A Revenge of the Generals. The Rebalancing of the Civil-military Relations in France

ABSTRACT

While academic debate on the political control of military forces tends to oppose the poles of ‘integration’ or ‘separation’, the French military tradition is most often described as a case of subordination to political authorities. I examine the indicators of the rebalance of power in favour of the military by adopting an inductive approach based on the observation of the institutionalization of Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC). The focus on o?cers’ professional trajectories and collective resources, gives an alternative explanation of the adaptation of the military organizations to the security environment, that no longer only relies on usual realist and functionalist theories.     

Introducing the special issue: bringing in the public. Intelligence on the frontier between state and civil society

ABSTRACT

This special issue is based on the observation that today’s intelligence services stand before a difficult task of, on the one hand, having to manage the uncertainties associated with new threats by inviting civil actors in to help, while also, on the other hand, having to uphold their own institutional authority and responsibility to act in the interest of the nation. In balancing this task, we show how today’s intelligence practices constantly contests the frontiers between normal politics and security politics and between civil society and the state. In this introduction we argue that these changes can be observed at three different levels. One is at the level of managerial practices of intelligence collection and communication; another is in the increased use of new forms of data, i.e. of social media information; and a third is the expansion of intelligence practices into new areas of concern, e.g. cybersecurity and the policing of (mis-) information.     

Public administrators in interactive democracy: a multi-paradigmatic approach

ABSTRACT

Currently, interactive forms of democracy that bring local politicians into dialogue and collaboration with relevant and affected citizens are mushrooming. While some research has investigated how interactive democracy affects citizens and politicians, we know little about what interactive democracy means for public administrators. This article presents the results of a case study of role perceptions and coping strategies among public administrators assisting a new type of interactive political committee in two Nordic municipalities. Guided by a multi-paradigmatic conceptual framework featuring public administrators’ roles and coping strategies in interactive governance, the study shows that individual public administrators identify with different administrative roles, and that political and administrative leadership sentiments condition their choice of coping strategies. Moreover, the coping strategy that public administrators select to handle intra- and inter-paradigmatic role dilemmas can have dire consequences for the interplay between interactive democracy and local representative government.     

Survival of the Ministers: On Ministerial Durability in Postwar Norway

The field of ministerial durability, showing why some ministers are dismissed and others not, has increased in size over the last decade. Specifically, linking ministerial performance through resignation calls with durability has been applied to both majoritarian and semi‐presidential systems, whereas this link is less explored in consensual electoral systems. Thus, this study explores the relationship between ministerial performance and durability in postwar Norway, drawing on the principal‐agent theory for parliamentary democracies and the accountability link between party leaders and ministers. The main finding is that there are many similarities to other studies’ ministerial durability and performance. By measuring performance in resignation calls coming through the media, it is found that ministerial durability is decreased when performance is low: the more resignation calls a minister gets, the more likely the minister is to be removed by the party leader. Consequently, it is argued that ministers generally are held accountable by their party leaders whenever they are perceived to perform badly. Even though it is argued in the article that studies on ministerial durability and performance would benefit from alternative performance measures, the analysis shows that resignation calls give a good indication of how party leaders hold ministers accountable.     

“But how to speak of such things?”: decolonial love,the coloniality of gender,and political struggle in Francisco Goldman's The Long Night of White Chickens (1992) and Jennifer Harbury's Bridge of Courage (1994) and Searching for Everardo (1997)

This article presents an analysis of works by Francisco Goldman and Jennifer Harbury, which deal with “cataclysmic moments” of recent Guatemalan history. It explores gender relations in these works with reference to three themes: storytelling, communication and affective relationships. Conceptually, I draw on the notions of decolonial love, the coloniality of gender, and the world gender order as categories of analysis. I take Chela Sandoval's methodology of the oppressed as a guideline for my analysis, and look at the ways in which different types of storytelling perpetuate or question the coloniality of gender, at the consequences of intercultural misunderstandings produced by different readings of the coloniality of gender and the world gender order, and at the significance of a critical and liberatory practice of gender roles for decolonial love. The practice of decolonial love is an alternative to what Tzvetan Todorov has called “the dreadful concatenation,” which is a result of cultural encounters during the conquest of the Americas and which conceptualizes as “love” a feeling that sidesteps equality, an exercise in destruction and possession. The coloniality of gender and decolonial love are explored through their interactions with masculinities and femininities across the different case studies.     

Doing couples: Negotiating faith and gender. Ideals and strategies

How do young women and men do their couples when they have a different faith and gender from that of their partner? What kind of stories do they tell and how do they tell them, in order to present their relationships as modern and successful? Which ideals do their stories reflect? And what kinds of strategies do young women and men develop when they do couples?     

Gender and power in a post-nationalist European Union

The issue of gender and ICT and the concern about an emerging digital divide in Norway have been dominated by a fear that the symbolic content and practices around ICT—epitomized in the hacker stereotype—are turning women off by making them feel like entering a “boy's room” when using ICT. State feminist policies have been developed to cope with these challenges, directed at schools and universities in particular. This paper provides a critical discussion of the state feminist understanding of gender and ICT, to argue the need for a more heterogeneous approach.     

Trends in the Perpetration of Physical Aggression among Norwegian Adolescents 2007–2015

Most research on trends in physical aggression has shown declining levels among adolescents during the past two decades. However, few studies have attempted to explain such time trends. Based on two representative cross-sectional surveys of students in the final year of high school in 2007 (N?=?6631; 58.8% girls) and 2015 (N?=?4145; 60.3% girls), this study reports a substantial decline in physical aggression among Norwegian adolescents. Moreover, mediation analyses show that declining levels in problematic alcohol use and family violence during the same period are plausible explanations for some of this reduction. The results are discussed in light of contemporary changes in socialization of adolescents, and implications for violence prevention are presented.