Suchergebnisse

In recent years, the Swedish Armed Forces have produced and distributed highly edited video clips on YouTube that show moving images of military activity. Along- side this development, mobile phone apps have emerged as an important channel through which the user can experience and take an interactive part in the staging of contemporary armed conflict. This article examines the way in which the aes- thetic and affective experience of Swedish defence and security policy is socially and (media-)culturally (co-)constructed and how the official representation of Swedish military intervention (re)produces political and economic effects when these activi- ties are distributed through traditional and social media such as YouTube and digital apps. Based on Isabela and Norman Fairclough's thoughts on political discourse, Michel Foucault's dialectic idea of power/knowledge, and Sara Ahmed's concept of the affective, I discuss how the Swedish digital military aesthetic is part of a broader political and economic practice that has consequences beyond the digital, the semi- otic, and what might at first glance appear to be pure entertainment. ; In recent years, the Swedish Armed Forces have produced and distributed highly edited video clips on YouTube that show moving images of military activity. Alongside this development, mobile phone apps have emerged as an important channel through which the user can experience and take an interactive part in the staging of contemporary armed conflict. This article examines the way in which the aesthetic and affective experience of Swedish defence and security policy is socially and (media-)culturally (co-)constructed and how the official representation of Swedish military intervention (re)produces political and economic effects when these activities are distributed through traditional and social media such as YouTube and digital apps. Based on Isabela and Norman Fairclough's thoughts on political discourse, Michel Foucault's dialectic idea of power/knowledge, and Sara Ahmed's concept of the affective, I discuss how the Swedish digital military aesthetic is part of a broader political and economic practice which has consequences beyond the digital, the semiotic and what might at first glance appear to be pure entertainment.

Dansk Folkeparti har i større udstrækning end andre partier anvendt pressemeddelelser som led i deres kommunikation. Samtidig har deres pressemeddelelser været af en anden karakter end de øvrige partiers. Med udgangspunkt i George Lakoffs teori om moralpolitik og med anvendelse af en Toulmin-inspireret argumentationsanalyse analyseres partiets pressemeddelelser fra en tilfældigt valgt måned i 2010. Analysen viser, at pressemeddelelserne udtrykker meget tydelige positioner med baggrund i moralske standpunkter. Politiske modsætninger behandles som moralske, men der er ikke tale om, at man på populistisk vis vender kappen efter vinden. Tværtimod er der tale om et særdeles homogent syn på politik som moral. På den baggrund diskuteres Lees-Marshments skelnen mellem markeds-, salgs- og produktorienterede partier, og konklusionen er, at man kan se Dansk Folkeparti som et salgsorienteret parti, som anvender pressemeddelelserne som et (billigt) middel for at nå ud til vælgerne. ; Dansk Folkeparti (the Danish People's Party) uses press releases to a much larger extent than any other Danish party. But they also use them in a different way. Through an analysis of press releases from a randomly chosen month in 2010, this article discusses the party's use of press releases not only as a source of information about the party's political initiatives but as a way of doing what George Lakoff has called Moral Politics. The use of press releases is then discussed in relation to the distinction presented by Lees-Marshement between product oriented, sales oriented and market oriented parties. The conclusion is that Dansk Folkeparti use the press releases as a part of their political marketing, but that the party due to its moral politics has to be classified as a sales oriented party.

"Det Konservative Folkeparti kan i ar fejre deres 100-ars jubilAeum som parti. Og umiddelbart lever konservatismen i bedste velgaende: Konservative debattorer ytrer sig ivrigt i medierne, og konservatismen markerer sig i den politiske offentlighed. Men virkeligheden er en anden. Partiet er splittet og star reelt midt i en tillidskrise, ligesom mange iagttagere mener, at det har mistet politisk fodfAeste. Det ser vi fx, nar Soren Pape onsker at give partiet en hojredrejning, selvom det reelt kun er fa ar siden, at den tidligere partiformand vendte sig mod midten.Denne interne splittelse er dog langtfra ny. Allerede i mellemkrigstiden oplevede partiet stAerke brydninger, tvivlede pa de liberale vAerdier og var uenige om, hvilken vej de skulle ga.Konservatisme i mellemkrigstiden er historien om mellemkrigstidens splittelse hos de konservative. Om en tid, hvor der var modstridende holdninger til, hvad konservatisme skulle vAere, og hvor kimen blev lagt til den moderne konservatisme, vi kender i dag."--

Discussion of the present state of the state of Bengal This monograph is from the private collection of Indranath Majumder, Kolkata, W.B., India.

Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Photini Danou, The words of the voiceless Did ordinary men and women in pre-modern England have an opinion about politics? What was "politics" for the common people at a time when they had not any say in choosing who would rule them? Was popular engagement in state politics only to secure subsistence? Were "knife and fork" politics of the masses so separate from issues of "high politics" of the State? Was pre-modern commoners' mentality, "pre-political" as well? This paper discusses early modern popular political awareness. I argue that commoners in Tudor England pursued their own political agenda, by exploiting the sovereign's self-image as the "protector of the poor". However, as I set out to show, in pursuing their political agenda commoners also raised issues on the content of Englishness, common good, patriotism, legitimate governance and the right of resistance. The political identity of the lower strata was not an entity fixed in its essence. On the contrary, plebeian political identity was rather shifting, changeable, and always constituting its content in particular historical contexts. The commoners' commitment to the ideal of the"nation", their loyalty to the government, their allegiance to their Queen, their obedience to her laws, or their active participation in the enforcement of state policies were not unconditional. The ways they practiced their political identity was interrelated to their superiors' behavior and draw its legitimacy from the public transcript of the English Common wealth. Common prosperity, reciprocity, solidarity and, in general, protection of the poorer and weaker members of English society were ideals that constituted the meaning of "common wealth" in the plebeian mind. Those ideals were prerequisites for their giving of devotion and loyalty to the state. Thus, the commoners' political mentality and behavior ranged from national loyalty to indifference or even animosity to state officials; from cooperation and acquiescence to covered or overt forms of opposition and active resistance.

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.

Russia's strategy in the Arctic is dominated by two overriding discourses – and foreign policy directions – which at first glance may look like opposites. On the one hand, an IR realism/geopolitical discourse that often has a clear patriotic character, dealing with "capturing", "winning" or "conquering" the Arctic and putting power, including military power, behind the national interests in the area – which is why we, in recent years, have seen an increasing military build-up, also in the Russian Arctic. Opposed to this is an IR liberalism, international law-inspired and modernization-focused discourse, which is characterized by words such as "negotiation", "cooperation" and "joint ventures" and which has as an axiom that the companies and countries operating in the Arctic all benefit the most if they collaborate in peace and friendliness. So far, the IR liberalism discourse has set the trend of the Russian policy carried out in relation to the Arctic. Thus, it has primarily been the Russian Foreign Ministry and, above all, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that have drawn the overall lines of the Arctic policy, well aided by the Transport Ministry and the Energy Ministry. On the other side are the Russian national Security Council led by Nikolai Patrushev and the Russian Defence Ministry headed by Sergey Shoygu, which both have embedded their visions of Russia and the Arctic in the IR realism/geopolitical discourse. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, does the same. Nevertheless, he has primarily chosen to let the Foreign Ministry set the line for the Arctic policy carried out, presumably out of a pragmatic acknowledgement of the means that have, so far, served the Russian interests best. Moreover, it is worth noting that both wings, even though they can disagree about the means, in fact are more or less in agreement about the goal of Russia's Arctic policy: namely, to utilize the expected wealth of oil and natural gas resources in the underground to ensure the continuation of the restoration of Russia's position as a Great Power when the capacity of the energy fields in Siberia slowly diminishes – which the Russian Energy Ministry expects to happen sometime between 2015 and 2030. In addition to that, Russia sees – as the polar ice slowly melts – great potential for opening an ice-free northern sea route between Europe and Asia across the Russian Arctic, with the hope that the international shipping industry can see the common sense of saving up to nearly 4,000 nautical miles on a voyage from Ulsan, Korea, to Rotterdam, Holland, so Russia can earn money by servicing the ships and issuing permissions for passage through what Russia regards as Russian territorial water. The question is whether Russia will be able to realize its ambitious goals. First, the Russian state energy companies Gazprom and Rosneft lack the technology, know-how and experience to extract oil and gas under the exceedingly difficult environment in the Arctic, where the most significant deposits are believed to be in very deep water in areas that are very difficult to access due to bad weather conditions. The Western sanctions mean that the Russian energy companies cannot, as planned, obtain this technology and know-how via the already entered-into partnerships with Western energy companies. The sanctions limit loan opportunities in Western banks, which hit the profitability of the most cost-heavy projects in the Arctic. However, what hits hardest are the low oil prices – at present 50 dollars per barrel (Brent). According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the fields in the Arctic are not profitable as long as the oil price is under 120 dollars per barrel. Whether Russia chooses to suspend the projects until the energy prices rise again – and until it has again entered into partnerships that can deliver the desired technology and know-how – or whether the Russian state will continuously pump money into the projects is uncertain. The hard-pressed Russian economy, with the prospects of recession, increasing inflation, increasing flight of capital, rising interest rates and a continuously low oil price, provides a market economic incentive for suspending the projects until further notice. Whether the Kremlin will think in a market economic way or a long-term strategic way is uncertain – but, historically, there has been a penchant for the latter. One of the Kremlin's hopes is that Chinese-Russian cooperation can take over where the Western-Russian cooperation has shut down. Russia has long wanted to diversify its energy markets to reduce its dependence on sales to Europe. At the same time, those in the Kremlin have had a deeply-rooted fear of ending up as a "resource appendix" to the onrushing Chinese economy, which so far has been a strong contributing reason for keeping the Russian-Chinese overtures in check. The question now is whether the Western sanctions can be the catalyst that can make Russia overcome this fear and thus, in the long term, support the efforts to enter into a real, strategic partnership with China. ; Russia's strategy in the Arctic is dominated by two overriding discourses – and foreign policy directions – which at first glance may look like opposites. On the one hand, Russia have an IR realism/geopolitical discourse that often has a clear patriotic character, dealing with "exploring", "winning" or "conquering" the Arctic and putting power, including military power, behind the national interests in the area – which is why we, in recent years, have seen an increasing military build-up, also in the Russian Arctic. Opposed to this is an IR liberalism, international law-inspired and modernization- focused discourse, which is characterized by words such as "negotiation", "cooperation" and "joint ventures" and which has as an axiom that the companies and countries operating in the Arctic all benefit the most if they cooperate peacefully.

De nære relationer mellem USA og Europa har i årtier været et centralt element i international politik. Men hvor kommer det transatlantiske forholds holdbarhed og modstandskraft fra? Dette spørgsmål optager mange forskere og aktualiseres nu af de igangværende forskydninger i verdenspolitikken. Bogessayet diskuterer derfor, hvordan de to bøger Special Relationships in World Politics (Haugevik, 2018) og Enduring Alliance (Sayle, 2019) fremmer vores viden om de bånd, der knytter staterne i det nordatlantiske område. Haugevik undersøger bilaterale amerikansk-britiske og britisk-norske 'specielle forhold', mens Sayle ser nærmere på det multilaterale samarbejde i NATO. De tilbyder begge interessante teoretiske argumenter om samspillet mellem diplomatisk praksis og nationale politiske dynamikker samt imponerende empiriske analyser, som underbygger deres pointer. De to bøger rejser samtidig også nye vigtige spørgsmål, herunder om de indbyggede spændinger i liberale normer og værdier samt om betydningen af tillid for det transatlantiske forholds holdbarhed.
Abstract in English: Something Special? The Transatlantic Ties and Their EnduranceFor several decades, the close relationship between the United States and Europe has been a key aspect of international politics. But what are the sources of the endurance and resilience of transatlantic ties? This question preoccupies researchers, and its salience is growing in light of current shifts in world politics. Accordingly, the book essay discusses how the two books Special Relationships in World Politics (Haugevik, 2018) and Enduring Alliance (Sayle, 2019) contribute to our knowledge about the international ties of the North Atlantic area. Haugevik examines bilateral American-British and British-Norwegian 'special relationships', while Sayles studies multilateral cooperation in NATO. They both offer interesting theoretical arguments about the interplay between diplomatic practice and national political dynamics. Moreover, they provide impressive empirical analyses to support their claims. At the same time, the two books raise new important questions, e.g. about the built-in tensions in liberal norms and values as well as about the significance of trust for enduring transatlantic ties.

Denne artikkelen undersøker diskursens rolle i konsolidering av autoritære regimer. Gjennom å etablere en dialog mellom Jacques Rancières arbeider om politikk og avpolitisering og poststrukturalistisk diskursanalyse argumenterer artikkelen for at diskursiv avpolitisering bidrar til at autokratier befester seg, og viser at autoritær konsolidering ofte finner sted i skjæringsfeltet mellom nasjonal og internasjonal politikk. Artikkelen retter et særskilt søkelys på Rancières begrep om kløfter som politikkens scene, og teoretiserer hvordan slike kløfter nøytraliseres i avpolitisering. Artikkelen fremsetter så en metode for å analysere diskursiv avpolitisering empirisk ved å konseptualisere Rancières logikker som idealtypiske avpolitiseringsdiskurser, og illustrerer denne analytiske strategien ved å anvende den på russisk offisiell diskurs i senere år (2015–2020). Slik forklarer artikkelen hvordan diskursive konstruksjoner har befestet Russland som autokrati: Den viser at autoritær konsolidering i Russland under Putin muliggjøres av rotfestede avpolitiserende diskurser som (re)produseres og forsterkes i et sammenvevet innenriks- og utenrikspolitisk felt. Artikkelen fremmer begrepet diskursiv avpolitisering som et nytt perspektiv på fagdebatter om den liberale verdensordens utfordringer og såkalte hybridregimer.
Abstract in English:Depoliticizing Democracy Through Discourse: Understanding Authoritarian Consolidation in Russia through Jacques Rancière's Political TheoryThis article investigates the role of discourses in processes of authoritarian consolidation. By bringing Jacques Rancière's works on politics and depoliticization into dialogue with poststructuralist discourse analysis, the article argues that discursive depoliticization contributes towards authoritarian consolidation, and displays how authoritarianism deepens in a co-dependent nexus of domestic and international politics. Focusing in particular on Rancière's concept of gaps as the stage for politics, the article theorizes how gaps are neutralized in depoliticization. The article offers a method for unpacking discursive depoliticization empirically by conceptualizing Rancière's logics as ideal-typical depoliticizing discourses, and illustrates this analytical strategy through analysis of Russian official discourse in recent years (2015–2020). The article thereby explains how discursive constructions have strengthened Russian autocracy: Entrenched depoliticizing discourses, produced and reinforced in a co-constitutive internal/external sphere, makes possible authoritarian consolidation in Russia under Putin. The article puts forward the concept of discursive depoliticization as a novel perspective on challenges to the liberal international order, and on "hybrid" regimes.

Simitis examines the European debt crisis with particular reference to the Greek case. He investigates its spillover from a Greek-specific problem to a Eurozone-wide crisis and chronicles the policy responses to combat it. His central argument is that the main cause of the Eurozone's problems was, and still remains, the indecisiveness of European elites to tackle its underlying deficiencies. Leading Eurozone countries have been unwilling to commit to a common long-term plan which could deal convincingly with complex and inter-related problems affecting both its 'core' and its 'periphery'

Det er ingen tvil om at hendelsesforløp som ble igangsatt 11. september 2001 har vært med på å prege global politikk i de to tiårene som har gått. Men ble terrorangrepene mot USA 11. september 2001 definerende for hvordan vi forstår internasjonal politikk og hvordan vi studerer det? Basert på en gjennomgang av studiet av internasjonal politikk over de siste 20 årene argumenterer vi i denne artikkelen at svaret her er mer tvetydig. Tvetydig fordi det utvilsomt har skjedd endringer og fordi det er lett å peke på utviklingstrekk i faget Internasjonal Politikk (IP) som har direkte eller indirekte utspring i hendelsene høsten 2001. Terrorismestudier fikk for eksempel et umiddelbart oppsving, og med den amerikanske invasjonen av Irak i 2003 kom en øket interesse for emner som imperial makt, opprørsbekjempelse og normativ internasjonal teori. Mer tvetydig fordi vi slett ikke er sikre på at de viktigste utviklingstrekkene i IP de siste tiårene kan forklares med 11. september. Vi er også usikre på hvor varige endringene i kjølvannet av 11. september kan sies å være. Vår tentative hypotese er at 11. september på kort og mellomlang sikt hadde betydelig effekt på vektleggingen av forskjellige emner innen IP. På lengre sikt var terrorangrepene og ettervirkningene av dem viktigst for fagutviklingen på de områdene der det umiddelbare sjokket bidro til å forsterke allerede eksisterende trender.
Abstract in English:The Study of International Politics After 11 September 2001To what extent did 9/11 impact the discipline of International Relations (IR)? In the current article, we argue that while the impact of 9/11 on global politics is undeniable, the verdict when it comes to the discipline in charge of studying these events, IR, is more ambiguous. For while IR and the study of global politics has changed over time, the discipline is, we argue, as much prone to "internal" changes as it is to external shocks. Thus, we suggest a model for understanding the sociology of science of IR which takes into account both internal and external sources of change. While IR would have looked quite different today without the attacks of 9/11, we argue that we would still have been able to recognize it.

Nordområdene har vært på den norske utenrikspolitiske agendaen i 15 år. Mye har endret seg i denne perioden. Det som preger debatten i 2020, er forestillinger om stormaktpolitikk og rivalisering i nord. Samtidig hevdes det fra de arktiske hovedstedene at regionen er preget av samarbeid, og at de arktiske statene har fellesinteresser som gjør konflikt lite sannsynlig. Hvordan kan to så ulike oppfatninger om Arktis opptre samtidig? I dette bidraget foretar vi en lagdeling mellom tre ulike nivåer av sikkerhetspolitikk i og om nordområdene og Arktis. Dette tydeliggjør hvordan regionen kan være preget av både samarbeid og rivalisering på samme tid. Samarbeid og rivalsering vektes ulikt avhengig av tid og sted, men de er ikke gjensidig utelukkende.
Abstract in English:Great Power Politics and Increased Tension? The Art of Differentiating Analyses in the ArcticThe High North has been on the Norwegian foreign policy agenda for 15 years. Much has changed over this period. What characterizes the debate in 2020 are notions of great power politics and rivalry in the north. At the same time, Arctic states claim that the region is defined by cooperation and that the Arctic states have common interests that make conflict unlikely. How can two such different perceptions of the Arctic exist simultaneously? In this contribution, we separate between three different levels of security policy in and around the High North and the Arctic. This helps clarify how the region can be characterized by both cooperation and rivalry at the same time. Cooperation and rivalry differ depending on time and place, but they are not mutually exclusive.

Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Eleni Fournaraki, «Wherefore deprive her of the vote?». Universal male suffrage and the exclusion of women from politics in 19th century Greece Through study of the Greek case, this article tries to explore the exclusion of women from political rights in the context of liberal democracy as a historiographical problem. In contrast to the vast majority of representative states at the time, political circumstances prevailing in Greece led to the constitutional establishment of universal male suffrage in 1864, though not without provoking the discontent of a sizeable portion of the political scene for several years thereafter. According to «conventional» historical accounts, there can be no doubt that women's exclusion from «universal suffrage» in 1864, while not explicity articulated in the Constitution or any pertinent legislation, was regarded as self-evident. Furthermore, prior to 1910-20 the possibility of attributing the vote to women did not preoccupy party politics, while a suffragist movement did not appear before the Inter-war period. Our own approach can be summarized as follows: exploration of the meaning of women's exclusion from political rights in a democratic conjuncture that assured those rights to all adult men may reveal the full dimensions of the conflict dynamic that democratic conquests presuppose. In the first place, this dynamic applies to men themselves, or more precisely to the less privileged among them. As empirical data reveal, the question of women's political rights, even if acquiring those rights was not an existing possibility, could appear as a constructive element of the political discourse: women's exclusion could have been put forward as one of the issues in the argument against universal male suffrage. It is precisely the self-evident and trivial nature of this exclusion together with that of children which could offer a more convincing argument against the conception of suffrage as a natural right. A lack of internal coherence and consistency in the argument of the advocates of «universal suffrage», could be pointed out through the emphasis, conversely, on the irrationality of a regime that guaranteed political participation down to the very last «illiterate» or «vagrant» man, while depriving all women of the vote, especially those who had the ability to possess and administrate property. Support for suffrage for those women was not totally absent from such argumentation, which served to reveal the contradictions that women's exclusion from political rights brought to the heart of the modern system for the legitimization of sovereignty. Through examination of the arguments employed by the science of constitutional law to justify exclusion, we observe a broader process of redefinition and rationalization of the existing gender hierarchy, in modern terms. Crystallized in the last quarter of 19th century, this process appealed to the notion of the biological and psychological «specificity» of «female nature)) in order to legitimize the incompatibility of women as a whole with politics.

This article discusses the recent debate between Jürgen Habermas and Wolfgang Streeck on the relationship between capitalism and democracy in Europe. The article recounts Streeck's analysis of the financial crisis, the transformation of the tax state into the debt state, and the development of the EU towards an international consolidation state, which informs Streeck's call for a retreat from Europe to the nation-state as the last line of defense against neoliberal capitalism. The article proceeds to sketch Habermas's criticism of Streeck's argument, and it illustrates how Habermas' proposal for a reconstitution of the EU as a supranational democracy is motivated by foundational concerns in his critical theory of society. Finally, the article argues that the debate results in an unresolved dilemma: while only a democratized EU can reestablish the supremacy of politics over globalized markets, the EU is more likely to become further entrenched as an international consolidation state.

This article analyzes Sweden's foreign policy 2011–2018. The article is part of a special issue on how the Nordic countries have responded to recent geopolitical change. The international context in which Sweden finds itself has in a number of ways changed drastically during the time of analysis. The foundations of Sweden's foreign policy, however, have seen less change. The Swedish policy adjustments we see are rather the effects of radical change taking place in the previous two decades: the EU membership, the partnership with NATO, and the abandonment of the policy of neutrality. Sweden is thus learning how to adapt to this transformation of its international orientation during a turbulent time in global politics. The article includes an overview of Swedish foreign policy and the literature on the topic. We discuss the major actors, institutions, tools and frameworks in the foreign policy making process. A detailed analysis of the Foreign Minister's Statement of Government Policy provides a temporal comparison over the last decade.