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Fish farming has been a recurring topic of debate, not the least in the news media. The media is an important source of information about the aquaculture industry and its products to the public. However, the media is also an important debate arena, enabling representatives of the public, stakeholders, authorities, and the industry to engage in discussions as well as to influence policy and regulations. This paper focuses on the continuous debates in news media, the topics and storylines discussed, the various actors participating, and their arguments. Through a study of the content, positions, and producers of debate contributions in nine Norwegian newspapers, this paper sheds light on the public debate on aquaculture and the present controversies. Drawing on discourse theory, it is argued that the concept of discursive conflicts offers important insights into the controversies surrounding aquaculture. Discourse coalitions unite seemingly dissimilar and independent actors, and shared story lines provide political momentum, reduce complexity and reify the debate. However, such coalitions also contribute to maintaining the debate in a deadlock. ; publishedVersion ; © 2016 NTNU Samfunnsforskning. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Norway is the world's largest producer of farmed salmon. Aquaculture is the country's second largest export industry and thus vital for employment in coastal areas of Norway. The industry is dependent on public acceptance and good standing in local communities in order to gain access to new sites and to be able to sell its product. Public opinion (and assumptions about public opinion) on aquaculture may influence the industry's framework conditions and policy. Being located in coastal and rural areas, the industry must rely on the media to spread information to the public about the industry. Therefore, the media are an important source of information about farmed salmon, and the way the media present aquaculture issues has an impact on public opinion as well as authorities. This article examines how the aquaculture industry is portrayed in Norwegian newspapers and discusses how media topics and media framing may influence public opinion. The analysis shows that the most frequent topics covered in Norwegian newspapers are connected to the environment, aquaculture industry, and politics, where the concerns about the environment are dominant within the risk frame. The negative images portrayed by the media have a strong agenda-setting force and may skew public opinion to a narrow focus on environmental risks, influencing both the debate's content and the regulators' increased emphasis on environmental risks. This is strengthened further by the focus on sustainability, where the focus is solely on the dimension of environment, making other sustainability dimensions less prominent in the media coverage. ; publishedVersion ; © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Growth in the number of certification schemes in the aquaculture industry has been attributed to several factors. The schemes contribute to improved traceability of products, provide healthier stocks, and provide more information to customers' decision-making efforts. There is a wide range of certification schemes and standards available, addressing food safety, environmental impact, animal welfare, and worker conditions, to name a few. The abundance of certification schemes has resulted in concerns about consumers becoming confused with the number of labels and that certification schemes themselves may become a barrier to trade. This paper examines 5 major certification schemes in the aquaculture sector and categorizes them ac-cording to their purpose, proprietorship, and process. We investigate what has caused this wave of attention to be given to such a diverse range of issues, exploring how the diversity of these certifications is rooted in their inception and the areas they address. ; Swimming in a slurry of schemes: making sense of aquaculture standards and certification schemes ; publishedVersion ; © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Certification schemes are becoming increasingly important within aquaculture management, but the indicators that are used by these schemes are subject to considerable debate. Many have questioned their actual impact on improving the industry, and whether they effectively address the many externalities of aquaculture production. In this paper, we study the choice of indicators in eight major certification scheme standards for salmon aquaculture and examine to what degree they manage to address impacts beyond individual production sites. We find that, in accordance with the criticism, the majority of indicators pertain only to the site-level. However, indicators related to traceability, and to coordination and sharing of information among producers can elevate local concerns to a higher level of impact. We, therefore, argue that among all the certification scheme standards considered here, these types of indicators should be emphasized to a larger extent. ; Level up or game over: The implications of levels of impact in certification schemes for salmon aquaculture ; publishedVersion ; © 2019 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

This chapter introduces Complexity and Adaptive Peacebuilding and considers how it contributes to the contemporary hybridity debate. Following a brief introduction to Complexity theory, this chapter explores the utility of a complex systems perspective to expand our understanding of hybrid peacebuilding. Adaptive peacebuilding is then introduced as an approach that can help hybrid peacebuilding cope with the uncer- tainty dilemma that is a characteristic of complex social systems, as well as manage the relational dimension of hybrid peacebuilding through a collaborative approach. ; publishedVersion

By studying the change from the alderman model to parliamentary rule in Norwegian cities and regions, this article analyses how and why reorganisation of political institutions influences support for the institutions reformed. We adopt a mixed methods approach consisting of a survey of politicians in all seven reformed Norwegian local governments, combined with a case study of reorganised governments with high and low levels of support for parliamentary rule. We find that support for the institutional model in the reformed local governments depends on the reform's effect on different political positions. Politicians in power are more positive towards parliamentary rule than members in opposition are, and politicians from the big parties are more positive compared to representatives from smaller ones. Institutional change affects the interests of these groups in different ways. In turn, the effects that reform has on different interests influence their support for the reformed institutions. System support is also affected by how the change process is implemented. An inclusive political leadership that builds oversized coalitions and allocates positions such as committee chairs to the opposition results in stronger support for parliamentary rule. The overall finding is that both "pure" institutional effects and contextual factors influence support for parliamentary rule. Support increases when there is a high level of readiness and capacity for change. The reform must also include relevant actors in a way meeting demands for procedural fairness. The practical implication for reformers is that they must communicate why the organisation needs reform, arrange for sufficient implementation capacity and include relevant participants in decision-making and change processes. ; publishedVersion

Organisational perspectives propose that structural arrangements affect policy outcomes. Drawing on these perspectives, it is worthwhile to find out whether and how disagreements among public authorities create barriers to public sector adaptation and preparedness. As the literature on weather vulnerabilities and climate adaptation recommends increased public sector coordination, exploring the possibilities of governance can contribute to the improvement of lifeline conditions. Insights from a Norwegian case study suggest that the different mandates of responsible public authorities sometimes clash. Such clashes limit the abilities to sustain welfare and business conditions when avalanches and blizzards cause highway outages. The findings also show that governance might only partly improve public sector peril response measures, as there is rarely sufficient flexibility to consider specific interests or preferences, for example, to keep a highway open until a school bus or a freight delivery has passed. ; Silos as barriers to public sector climate adaptation and preparedness: insights from road closures in Norway ; publishedVersion

What share has been assigned to user participation in the modernization of social welfare administration in Norway? Arguments in favor of user participation draw partly on established conceptualizations of democracy, but also on recent ideas about the adaptation of public services to customer demands. This article presents the results of a study of organizational reform in child welfare protection agencies. The study shows that while these reforms include elements characteristic of New Public Management, they cannot be said to exhibit a comprehensive modernization effort. The article particularly discusses reforms that affect participation and utility for users. A tentative conclusion is that the current drive for increased user participation originates from childcare professionals rather than from superior levels of the organization. ; Hvilken plass har brukermedvirkning i moderniseringen av norsk forvaltning? Argumenter for økt brukerinnflytelse bygger både på innarbeidede forestillinger om demokratisering, men også på nyere ideer om tilpassing av offentlige tjenester til kundenes behov. Denne artikkelen tar for seg resultatene av en undersøkelse av organisasjonsmessige endringer i barnevernet. Undersøkelsen viser at endringene kan identifiseres med elementer som inngår i vanlige definisjoner av New Public Management, selv om de samlet vanskelig kan sies å være uttrykk for en helhetlig administrativ reformpolitikk. Artikkelen tar særlig for seg reformer som har betydning for brukernes medvirkning og nytte av tjenestene. En foreløpig konklusjon går ut på at impulsen til styrket brukermedvirkning synes å komme fra de profesjonsansatte selv snarere enn fra overordnete instanser. ; The research has been partly financed by the Norwegian Research Council. ; publishedVersion

Among political scientists, even among political theorists, there is a widespread conviction that political theory has entered upon a time of troubles. Few, however, regard it simply as a "dead dog," and political theorists continue, as they should, to administer critical self-analysis, and to define and defend their methodological and philosophical positions. The basis for a unity of opposites is still a subject for dispute. This paper is offered, not as a solution, but as a statement of one conception of the role of political theory.A time-honored technique of dialectic is to seek well-reasoned objections to the view one does not hold. A medicine often commended to the political scientists is a body of systematic, scientific theory akin to economic theory in approach and methodological sophistication. Accordingly, this article takes issue with that interpretation which conceives of political theory as, ideally, the master discipline whereby the science of politics is to be unified and systematized, and empirical investigation oriented and guided. A few definite and carefully developed proposals for reconstruction along these lines, familar to political scientists, are G. E. G. Catlin's The Science and Method of Politics, Harold D. Lasswell's and Abraham Kaplan's Power and Society, and David Easton's The Political System. These works can serve as an initial point of purchase for analysis and discussion.

Like Rachel, Jacob's beloved but still childless bride, who asked herself and the Lord each morning, "Am I?," or "Can I?," so presidents of this Association on these annual occasions intermittently ask, "Are we a science?," or "Can we become one?" My predecessor, David Truman, raised this question last September applying some of the notions of Thomas Kuhn in his recent book on scientific revolutions. I shall be following in Truman's footsteps, repeating much that he said but viewing the development of the profession from a somewhat different perspective and intellectual history. My comments will be organized around three assertions.First, there was a coherent theoretical formulation in the American political theory of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Second, the development of professional political science in the United States from the turn of the century until well into the 1950's was carried on largely in terms of this paradigm, to use Kuhn's term. The most significant and characteristic theoretical speculation and research during these decades produced anomalous findings which cumulatively shook its validity.Third, in the last decade or two the elements of a new, more surely scientific paradigm seem to be manifesting themselves rapidly. The core concept of this new approach is that of the political system.

Revisits the long-standing intradisciplinary tension between political science (which ostensibly traffics in the empirical) & political theory (with its focus on the normative). Because political scientists often charge political theorists with engaging in humanistic rather than scientific research, the questions explored here revolve around clarifying the relation of political theory to the humanities & responding to "hard" scientists' specific criticisms of "soft" humanistic scholarship. That humanistic research is interested in interpretation & judgment rather than in explanation & quantifiability does not make it of lesser importance to the study of politics. K. Coddon