Publikasjoner

Gender, parenthood, and feelings of safety in Greek refugee centres

Blikket i glasskulen: NATO de neste 70 år

Hvordan vil det gå med NATO? Vil alliansen overleve de neste 70 år? Hvilke utfordringer vil alliansen i så fall måtte håndtere? Artikkelen spekulerer på fremtiden og forsøker å se inn i glasskulen og peke på noen mulige utviklingstrekk. Jeg argumenterer at NATO trolig vil bestå, men dens relevans vil avhenge av hvor tilpasningsdyktig den er i forhold til nye utfordringer. I tillegg må verdifellesskapet og solidariteten bestå om alliansen skal være noe mer enn en papirtiger. På kort sikt er det de transatlantiske relasjonene som bekymrer mest, mens klimaendringer og migrasjon, samt den raske digitaliseringen av samfunnene våre, er trender som vil utfordre NATO på sikt.

Tungt skyts

Minda Holm anmelder Jon Hellesnes’ bok ‘NATO-komplekset: Om militærpolitikk, atomvåpen og norsk USA-servilitet’ i Klassekampens bokmagasin. Holm skriver her om de sannhetene som tas for gitt i norsk sikkerhets- og forsvarspolitikk, deriblant forholdet til USA og NATO. Hva er effekten av at Forsvarsdepartementet finansierer så mye av forskningen på norsk forsvarspolitikk?

Forebygging av krig og konflikt i cyberdomenet

Cyberdomenet representerer kanskje en av vår tids største trusler mot internasjonal fred og sikkerhet men er viet lite oppmerksomhet hva gjelder forebygging av krig og konflikt. Det er behov for internasjonale forpliktende kjøreregler som hever blikket over IKT-forvaltning, digitalisering og cybersikkerhetstiltak og fokuserer på fredelige relasjoner mellom stater i cyberdomenet. Skal en slik diskusjon ha effekt må den tas i FNs Sikkerhetsråd.

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.

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.

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.

Political parties dominate India’s national elections, not candidates

A common perception regarding Indian politics is that it is the candidate, and not the party, who wins the elections. This makes it important for parties to pick the “right” candidates, and parties in India do spend enormous effort in local consultations and identity arithmetic while choosing who to allocate party tickets to. The belief that candidates win or lose elections has also led to many more independent candidates throwing their hat into the electoral arena. How do these independent candidates fare? In this piece, the writers show the impressive growth over time in the number of candidates, particularly independent candidates, standing for the elections, but also that there is a very small likelihood of an independent candidate actually winning a parliamentary seat. Parties dominate India’s national elections.

3 charts challenge lazy thinking on voter turnout and its link to literacy & urbanisation

India is known for a fairly high election turnout, but who turns out to vote in India, and why? In our last article, we discussed how constituency size, organisational networks, and social pressures may play a role in influencing voter turnout. Two other factors are commonly cited as having an impact on turnout: literacy and urbanisation. Our findings suggest that the impact of overall education levels and urbanisation on voter turnout in India may be more nuanced than what political observers have traditionally believed.