The Many Faces of Accountability: Comparing Reforms in Welfare,Hospitals and Migration

Welfare reforms involve trade‐off between different accountability types, such as political, administrative, legal and social accountability. This variety of accountability types is used to investigate consequences of reforms in three different welfare services in Norway; social services, hospitals and immigration. The study finds that more complex, dynamic and layered accountability forms are emerging, but that there are some differences across reform areas. The reforms in immigration seem to change accountability relations the most in hospitals, administrative and political accountability is up against professional accountability, and we see that politicians lack overall capacity and have to rely on administrative accountability in social services. In order to analyze how reforms affect accountability relations one has to study both the formal and informal changes, as well as the relationship between politics and professionalism.     

The Israel and Palestine land settlement problem: An analytical history, 4000 B.C.E.–1948 C.E.

This paper traces the history of the modern conflict between Israel and Palestine from 4000 B.C.E. to 1948 C.E.. It shows how Jews and Arabs diverged from a common source to become arch-enemies during the British Mandate over Palestine. It outlines the impact of world war II, the holocaust, treason, and terrorism on the Palestinian problem, and explains why Britain relinquished the Mandate in 1947, leaving the United Nations to resolve the land settlement problem. The paper outlines the manipulation by the USSR and the USA of the United Nations General Assembly vote on Resolution 181, in November 1947. It demonstrates why this corrupted land settlement set the scene for almost 60 years of continuous war and terrorism in the Middle East.