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.     

EU–Japan “Structured Cooperation” and energy efficiency for Asia

The paper argues that for EU–Japan cooperation the time has come to move from declarations of intent to action. It is suggested that in order to function and to last the cooperation needs a framework that pulls together and organizes different cooperation areas and concrete projects. The framework, it is suggested, should be a flexible “Structured Cooperation” in and under which cooperation would be treated as a negotiating project, in which the advantages and benefits of individual projects would lead to an agreed BoB—balance of benefits. To ensure delivery and allow for adjustments, adding and adjusting of subjects etc. a management and surveillance structure would be required to ensure an enduring interest of both sides in continuing cooperation. The individual cooperation projects, it is suggested, should be organized around common themes—the pillars—for better coherence and management. In a second part the paper suggests a practical and feasible cooperation project for improving the energy efficiency of some products widely used in Asia. That proposal uses the main elements of a relatively easy to implement approach that has been successfully applied in Europe. This approach has the advantage over others to make harmonization of efficiency requirements for energy using products in Asia possible, without the need to engage in time consuming and potentially controversial mutual recognition negotiations of national standards or the need to harmonize national Asian standards.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Corrupt reciprocity - Experimental evidence on a men's game

Why are women regarded to be more resistant towards corruption? We address this question by letting students allotted the role of public servants receive a bribe and choose between reporting (whistleblowing), opportunism and reciprocity (delivery of a contract to the briber). Those acting as businesspersons choose whether or not to publicize at the end of the game. Male businesspersons more often depart from maximizing payoffs and allocate resources to punishing opportunistic public servants. Instead of acting opportunistically, some public servants tend to reciprocate or report. We find that female public servants are less inclined to reciprocate. Their resistance towards corruption is found to relate less to a willingness to report. Survey data from international households shows that men are more confident that bribes will be reciprocated, supporting our results.     

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.     

China’s “Radicalism at the Center”: Regime Legitimation through Climate Politics and Climate Governance

The article examines whether there is reciprocity between the legitimating effects of China’s regime at home and abroad and how global governance and legitimacy interact in the case of China. This is done through an analysis of Chinese climate politics and China’s engagement in international climate negotiations and governance, especially its behavior during and after the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009 and the Chinese regime’s efforts to legitimate this behavior. While China’s role in international climate governance was disputed at the Copenhagen Summit, China contributed constructively to brokering a deal with significant implications for a new climate governance architecture suiting China’s preferences and being aligned with China’s core interests. China defended the procedural logic of the current global climate governance framework and managed to contain institutional change. Based on Anthony Giddens’ proposition about “radicalism at the centre”, it is argued that China’s national and international discourse on and actions associated with climate change and the international negotiations about the new climate governance architecture seem to be able to reinforce each other and may well have a mutual legitimacy augmenting effect for the ‘radicals at the centre’ of the Chinese regime, provided that they ensure consequential logic through targeted reduction of GHG emissions and a “green transformation” of the economy.