The aim of this research project is to increase our understanding of the boundaries of democratisation by identifying the mechanisms through which conflicts over political inclusion are being managed in the multi-ethnic state of Georgia.
A central point of departure is the established argument that democratisation requires a demos - the people can hardly rule until there is consensus as to who are the people. Transitions tend to be short-circuited, oftentimes violently, in the absence of such agreement. No nationality wishes to be subjugated to the will of the majority within a state dominated by another nationality. National democratisation processes therefore tend to awaken local ethnic conflicts, which often spill over into inter-state conflagrations.
Departing from post-Soviet Georgia, this project investigates how such questions of political inclusion are being contested between - and within - the central government and nation-building entrepreneurs in the peripheral ethno-regions of the country. It draws on interviews with representatives of the Georgian government as well as Armenian and Azerbaijani activists from the ethno-regions of Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli, respectively. However, the project also builds on socio-linguistic experiments (matched-guise tests) created to unearth inter-ethnic attitudes. Taken together, this data enables the research project to re-construct the incentives for integration in Georgia's Armenian- and Azerbaijani borderlands.
A decisive advantage, stemming from this data triangulation, is that the research project will be able to identify the social mechanisms through which conflicts over political inclusion are being managed.
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The United and Divided Nations: Understanding Change in International Society
This research project explores the notion of 'international society' and its underlying primary institutions, focusing in particular on the role of democracy. Empirically, the primary objects of study are the United Nations and the Community of Democracies.
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This three-year projec, lead by Louise Olsson, identifies and analyzes the opportunities and obstacles in creating development and stability through local ownership with international support in Afghanistan. In focus is the international approach to work strategically to strengthen the structure, influence and effectiveness of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the areas where Sweden plays an important role for the development and security, namely the Northern Afghan provinces of Balkh, Samangan, Jowzjan and Sar-e Pol. This project will be conducted at Folke Bernadotte Academy.
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The central aim of this project is to bring normative political analysis, particularly work on global justice, to bear on efforts to identify the most credible and desirable political strategies to address the threat of global warming. In particular, the aim is to ask not only what actions justice calls for from various states but to weigh such moral theorising against empirical evidence on what forms of political cooperation among states are possible over the short-term. Weighing moral theories against political realities is sometime called ‘non-ideal theory’ and such non-ideal considerations are categorically warranted in the case of global warming. This is because of the extremely short amount of time we have to begin taking far-reaching action to reduce total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
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To make world politics more accountable, leading scholars in international politics propose that we should "abandon the domestic analogy": the belief that accountability has to imply popular elections. Instead, they suggest what they call new "pragmatic approaches".
These approaches are:
Pluralistisc accountability - world leaders are accountable not only to one principal with the right to dismiss them but to many and not only through one method but through several;
Out-put legitimization - world leaders attain their legitimacy not by they way they are elected but by the way the perform;
Deliberation - to be trusted, world leaders should present their the reasons and arguments more openly;
Regulation - world leaders should follow a strict set of rules that excludes abuse of power;
External accountability - world leaders are not only responsible to those who elect them but to all those who are affected by their decisions;
Markets - in a globalized world, the dissatisfied can easily withdraw their support of the leaders;
Legal accountability - world leaders can be brought to justice at an international court.
The project has two sections. One - "Warning for pragmatism" - is a critical analysis of these pragmatic methods. My way of doing it is to identify the institutions where these methods have been implied in order to promote the process of peace, democracy and justice during the last one hundred years: the Leage of Nations, the United Nations, the European Union, The World Bank, The International Criminal Court and so forth. The strength of political science is, to my mind, precisely this kind of institutional analysis and my reasoning can be described as going back and forth between general philosophical principals and considered judgments about particular institutions, successively modifying each in light of the appraisal of the other. Have these institutions attain their goals and what conclusions for the possibility of a democratic world government can we draw from these experiences?
The other section - "Return to utopia" - emphasizes the significance of norms and long perspectives. I agree with Edward Hallett Carr's statement of the impossibility of pragmatism, since it excludes the finite goal and moral judgment that is the driving force in international politics. Polemically, I stick to the domestic analogy and remind readers that it took two hundred years for democracy to be realized within the nation-states, from the theories of the Enlightenment to the introduction of popular government at the time of World War I. With the same process in international politics, we could expect a democratic world government around the year 2 120.
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The climate policy research program Clipore, supported by the Mistra foundation, focuses on future international policies in the area of climate change. The main aim of the program is directed toward the use of economic incentives and instruments in the implementation of climate policies, and towards the development of new frameworks. The program started in 2004 and went to its second phase in October 2007. Clipore involves a consortium of universities, think-tanks and non-governmental organizations in Sweden, Norway, India, and the United States. Clipore works close to policy and includes a series of workshops, seminars, and events through which a targeted dialogue between scientists and various policymakers and stakeholders are established.
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A conceptual analysis of power in International Relations.
Book project to be published with Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
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This project intends to fill the gaps in our understanding of densely institutionalized processes of intergovernmental cooperation, by exploring the governance impact of overlap in the scope and membership of international institutions.
The main questions this study addresses are: Does overlap in scope and membership lead to changes in the main characteristics of the institutions involved in European governance? Which characteristics are more likely to be affected and in what way?
A main claim that this project attempts to make is that institutional change can be better understood by considering the influence of parallel forms of institutionalization. Building on different strands of institutionalism, the project attempts to shed light over the mechanisms through which parallel institutionalization matters, by combining a quantitative and a qualitatative approach to the study of European intergovernmental institutions.
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A simple majority is enough to pass ordinary laws. In the case of fundamental laws, however, a good deal more is needed. Laws of this kind cannot be enacted or repealed with less than a supermajority, a referendum, multiple decisions, or the like.
This difference between ordinary and fundamental law raises the question of what is constitutionally privileged, and why. As the adherents of thin constitutionalism see it, only a few basic provisions ought to enjoy such a status: e.g., the rules protecting free speech and association, or the procedures setting out how parliaments are elected and governments formed. Public faith in democracy is enhanced when voters are able to choose among a wide range of social and economic policies. For the champions of thick constitutionalism, on the other hand, it is the purpose to which procedures are put that is the critical thing. If legislation can be changed with a simple majority, they warn us, it tends to assume too short-term a character. In certain crucial respects, therefore, the content of policy should be privileged too.
This project has two aims. Empirically, the object is to ascertain the degree to which existing systems of government in fact conform to the precepts of thick or thin constitutionalism. Normatively, the purpose is to take a stand on the merits of the various arguments. For both purposes, the project will make use of existing literature and available data bases.
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This research project furthers our understanding of an often ignored but important and central part of modern politics; the dynamic relationship between territory and state. The republic of Syria, carved out of a much larger territory during the post World War I re-mapping of the Middle East, constitutes the empirical focus. The study analyzes Syrian policies towards three territories lost; Lebanon, Hatay and the Golan Heights. Through the examination of Syrian policies towards the three areas from the time of their loss until the end of 2010, the study argues that while special relations to these three cases are signaled through words or deeds or both, Syria clearly has different views of and ambitions for them. Although Syria, during the period under study, repeatedly disrespected the sovereignty of Lebanon it does not strive to incorporate it into Syria. The same goes for Hatay, despite the fact that Syrian maps depict it as part of Syria. The Golan Heights, on the other hand, is considered a necessary part of the Syrian national territory and therefore has to be returned to Syria. The study seeks to understand why certain territories lost remain on the agenda as something that has to be returned while the loss of others are possible to come to terms with. For this purpose, a theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing change and consistency in a state's perception of territories lost is developed. Further, five explanatory factors are discussed and applied to the Syrian cases. Of the five, only integrative state building and the existence of a contending élite with the ability to formulate an alternative version of an appropriate and right-sized national territory were concluded to have affected policies towards territories lost in the Syrian case. The project ended in May 2011.
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The title of my dissertation project is Global Warming and our Natural Duties of Justice . I will defend in the fall of 2007.
This work takes its starting point in the empirical argument that the challenges involved in addressing the threat of human induced climate change cannot realistically be surmounted without a global form of political authority. More specifically, to make a cooperative response work what is require is a global system that can credibly ensure compliance to coordinated and global public policy for mitigating the human impact on our climate. Thus, efforts to significantly reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions cannot be achieved through weak voluntary international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol.
My main research problem following from this empirical assessment is the moral question of whether or not we ought to bind ourselves together with others in a global political effort that will limit the self-determination of states in ways they are not currently limited. I show that there are clear empirical and moral reasons establishing that we do have a duty to support this kind of global political project to collectively address our impact on the Earth's atmosphere.
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Traditionally, the promotion of socio-economic justice has been seen as an exclusive concern for the state and its citizens. Many contemporary political thinkers criticize this view and argue that the principles of justice which apply within a state also apply to the global level. Further, they often argue that this conclusion is strengthened by the increased level of interconnectedness between people and states created by globalization. It is said that even if principles of justice are constrained by institutional boundaries, these boundaries no longer coincide with state borders but rather extend transnationally, or even globally.
In this project we assess these claims. It is argued that the impacts on justice inferred from globalization are often seriously overstated. The demand for socio-economic justice is created exclusively by a special relationship between citizens. This relationship is constituted by a common membership in the kind of coercive institutional structure epitomized by the state. Under current state of affairs, state coercion has no counterpart in the global arena. The conclusion is that concerns of socio-economic justice should be reserved for the domestic arena.
Yet, it is also argued that justice is pluralistic and other kinds of concern are applicable on a global scale. Issues of fairness in international trade are discussed as examples of such concerns, and it is concluded that the international trade regime should institutionalize a number of safeguards that reduce the vulnerability of developing states.
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Our research project focusses on the boundaries between the peoples and the nation-states which were established in Western and Central Asia in this century by international actors (the mandate) or internal forces (nation-building), and the actions taken by individuals and groups as well as their perceptions of belonging and boundaries. These two aspects are studied partly in the period when the boundaries were formed and when what is seen as the modern nation-state was established and replaced the old dynastic, multi-national empires and partly in the contemporary period when nation-state borders are becoming more porous through transnationalisation, globalisation and the superpower constellation in the world is no longer inclined to freeze the situation in the area.
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