Polen og Noreg – byrjinga på eit strategisk partnarskap?
I år er det 20 år sidan Polen blei medlem av NATO og 15 år sidan landet blei ein del av EU. 2019 markerer også at det er 100 år sidan diplomatiske relasjonar mellom Polen og Noreg blei etablert. Kva er Polens utanriks- og tryggingspolitiske prioriteringar i tida som kjem? Og korleis vil Polens forhold til Noreg utvikle seg?
Kina investerer i verda – kva betyr det for oss?
Nokon ønskjer kinesiske investeringar i Europa velkommen med opne armar, andre ser på det som ein trussel for nasjonal tryggleik. Matthew Ferchen besøkjer NUPI for å snakke om kva Kinas investeringspolitikk betyr for Europa.
Framtida til Russlands våpeneksport
Kan russisk våpeneksport halde fram med å auke Russlands innverknad i verda?
Report on significant distortions in the economy of the Russian Federation for the purpose of trade defence investigations (EU-Russia trade)
Dette prosjektet vil lede ut i en omfattende studie av russisk økonomi, med fokus på regulering, lover, subsidier eller andre forhold som kan påvirke konkurransen i markedene....
Drømmen om Europa
Bannons forsøk på å samle europeiske høyrepopulister har mislykkes. Nå prøver ltalias innenriksminister på det samme, skriver Minda Holm i Dagsavisen-kronikk
The Relationship Between Narratives and Security Practices: Pushing the Boundaries of Military Instruments in Japan
Japanese security policy has undergone significant changes lately. Japanese policymakers have recently argued over advancing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces with new weapon systems. In particular, the Abe government has decided to pur- chase long-range cruise missiles for its new F-35A jetfighters, and to reconstruct a newly-built helicopter carrier into an aircraft carrier. While specific policy proposals continued di- viding policymakers and other stakeholders, the underlying story specifying Japan’s place in East Asia, the rise of China, the threat of North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, the tight security relationship with the United States and the vulnerability of the Japanese archipelago has faced lit- tle core criticism. The lack of alternative national security narratives suggests the emergence of a Japanese security consensus in the mid-2010s. The strength of the narrative in deterring policymakers to refrain from critique, through the significant costs incurred by opposition, could also sug- gest a hegemonic narrative (but not necessarily a consensus). We find that the dominant narrative provided a necessary foundation for unorthodox policy proposals, which arguably enabled the Abe government to push through military in- strument expansions in the Self-Defense Forces, a move far from politically sustainable only a decade earlier.
Local Ownership as Global Governance
The ownership discourse has profoundly altered the management of development aid. Nominally, it seeks to instil greater freedom as well as responsibilities among aid recipients. Revisiting two ethnographic studies (the World Bank–Uganda partnership and NGO relations in Ethiopia), this article shows how ‘ownership’ practices also involve new forms of tacit governance mechanisms that enable the donor to retain control. By using ‘freedom’ as a formula underpinning governance at a distance, developmentality is made contingent on the donor’s ability to frame the partnership and the conditions under which the recipient exercises the freedom that has been granted.
There are very few BJP strongholds or Congress bastions in India. Data shows why
An important ongoing discussion in some political circles in India is whether the Election Commission should limit public access to the so-called Form 20 data, which reports the exact number of votes that each candidate receives in each polling booth in an election. The Form 20 data has been made available for the 2009 and the 2014 general elections, and also for the state elections held in recent years. The main reason offered by those who want to limit access to this data is that it is an important democratic principle that the vote is kept secret, and if the data reveals that most voters in a polling booth vote for the same party, it is no longer so secret how someone votes. This knowledge is important because it might allow powerful people to control the vote in a polling booth, undermining the freedom of the vote. Francesca R. Jensenius and colleagues discuss this in an op-ed published by The Print.
It’s a myth that 2014 election was exceptional in the vote share of winning candidates
Elections to the Lok Sabha are highly competitive. Indian politicians win with smaller margins than their counterparts in other countries with a similar electoral system, such as Canada and the United Kingdom. In a first-past-the-post electoral system, a candidate needs 50 per cent plus one vote to win the election if only two candidates compete for a seat. If there are three candidates who are equally strong, a winning candidate will need only one-third of the votes plus one additional vote. In India, usually a large number of candidates compete for each Lok Sabha seat, many of whom are non-serious. This makes it possible for several Indian politicians to get elected with a very low vote share. And, this may have important implications for their legitimacy and accountability as people’s representatives.