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Icelandic politics are analysed from the perspectives of three normative models of democracy: the liberal, republican and deliberative democratic theories. While the Icelandic constitution is rooted in classical liberal ideas, Icelandic politics can be harshly criticized from a liberal perspective, primarily because of the unclear separation of powers of government and for the extensive involvement of politics in other social sectors. Despite strong nationalist discourse which reflects republican characteristics, rooted in the struggle for independence from Denmark, republicanism has been marginal in Icelandic politics. In the years before the financial collapse, Icelandic society underwent a process of liberalization in which power shifted to the financial sector without disentangling the close ties that had prevailed between business and politics. The special commission set up by the Icelandic Parliament to investigate the causes of the financial collapse criticized Icelandic politics and governance for its flawed working practices and lack of professionalism. The appropriate lessons to draw from this criticism are to strengthen democratic practices and institutions. In the spirit of republicanism, however, the dominant discourse about Icelandic democracy after the financial collapse has been on increasing direct, vote-centric participation in opposition to the system of formal politics. While this development is understandable in light of the loss of trust in political institutions in the wake of the financial collapse, it has not contributed to trustworthy practices. In order to improve Icelandic politics, the analysis in this paper shows, it is important to work more in the spirit of deliberative democratic theory ; Peer Reviewed

This chapter explores the possible influences of Sweden, Denmark and Finland on the Environmental Policy of the EU. We focus specifically on the reputation, expertise and role model behaviour of the Nordic EU members and their possibilities to use these factors as cognitive power resources.The chapter discusses several examples where the Nordic EU member states have successfully promoted their national environmental interests within the EU. We also make use of interviews with environmental representatives at the Swedish, Danish and Finnish Permanent Representations to the EU in Brussels, officials from other member states, DG Environment of the Commission and the European Environment Agency. The results indicate that the Nordic EU members have to some extent minimised their quantitative disadvantages, such as small administrations and limited voting powers, by successfully using the cognitive power resources in question within the Environmental Policy of the European Union.

This article is written on the occasion of the 500 years anniversary of the Lutheran reformation (siðbót) which started in 1517. The aim is to point out new perspectives worth considering in research on the main implications of the reformation in the political field (siðaskipti) and cultural and / or social field (siðbreyting). In this regard, it is pointed out that in researches of such a complex historical process is inevitable to assume pre-defined pardigms that can serve as prerequisites for the interpretation of the subject. It is also pointed out that, up to present time, a single one-sided paradigm which describes the reformation as a revolution has been assumed in Icelandic studies of the reformation which assumes that the transition from a catholic to a lutheran church in Iceland has been sudden and for more or less political reasons, ie. for the efforts of Christian the III:rd of Denmark to increase his assets, properties and power in the country. The article argues that the relationships between religion and politics was much more complexed at this time than has generally been expected, as well as that Christina the III:rd and his representatives in Iceland considered it as their duties as christians to promote the reformation in the country and in that way respond to the demand of Luther to the christian nobility to rescue the Church on the basis of the gospel. In the article it is assumed that the reformation in Iceland happened in the period 1539-1600 and the development took place on various religious, ecclesial, political and cultural fields. In that way it is meaningful to describe it as a viscous reformation.

Literature has a long history of chastising women who defy ,traditional' gender roles. By turning a critical eye on the poem danse grotesque by the Icelandic poet Sjón, its staging and visual presentations, as well as fundamental interpretive keys such as trolls and dance, one senses a resistance to the prevailing manifestations of women in the Western media. The article shows how the poem reassesses the relationship between femininity and death in Western culture.Keywords: Concrete poetry, avant-garde, decadence, gender roles, death, dance, trollsKjartan Már ÓmarssonDoktorsnemi í almennri bókmenntafræði Hugvísindasviði Háskóla ÍslandsSæmundargötu 2 IS-101 Reykjavík, Íslandko@hi.is

During the Forties, Icelandic novelist Guðmundur Daníelsson, wrote a trilogy called Out of the Ground Wast Thou Taken: Fire (1941), Sand (1942) and The Land beyond the Land (1944). Leading up to the publications Daníelsson was vocal about the fact that he had read the works of American novelist William Faulkner. Later in life he would reveal that he read Faulkner in Norwegian translations and proudly acknowledged the direct line of descent he recognized between his own work and that of his American colleague. Until now no systematic analyzes has been done on the many parallels between their works. The article is divided in two. The first half unfolds in which ways Daníelsson reproduced structures, milieu, ideas, characters and events from Faulkner's nov-el Light in August in Fire. The latter half of the article situates Daníelsson's trilogy within a critical framework developed by Faulkner scholars in the last two decades where they have explored the relationship between Faulkner and the many writers who have engaged with him from the postcolonial world. Questions will be raised about if and then how Daníelsson deals with Iceland's postcolonial past in his novels, with a special emphasis on the connection between power and identity as it mani-fests itself in relation to, for example, class, race, gender and disability.

Should the progress in the biological sciences during the last decades give rise to a re-evaluation of literary analysis? The paper opens with a discussion of this question with reference to a fragment of Dagur Sigurðarson's poem "Takk takk Tobbi", pub-lished in Rógmálmur og grásilfur (1971). The question is answered partly affirmative-ly, mostly on the grounds that embodied cognition has to be taken into account when analysing literature. It is pointed out that among the factors that have contributed to a better understanding of the complex relation between the body and language is recent research on Tourette syndrome. The relationship between this neurological disorder and poetry is the main subject of the paper and it is discussed with refer-ence to a scaldic strophe from The Saga of Gisli Sursson. First, Tourette-syndrome is discussed briefly, including the medical profession's stance toward it during the 19thand 20th century and scholarly work on the common traits that the disorder shares with poetry. Subsequently it is considered how these writings can benefit literary scholarship, Gisli Sursson's strophe is analysed and it is proposed that this analysis can't rely on metrical rules alone. Then the aforementioned poem by Dagur Sig-urðarson is reconsidered, and finally a few points are recapitulated.

The aim of this article is to discuss two contemporary Icelandic novels, Kata by Steinar Bragi and Gott fólk by Valur Grettisson, in connection to interpretations of revenge literature and films in the field of Law and literature. Both novels deal with shortcomings in the legal system and judiciary in dealing with and proving crimes involving rape and sexual abuse. This analysis focuses on how the two novels are connected to the advocacy for change, both for the legislator and the judicial system in Iceland. The novel Kata is named after the protagonist, whose daughter is kidnapped, raped and murdered. Kata decides to revenge her daughter and murder the perpetrators, one by one. Throughout the story the reader is made aware of the necessity of avenge, but still the question of righteousness remains. In Gott fólk the narrator, Sölvi, is put through the accountability process by Sara and her friends, after she accuses him of both mental and sexual misconduct during the time of their relationship. Sölvi experiences the process as revenge, but to the reader it is clear that he is guilty and cannot cope with that realization. The two novels offer a basis for discussion on sexual offence, the legal system, revenge and justice.

Kosningaréttur er grundvallarréttur þegna í lýðræðisríkjum og þátttaka í kosningum álitin ein af mikilvægustu athöfnum borgaranna. Þó að þessi réttindi skuli tryggð öllum þegnum sýna alþjóðlegar rannsóknir að fatlað fólk er víða útilokað frá þátttöku í kosningum. Fatlað fólk er síður líklegt til að kjósa en ófatlað fólk og mætir iðulega ýmsum hindrunum ef það reynir að taka þátt í kosningum. Þessi grein fjallar um kosningaþátttöku fatlaðs fólks með hliðsjón af niðurstöðum alþjóðlegra rannsókna. Í upphafi eru raktar helstu hindranir í vegi kosningaþátttöku fatlaðs fólks og leitast við að svara hvaða áhrif þessar hindranir hafi, ekki aðeins fyrir fatlaða borgara, heldur jafnframt hvað það þýði fyrir heilbrigði lýðræðis og lýðræðislegra stofnana þegar hluti þegnanna mætir alvarlegum hindrunum varðandi borgaraleg grundvallarréttindi. Íslenskar rannsóknir á þessu sviði eru ekki fyrir hendi og engin skipuleg tölfræðileg gögn eru til varðandi þátttöku fatlaðs fólks í kosningum eða stjórnmálum hér á landi. Byggt á gögnum sem aflað var hjá tveimur fjölmennustu heildarsamtökum fatlaðs fólks hér á landi er rýnt í reynslu, aðstæður og möguleika fatlaðs fólks til þátttöku í kosningum á Íslandi, lagasetningar þar að lútandi og skyldur ríkisins til að stuðla að og tryggja þátttöku fatlaðs fólks í stjórnmálum og opinberu lífi, ekki síst í ljósi þess að Samningur Sameinuðu þjóðanna (SÞ) um réttindi fatlaðs fólks (SRFF) hefur verið fullgiltur hér á landi ; The right to vote is a fundamental right of citizenship in democratic nations, and participation in elections in one of the most important acts undertaken by citizens. Although these rights are guaranteed to all citizens, international research shows that disabled people are widely excluded from participation in elections. Disabled people are less likely to vote than non-disabled people and often encounter various obstacles when they try to participate in elections. This article discusses the voting participation of disabled people in consideration of the international research. The main barriers that disabled people encounter in the voting process will first be outlined. This will be followed by questions concerning the effects these obstacles produce, not only for disabled citizens, but what this means overall for the health of democracy and democratic institutions when a portion of the citizenry encounter serious obstacles concerning their basic civil rights. Icelandic research in this field is extremely limited and no systematic statistical data exists on the participation of disabled people in elections, or politics in general, in this country. Based on data drawn from sources from two of the largest disabled people's organization in the country, the focus here is on the experiences, circumstances and opportunities for disabled people to participate in elections in the country. The findings draw attention to the obligations of the state to promote and ensure the participation of disabled people in politics and public life in light of the recent ratification in Iceland of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) ; Peer Reviewed

The ambiguity between reality and fiction haunts Einar Már Guðmundsson's novel Hundadagar (Dog Days, 2015), as it is a fictional narrative about factual, historical figures and events, such as Jörgen Jörgensen, Rev. Jón Steingrímsson, Finnur Magnússon and Guðrún Johnsen, while the same can be said about many other novels labeled as postmodernism. Canadian literary scholar Linda Hutcheon coined the concept of historiographic metafiction to describe fictions as such, which are "intensely self-reflexive", while "paradoxically lay claim to historical events and personages". Hutcheon suggests that historiographic metafictions fully illuminate the very way in which postmodernism entangles itself with both the epistemological and ontological status of history. This paper begins with an introduction to Hutcheon's theoretical contributions on postmodernism, postmodern literature and the relationship between history and fiction, followed by a reading of Hundadagar as a historiographic metafiction. The narrator's strategies—such as parataxis, metanarrative comments, we-narrative discourse and documentary intertext—largely indicate an imitation, a revelation, or say, a parody of the process of historian's writings. The paper further suggests that it is the Icelandic financial crisis in 2008 that prompts the narrator to revisit the 18. and 19. century, since the financial crisis takes the role of a rupture of the Enlightenment ideals, leading to disorder and chaos. Moreover, the narrator finds an uncanny similarity between the past and the present, as if the history has been repeating itself. The spectre of history keeps (re)appearing in a deferred temporality. While revisiting the past, the narrator also (re)visits the present in an allegorical way. In a word, as a historiographic metafiction, Einar Már Guðmundsson's Hundadagar is "fundamentally contradictory, resolutely historical, and inescapably political", just as Hutcheon's perception of postmodernism.