal conscription was passed 1901, there has been a

    debate in Sweden concerning how to deal with those who refuse military

    service. The state faces a dilemma: on the one hand maintaining the law on

    conscription, while on the other allowing the right to conscientious objection.

    The objective of this article is to scrutinize how the Swedish state has tried to

    solve this dilemma. At the beginning of the 20th century, those who refused to

    fulfill the fundamental duty of military service were not regarded as deserving

    any kind of legal protection. Their actions questioned the consensus on

    the need for a military defense, and therefore had to be punished. But it did

    not take long until this view was modified, and a law was established that

    opened up the option of community service for conscientious objectors. In that

    way, the legislators created a buffer in the conflict between pro-militarists and

    anti-militarists. As long as the objectors stayed in the buffer construction, they

    did not represent any threat towards military defense. On the contrary, they

    even served as proof that the state respected human rights. The opposition was

    in that manner divided into two parts; those who accepted community service

    and those who did not. The latter, who did not accept the state’s offer of community

    service, were sentenced to prison. Since 1901, the legislator’s main

    strategy to tackle opposition towards military defense has been a combination

    of co-optation via community service and repression via prison for those who

    do not accept that service. It has been of great concern for the lawmakers to

    keep the number of the latter, the total resisters, sentenced to prison as low as

    possible. If the number becomes too high, it will cause debate and criticism,

    both in public and in the parliament. The lawmakers have responded by

    modifying the prison sentence and changing the construction of the buffer.

    Read more about Conscription Refusal as Pollitical Resistance

  • Performing unbelonging in court: Observations from a transnational corporate bribery trial—a dramaturgical approach

    2022. Isabel Schoultz, Janne Flyghed. Crime, law and social change (77), 321-340

    Article

    This article presents a study of the theatrical performance in court in a high-profile transnational corporate bribery case. Data gathered from observations in court were supplemented with interviews with the defense teams and the presiding judge. The paper’s objective is to demonstrate how the defendants performed unbelonging in court via the interactions between the different ‘teams’ in the courtroom; the defense, the prosecutors, the judges, and the company Telia. The analysis draws on Goffman’s theater analogy and his understandings of performance and self-presentation. The authors introduce the concept of ‘performing unbelonging in court’ and show how the defendants performed unbelonging via an indirect expression of status and standing. The authors further analyze the defense teams’ framing of the case, including the framing of the defendants as being scapegoated by the corporation, and of the prosecution as being unfair and illegitimate, which also contributes to the performance of unbelonging in court. The complexity and ambiguity of a transnational corporate bribery case permeated the interactions during the trial; however, at the end of the article, the authors discuss how knowledge from this case is transferable to other crime types or legal cultures.

    Read more about Performing unbelonging in court

  • “We Have Been Thrown Under the Bus”: Corporate Versus Individual Defense Mechanisms Against Transnational Corporate Bribery Charges

    2021. Isabel Schoultz, Janne Flyghed. Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime 2 (1), 24-35

    Article

    The telecommunication company Telia’s dealings in Uzbekistan have resulted in bribery accusations both in Sweden and in abroad. The article analyzes the defense mechanisms produced by both the corporation and the prosecuted former executives of the company. Telia’s initially denial eventually changed into a partial acknowledgment in combination with a scapegoating discourse. While Telia hardly defended itself at all in the Swedish court, the company’s former executives employed a defense of legality, denial of knowledge, of deviance, and of responsibility as well as a claim of being scapegoated. We discuss these developments in the light of the transformation of the Telia case from a mediated corporate scandal to a criminal court case and from a focus on organizational to individual responsibility. 

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  • Denials and confessions: An analysis of the temporalization of neutralizations of corporate crime

    2020. Isabel Schoultz, Janne Flyghed. International Journal of Law Crime and Justice 62

    Article

    In recent years two Swedish companies, Telia and Lundin Petroleum, have had to work hard to legitimate their actions as a result of allegations of criminal activity. In this paper, the corporate framings employed to deal with allegations of crime will be analysed on the basis of Stanley Cohen's (2009) theoretical work on processes of denial and neutralization techniques. More specifically, the paper focuses on the temporalization of neutralizations of corporate crime and aims to answer the following questions: How have the corporations' defence mechanisms changed over time? How might the types of crime of which they have been accused, and their corporate structures, affect the ways in which particular defence mechanisms are employed? The analysis demonstrates that although there are similarities, such as both companies framing their businesses as contributing to the development of democracy, human rights, prosperity and peace, the companies follow two different lines of development in their defences. While Telia moves from literal denial to confession, Lundin Petroleum stays with its literal denial in parallel with a strong condemnation of the condemners. These differences seem to be grounded both in the crimes of which the companies have been accused and their respective corporate structures.

    Read more about Denials and confessions

  • From “We Didn’t Do It” to “We’ve Learned Our Lesson”: Development of a Typology of Neutralizations of Corporate Crime

    2020. Isabel Schoultz, Janne Flyghed. Critical Criminology 28, 739-757

    Article

    When corporations are faced with accusations of crime, they usually find it necessary to justify their actions to the public, the media and their shareholders. Corporate self-defense, aimed at protecting a corporation’s image and legitimacy, belongs to a broader category of offenders’ denials and neutralizations. The objective of this article is to compile and discuss literature that is of value for an understanding of neutralizations of corporate crime and, by means of this literature and our own empirical studies on corporate denials, to outline a typology of corporate neutralizations. The typology distinguishes between a wide variety of corporate responses to allegations of crime and exemplifies how these techniques have been used. We also discuss the function of corporate neutralization techniques and argue that corporate accounts mediate action; they influence both other actors and future corporate actions.

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  • Företags försvar vid anklagelser om brott - betydelsen av den nordiska kontexten

    2019. Janne Flyghed, Isabel Schoultz. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab 106 (3), 297-314

    Article

    In recent years, several Swedish companies have been accused in the media, by NGOs, and via legal proceedings of engaging in criminal activities. Two of these companies, TeliaSonera and Lundin Petroleum have been the focus of substantial public attention. During the years following the revelations that TeliaSonera, a partly state owned telecommunications company, had committed bribery offences in Central Asia, the affair went from a public scandal in Sweden to a legal process in Sweden and abroad. Lundin Petroleum, a family owned oil company accused of participating in crimes against humanity in Sudan, has continuously denied the accusation by using a variety of denials and neutralizations. The current paper analyzes the strategies employed by these two businesses when defending themselves against allegations of criminal acts. Drawing on Stanley Cohen’s (2009) theoretical work on processes of denial and neutralization techniques, we have identified four main techniques used by the two companies to deflect allegations of criminal wrongdoing: literal denial; denial of knowledge; condemning the condemners; and appealing to a higher loyalty. In addition, we identify how the corporations emphasise their “Nordic values” by linking into a post-colonial discourse and justify their behaviour by relativising it. The article contributes to the discussion of neutralization strategies by pointing out the importance of the context in which a defence takes place.

    Read more about Företags försvar vid anklagelser om brott - betydelsen av den nordiska kontexten

  • Privatisation of intelligence-led policing: Auditors doing forensic work

    2018. Janne Flyghed. Moral issues in intelligence-led policing, 204-219

    Chapter

    Today, intelligence-led policing is conducted by actors in the private sector, including accounting firms. This chapter focuses on a relatively new sector of the security industry – auditing firms. As a way to locate the auditing firms' forensic operations in the policing landscape, the chapter describes the basis of a schematic description of traditional police work. Companies and other organisations clearly have an interest in keeping costs down, and if it turns out to be cheaper to engage external expertise than to develop such competencies internally, it is natural that they should employ consultants from the auditing firms. Firms have thus been able to turn to private-sector actors to avoid becoming embroiled in conflict situations that they perceive as risky. One important difference between the police and private actors is that the former view breaches of norms as crimes, whereas the latter see them as business problems.

    Read more about Privatisation of intelligence-led policing

  • Doing business for a “higher loyalty”? How Swedish transnational corporations neutralise allegations of crime

    2016. Isabel Schoultz, Janne Flyghed. Crime, law and social change 66 (2), 183-198

    Article

    In recent years, two Swedish companies have been a focus of substantial media attention: TeliaSonera and Lundin Petroleum. The defensive strategies employed by these two businesses to deal with allegations of crime will be analysed on the basis of Stanley Cohen’s theoretical work on processes of denial and neutralisation techniques. This paper will focus on a particular form of denial, namely the appeal to higher loyalties, whereby the businesses try to explain why they have been doing business despite the risks that this has involved. The paper links together the companies’ communications with the contexts in which they occur and the structures that might be expected to influence how the companies choose to frame their communications. The presence of the corporations in areas where crimes have been committed is not denied, but implicatory denials are employed to justify the corporations’ operations by referring to the societal benefits of their business activities. When the corporations frame their businesses as contributing to development, democracy and peace in the countries in which they operate, the corporations use well-known discourses that underline Swedish or Nordic generosity, helpfulness and decency. Thus, the analysis also draws on post-colonial theory and the image of the Nordic countries as being particularly “good” in relation to the rest of the world.

    Read more about Doing business for a “higher loyalty”? How Swedish transnational corporations neutralise allegations of crime

  • Privat område: revisionsbyråers och säkerhetsföretags polisarbete

    2014. Janne Flyghed. Motmæle, 131-146

    Chapter

    Under de senaste decennierna har det skett en marknadsanpassning av offentlig förvaltning. Det har genomförts avregleringar som resulterat i bolagiseringar och avknoppningar samt även direkt utförsäljning av offentlig verksamhet till privata intressen. Denna trend har inte enbart gällt skola, sjukvård och barnomsorg, utan även de delar av det offentliga som ansvarar för medborgarnas skydd och säkerhet, d.v.s. det militära försvaret samt polisen och övriga rättsväsendet. Olika typer av privata säkerhetsföretag som på konsultbasis erbjuder sina tjänster har sedan början av 1990-talet i allt snabbare takt etablerat sig.

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  • Why are occupational safety crimes increasing?

    2014. Felipe Estrada (et al.). Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 15 (1), 3-18

    Article

    The objective of this article is to analyse the structure of, and trends in, reported occupational safety crimes. The central focus is directed at analysing how we might understand the substantial increase in the number of reported offences witnessed during the first decade of the 21st century. In order to analyse trends in occupational safety crimes we proceed from both official crime statistics and data that have been compiled specifically for the purposes of this study, including a nationally representative sample of offence reports relating to the occupational safety crimes reported to the police. The results show that the increase in reported offenses is primarily due to a shift in definitions and in the reactions of the authorities rather than to a powerful increase in the number of actual crimes committed. This leads to the conclusion that registered occupational safety offences should first and foremost be viewed as a measure of the work of the authorities, rather than as an indicator of real crime trends.

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  • Policing of Political Protest: The Security Police's Control of the Extra-parliamentary Opposition in Sweden During and after the Cold War

    2013. Janne Flyghed. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 14 (Suppl. 1), 81-99

    Article

    Throughout history, those in power have monitored and exercised control over individuals and groups who have been perceived as representing some form of threat to their power. Irrespective of the system of government in place, political crime is a matter of central interest to a society's security police. Political crimes are often committed by extra-parliamentary groups or organizations. The focus of this paper is how the Swedish secret police (SÄPO) have acted against what they have perceived as the extreme left, mainly anarchists and autonomists, during and after the cold war. Did SÄPO's perception of this part of the extra-parliamentary opposition change when the cold war was over in the early 1990s? Were these groups and individuals perceived as the new enemy in the threat vacuum that temporarily arose in the aftermath of the cold war? Furthermore, had the new security concept that was introduced at that time any impact on SÄPO's activities?

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  • Exclusion or Culture?: The rise and the ambiguity of the radicalisation debate

    2012. Janne Flyghed, Magnus Hörnquist. Critical Studies on Terrorism 5 (3), 1-16

    Article

    The years 2005–2010 saw a sudden interest in the phenomenon of radicalisation. Terrorism was treated as the end result of a process of radicalisation and, as such, a reflection of broad social changes. In the discussion surrounding this phenomenon, radicalisation has not functioned as a homogenous analytical category. We analyse leading academic and administrative texts and identify two fundamentally different perspectives. One of these perspectives locates the causes of terrorism in alien cultures and identity clashes, while the other proceeds from socio-economic conditions and sees the threat as coming from increasing levels of social exclusion. The two perspectives are incompatible but nonetheless co-exist in practice, making terrorism a projection screen for an array of ambitions and fears. The emphasis on radicalisation has further become tied to policy preferences which have affected the Muslim community in quite different ways.

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  • Vräkt - utkastad från hus och hem i Stockholm 1879-2009

    2010. Lena Eriksson (et al.).

    Book

    Att bli vräkt är något av det värsta som kan hända en familj men ingen vet exakt hur många detta drabbar varje år . Vad händer med alla dem som varje år döms till vräkning? Hur många får bor kvar efter en uppgörelse med värden? Hur många ger upp och flyttar innan kronofogden knackar på dörren? Vart tar de vägen? Med ett 130-årigt perspektiv speglar VRÄKT ett vardagsdrama där aktörerna är hyresvärd och hyresgäst, domstolar, kronofogdar, gårdagens fattigvård och dagens socialtjänst och – i dramats utkant – låssmeder, inkassobolag och flyttfirmor. Alltför lite görs för att bekämpa den ojämlikhet på bostadsmarknaden som vräkningarna och hemlöshet är symptom på anser författarna. Politikerna måste göra mer än reformera sociallagstiftningen, ändra tidsfrister i vräkningsprocessen och se över samarbetet mellan myndigheter och värdar. Intressegrupper och partier måste också agera och bidra till en debatt som leder längre än till administrativa åtgärder som mer döljer än löser problemen.

    Read more about Vräkt - utkastad från hus och hem i Stockholm 1879-2009

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