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This article elaborates on ideas concerning future generations and whether they are useful in understanding some aspects of the concern for the global ecological commons. The article's main scholarly contribution is to develop analytical tools for examining what a concern for future generations would require of current generations. It combines the scholarly literature on future generations with that of solidarity. The ideas concerning future generations are interpreted in terms of an ideal typical concept of solidarity with future generations. This concept is divided into four dimensions: the foundation of solidarity, the objective of solidarity, the boundaries of solidarity and the collective orientation. By applying these four dimensions in the context of the political process leading to Agenda 2030, the potentials and limitations of the concept are evident. The article concludes that the absence of reciprocity between current and future generations and uncertainty about the future are both crucial issues, which cut across the four dimensions. We cannot expect anything from people who have not yet been born, and we do not know what preferences they will have. This shows the vulnerability of forward-looking appeals to solidarity with future generations. Nevertheless, such appeals to solidarity may give global political processes a normative content and direction and can thereby contribute to understanding common concerns for the global ecological commons.

By including the protection of future generations' access to a healthy natural environment in constitutions, the current generations have committed themselves to taking future people into account in contemporary policy considerations. This commitment might challenge welfare states' sustainability and lead to tensions between current and future generations. To understand the consequences of these challenges, this chapter develops a fine-mesh concept of solidarity with future generations. More specifically, it elaborates theoretically, and examines empirically, the question: What kind of concrete binding commitments to collective actions – on the part of present-day state institutions – would solidarity with future generations require? Four dimensions of solidarity are developed from how solidarity has been used historically in European thinking: the foundation, objective, boundaries, and collective orientation of solidarity. The chapter analyses how each dimension separately differs from solidarity with contemporaries. The empirical relevance of this theoretical concept is evaluated by applying it to Norway as an example of a country that has included a protection clause for future generations in its constitution. Moreover, a climate lawsuit from 2016 through to the final judgement from the Supreme Court in 2020, reveals that the protection clause in the Norwegian Constitution has only weak binding commitments to collective actions on the part of present-day state institutions. It is, however, important to note that this lawsuit involves much more than just the case itself. It not only creates public discussions, but it also shows the ideas that form the basis for the actors' arguments about how to create a political system that is designed to safeguard the welfare of current and future generations. ; publishedVersion

The Norwegian state-owned Petroleum Fund's market value is more than one trillion US dollars. The Norwegian state has become one of the world's largest stockowners. The Fund was established in 1990 and in 2006 it was renamed the 'Government Pension Fund Global', as savings for future generations. What kind of values form the basis for describing the Petroleum Fund in this way? This article shows that the idea that present generations should not empty the North Sea of oil and gas without saving something for future generations has been stable since the 1970s. However, over time, the understanding of how to save has changed. More specifically, experts, bureaucrats and politicians have shifted their arguments during four phases: moderation in oil extraction (1974 – 1983); introduction of the national wealth model (1984-1990); a financial fund for the present and the future (1991 – 2006) and increased income and new protests (2007 – 2019). These four periods show that over time the idea of weak sustainability and value commensurability have increasingly come to dominate the argumentation in public documents about the Petroleum Fund. ; Funding from the Norwegian Research Council (grant no. 236939/H20). Sustainable European welfare societies: Assessing linkages between social and environmental policy. ; acceptedVersion

This chapter aims to analyse to what extent and how increased migration to Europe has triggered conflicting ideas of solidarity in Europe. It integrates analytical and normative approaches to the concept of solidarity. The chapter analyses how appeals for solidarity are used to justify a certain policy. It examines whether the migration crisis may be understood as a solidarity crisis. By combining the four dimensions of solidarity, the chapter also analyses what idea of solidarity the Member States have committed themselves to in the framework of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). It discusses the concept of solidarity both as an analytical and a normative concept. The chapter also discusses the understanding of solidarity applied in the CEAS. It also examines how EU institutions appeal for solidarity and whether there are conflicting perceptions of solidarity within the EU. Regulations the Member States have agreed on EU laws, which determine the Member State responsible for persons in need of international protection. ; acceptedVersion

This article shows how the Migration Statistics Regulation plays a central role in EU/ Schengen external border control. It develops and applies an analytical framework, which shows analogies between how historical nation states produced statistics as a basis for politics and the harmonisation of European migration and asylum statistics. In contrast to national processes, the Migration Statistics Regulation aims to harmonise statistics from established national administrative traditions. The first part shows how the Member States have agreed on the application of common statistical categories, but they have not reached agreements on how to measure migration. As long as different measurement techniques constitute the basis of comparability, the statistics used as basis for European external border control remain incomplete. The second part exam- ines how statistical information is used in the management of border control. While Eurostat is responsible for coordinating statistics, Frontex, EASO and eu-LISA have gained the tasks of managing new types of migration and asylum statistics. This implies new combinations of performing operative tasks with the management of statistics at European level. Moreover, the statistics have increasingly become the basis for calculat- ing funding allocation and relocation of asylum seekers among Member States. While EU Member States harmonise the statistics on migration and asylum, this does not mean that the countries harmonise their understanding of the phenomenon. When EU insti- tutions use incomplete statistics to legitimate migration and asylum politics, this is not only a technical and practical problem. Behind this incompleteness, there are concep- tual and political differences among the Member States ; acceptedVersion

This article analyses the way Norwegian authorities facilitate and expect immigrant organisations to serve as schools of democracy – and to what extent there are elements of bureaucratic schooling. Moreover, it examines how immigrant organisations' adaptation to these expectations can be understood as an adaptation to an administrative culture. The article concludes that adaptation to democratic ideals is emphasised in the political rhetoric, while in practice street-level bureaucrats educate members of immigrant organisations in how to establish and run a formal, hierarchical, rule-based and impersonal organisation in Norway. The emphasis on bureaucratic schooling is especially relevant in a Nordic context, where the voluntary sector functions as a parallel bureaucratic structure to the government administration. Most immigrant organisations formulate written statutes the way the authorities expect of them and in accordance with these statutes they construct their own democratic and bureaucratically structured organisations. By formulating their statutes, the immigrant organisations are socialised into the Norwegian administrative culture.

The city of Oslo has established a council of immigrant organisations (CIO). The city has designed CIO to have a double mandate: one from the city of Oslo and one from the immigrant organisations. The question raised in this article is how the city of Oslo's design of CIO has an impact on its form of representation, its activities and its political position within local government. The article finds that CIO can legitimately claim to be a local council as the local authorities decide its main tasks and appoint the leader. CIO can also claim to be democratically representative as it is elected by the immigrant organisations. This gives CIO a choice of action, which it has used to develop its own activities independently of the city of Oslo and the organisations it represents. CIO's activities are mainly to change the underlying majority way of thinking in the established state and municipal institutions, with the aim of adapting them to the minorities' lives and cultures. Moreover, the article finds that the local authorities cannot implement a redesign without approval from CIO members. The authorities may decide to close CIO down by arguing that it does not produce the expected results, but this is problematic as long as CIO also is a descriptive representative council. The article concludes that CIO's design gives it an ambiguous form of representation and choice of action, and that the political attempts to steer CIO confirms its ambiguous position within the local government. ; This is a postprint version of a published article. The original is available at www.springerlink.com

By analysing the interactions between political opportunity structures and immigrant organisations' mobilising their members to political participation, this article suggests and applies a systematic classification comprising three forms of democratic mobilisation: immigrant organisations function as a public arena for their members; they increase knowledge of political participation among members; and they develop a political culture among members. The article concludes that open political opportunity structures offer scope for action to resourceful activists. These activists see that the local political opportunity structures allow scope for political participation by persons with immigrant background, and use the immigrant organisations as an arena to develop a political culture of political participation. Immigrant organisations can serve as agents of political integration through projects, which aim to mobilise members to political participation.

By analysing the interactions between political opportunity structures and immigrant organisations' mobilising their members to political participation, this article suggests and applies a systematic classification comprising three forms of democratic mobilisation: immigrant organisations function as a public arena for their members; they increase knowledge of political participation among members; and they develop a political culture among members. The article concludes that open political opportunity structures offer scope for action to resourceful activists. These activists see that the local political opportunity structures allow scope for political participation by persons with immigrant background, and use the immigrant organisations as an arena to develop a political culture of political participation. Immigrant organisations can serve as agents of political integration through projects, which aim to mobilise members to political participation.

This article examines how features of theoretical perspectives on transnationalism and cosmopolitanism can be found in categories that immigrant organisations use to describe their own activities. The empirical basis is the written statutes of 133 local membership-based immigrant organisations in Oslo. The article finds that the organisations mainly use national categories and that national belonging is formulated in terms of cultural activities. The use of national categories is, however, combined with many organisations' aims to have transnational ties and activities along with features of cosmopolitan consciousness. Three main patterns emerge. Firstly, while all organisations aim to arrange cultural activities among their members living in Oslo, only a few organisations formulate aims of having a comprehensive transnational practice. Secondly, most organisations aim to combine either various forms of transnationalism and/or features of cosmopolitanism with efforts to integrate their members into Norwegian society, while there is hardly any local identity. Thirdly, the concept of cosmopolitanism is not mentioned by any organisation, although around 40 per cent of them refer to features of cosmopolitanism.