A picturesque travelogue: Mary Wollstonecraft's “letters written during a short residence in Sweden,Norway, and Denmark”, 1796

The article presents a reading of Mary Wollstonecraft's “Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark”, dated 1796, in which the concept of the Picturesque is used as an analytical framework. The Picturesque is a contemporary British aesthetics concerned with how we look at landscape, and with the aestheticism of viewing. It is suggested that the Picturesque offers a new way of understanding Mary Wollstonecraft's position in‐between Enlightenment and Romanticism, Revolution and Restoration, authorship and journalism.     

Fragmented Government Effects on Fiscal Policy: New Evidence

Using a panel of 22 OECD countries over the 1971–1996period, this paper extends previous literature on the effectsof fragmented government on fiscal policy outcomes in variousdirections. First, we focus on data relating to centralgovernment as alltheories refer to central government. Second, we also examinegovernment's position vis-à-vis parliament andgovernment's political fragmentation. We find evidence thatmore fragmented governmentshave higher deficits, while governments that have a largemajority in parliament have lower deficits. Right-winggovernments appear to have been fiscally more responsible inthe seventies. Political fragmentation does not affect agovernment's budget deficit.     

An Interactional Perspective of Intimate Partner Violence: An In-depth Semi-structured Interview of a Representative Sample of Help-seeking Women

This article reports a study of women victimized by intimate partner violence (IPV). We describe three interactional aspects of IPV: (1) responses and conduct before, during, and after IPV episodes, (2) impact of alcohol and drug intoxication, and (3) Predictors of risk for IPV victimization in more than one partnership. A representative sample of 157 help-seeking women, recruited from family counseling offices, the police and shelters, were interviewed about physical, psychological and sexual IPV. The nature and characteristics of the IPV interactions were complex and heterogeneous. There were significant interactional differences between the IPV categories concerning the women’s responses and conduct before, during and after the IPV. The impact of alcohol and drug intoxication was relatively small on the occurrence of IPV. About 75% reported that neither the perpetrator nor the female victim had consumed alcohol or drugs before the index IPV exposure. Only 23% of the women had experienced IPV by previous partners. Women who had been subjected to sexual abuse in their family of origin were at almost 25 times increased risk of IPV victimization in more than one partnership. Childhood exposure to physical IPV between parents increased the risk of IPV victimization in more than one partnership significantly more than if the woman had been subject to childhood physical victimization.     

What Makes Diets Political? Moral Foundations and the Left-Wing-Vegan Connection

Social Justice Research - Though meat-consumption is known to be a key factor in environmental damage, veganism and vegetarianism are still perceived to be left-wing-phenomena, ironically not...     

Cernoises and Horrible Cernettes: a history of women at CERN 1954–2017

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) was founded in 1954 by a group of men seeking to explore the fundamental building blocks of our Universe. Since then, they and a host of international scholars have succeeded, exemplified by the discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012 and numerous Nobel Prize awards. But running parallel to the ‘great men’ of high-energy physics, is the untold story of the women of CERN. The organisation is an elite institution, and can thus provide insight into why numbers of women remain low in all facets of its work (except professional administrative). This viewpoint explores the role of women at CERN, both scientists and non-scientists, drawing on archival research from the organisation’s collection in Geneva and interviews, providing an analysis of why gender diversity is still one of the puzzles left for this elite space to solve.     

Political Sociology of International Interventions: Peacebuilders and the Ground

ABSTRACT

This special issue, instead of questioning what effect peacebuilding interventions have on post-conflict societies, analyses what the ground of intervention does to peacebuilders. It demonstrates that everyday interactions on the ground shape the interveners and even the scope of their missions. We delineate how a political sociology approach might break away from binaries (‘internationals/locals’) and, instead, illuminate processes (of internationalization and localization). We intend to offer a political sociology of the ‘intervention encounter’, that is, to scrutinize the everyday interactions among peacebuilders and between peacebuilders and domestic actors, and to investigate effects of the ground on peacebuilding organizations, doctrines and decision-making processes, as well as on peacebuilders’ trajectories, positions, professional practices and representations. In fine, we explore how peacebuilders’ relations to the ground structure the socio-professional field of peacebuilding.     

Security Identities and ‘No More,No Less’ Operations: On Making NATO's Involvement in Darfur Possible

This article explores NATO's support mission to the African Union's peacekeeping operation in Darfur, Sudan between 2005 and 2007. NATO policies are commonly presented as functional responses to events, but how did a conflict on the African continent become the Atlantic Alliance's business? In this essay, a poststructuralist practice-oriented approach is used to understand the way in which discursive practices progressively establish a policy option as ‘natural' in a given situation. It is argued that the normalization of NATO's support mission to the African Union in Darfur and the integration of this operation in NATO's security identity were the result of complex and conflict-ridden social interactions between different discursive practices supported by different actors.     

Potential legal protection problems in the use of compulsory commitment in mental health care in Norway

Compulsory commitment in mental health care represents a dramatic infringement on an individual's life. In Norway, this deprivation of liberty is based on a professional medical assessment that does not require a court verdict. This article presents possible changes that may increase legal protection for the mentally ill. The concept of legal protection has at least two definitions: the state's protection of the individual's legal rights (including the right to health care) and the protection afforded to citizens from abuse and arbitrary actions by the state. Infringements on personal liberty without consent require such legal authority as is found in the Human Rights Conventions. These Conventions have precedence over national laws. Norwegian legislation is based on confidence in psychiatry as a profession. This confidence allows professionals to treat patients against their will. In some countries, initial court action is necessary before compulsory mental health care can be implemented. This should also be possible in Norway in most cases, with the exception of life-threatening situations.