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Iver Neumann has been an inter-disciplinary entrepreneur for political science in Norway. For Neumann, interdisciplinarity has been coupled with an understanding of politics as the search for meaning and identity. These features are well-developed in European political science, particularly within the field of international relations, but they are more rarely encountered in Norway. This brief article provides a sketch of political science as it evolved and matured in its Norwegian incarnation. In situating Iver Neumann within the discipline, I emphasise his international and eclectic orientation. The personal, national and international meet in Neumann's works, as do popular culture and politics.

Book Review: Devolution and Localism in England. By David M. Smith and Enid Wistrich. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, 122 pp.; ISBN: 978-1-14724-3079-3.

Book Review: Devolution and Localism in England. By David M. Smith and Enid Wistrich. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, 122 pp.; ISBN: 978-1-14724-3079-3.

AbstractThe significance of ideas to foreign policy analysis remains contested, despite a plethora of empirical studies applying ideational frameworks. Drawing on social constructivism, this article proposes a causal understanding where ideas derived from tradition define the political space for contemporary debates and effect foreign policy behaviour. This ideational approach is substantiated by a historical study of guiding principles in British and French foreign policy, which establish a set of baseline expectations for the analysis of Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac's speeches on Iraq. The empirical study shows that whereas Chirac largely stayed within a French ideational framework, Blair applied a more complex combination of ideas from both traditions. Conceptualising Blair as an aspiring (but ultimately unsuccessful) norm entrepreneur is a fruitful interpretation of this role.