Reconsidering Nordic Party Space1

The erosion of the social and economic bases underlying traditional party systems has led analysts to search for new cleavage structures undergirding the present party systems. Meanwhile, analysts have identified a range of issue dimensions that also bear on voters’ party preferences. This article studies the degree to which grid-group theory's four political biases of hierarchy, egalitarianism, individualism, and fatalism can make inroads into the left–right dimension's stronghold in accounting for voters’ party preference. The analysis draws on a 1999 survey in the five Nordic countries (N= 4,832). The method combines voters’ party preferences with their scores on issue dimensions, or political dimensions. Analyses show that conventional party families, with one exception, are not identified along any of the five political orientations. Only the five conservative parties are exclusively identified as a party family on the left–right dimension. Party preference is more closely associated with the left–right dimension than the political biases. Sweden has the purest and simplest party cleavage, whereas Denmark has the most composite one. Across the Nordic countries, the green party family is most dissimilar, whereas the progress siblings are most alike. The left–right dimension accounts well for differences between parties within polities, whereas political biases, and egalitarianism in particular, account well for differences between parties of similar origin across polities.     

Competition and Innovation in a Hostile Environment: How Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State Moved to Twitter in 2013–2014

Abstract

Social media offer unprecedented opportunities to terrorist groups to spread their message and target specific audiences for indoctrination and recruitment. In 2013 and 2014, social media, in particular Twitter, overtook Internet forums as preferred space for jihadist propaganda. This article looks into Arabic statements by Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic State and jihadist forum administrators and online activists to argue that, beside the easier use of social media and disruption and infiltration of the forums, the conflict between the jihadist groups accelerated the migration to social media and the building of a presence on Twitter that provided relative resilience to suspensions.     

Schizophrenia and violent crime: the experience of parents

Individuals with schizophrenia have an increased risk of committing a violent crime, although their contribution to the overall criminality in society is small. In this qualitative study we have interviewed parents of adult sons, diagnosed with schizophrenia and who recently had been referred to forensic psychiatric treatment due to a violent crime, with an aim to explore the parents' experiences and emotional reactions. Four events, or status passages, emerged as crucial and common for all parents. These were the onset of the mental disorder, the diagnosis of schizophrenia, the violent behaviour/criminality and the recent referral to forensic psychiatric treatment. Every passage evoked strong emotional reactions such as guilt, fear, disappointment, anger and relief, which in return led to different actions taken. Unawareness of the character and severity of their sons' mental illness and the type of violent criminality they had committed were common and complicated contacts both between the parents and their sons, and also between family members and official authorities. The findings emphasize that psychiatric health care professionals must take the initiative and responsibility for information, education and support of family members.     

The Nordic governments' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic: A comparative study of variation in governance arrangements and regulatory instruments

Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Nordic states—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—exhibit similarities and differences. This article investigates the extent to which crisis policymaking diverges from normal policymaking within the Nordic countries and whether variations between the countries are associated with the role of expertise and the level of politicization. Government responses are analyzed in terms of governance arrangements and regulatory instruments. Findings demonstrate some deviation from normal policymaking within and considerable variation between the Nordic countries, as Denmark, Finland, and to some extent Norway exhibit similar patterns with hierarchical command and control governance arrangements, while Iceland, in some instances, resembles the case of Sweden, which has made use of network-based governance. The article shows that the higher the influence of experts, the more likely it is that the governance arrangement will be network-based.     

Revisiting the decline in remarriage in early-modern Europe: The case of Rheims in France

There is no lack of surveys showing that from a high rate of breastfeeding in the industrializing world of the early 20th century, after World War II the incidence declined to a nadir around 1960. For instance only a third of the infants in the US were given their own mothers' milk. The suckling of the new born is clearly not a natural instinct but needs to be taught and supported. Even if quantitative data is hard to come by for earlier centuries, there still is ample evidence that many mothers followed a tradition of not breastfeeding themselves, especially in the early 18th century. The reasons for this are partly economical, centered on the mother's heavy workload in non-industrial and energy-poor societies. But there are also cultural background factors behind the use of wet-nurses and artificial nourishment, where medical, religious and sexual ideas blend into a persuasive set of motives imprinting in women that breastfeeding is undesirable. The sending of urban babies to wet-nurses in the countryside was in part motivated by the tough epidemic climate in the cities. Modern anthropological research shows how cultural and economic motives can be doubly effective by reinforcing each other. The paper hypothesizes that for Western Europe where we have the richest historical records there may have been a breastfeeding pattern with more extensive breastfeeding in the northern parts of the continent and more use of wet-nurses and artificial nourishment in the Catholic southern parts, and that this may be rooted in long-lasting cultural factors. In addition there may have a number of places (Iceland, the Fennoscandian Arctic) where women had difficulty breastfeeding consistently because of an especially heavy workload in a tough environment, and where this developed into normative behaviour.