The left‐wing opposition in Denmark,Norway and Sweden: Cases of Euro‐phobia?

This article maps the three major Left‐Socialist parties in Denmark, Norway and Sweden and their attitude towards European integration. It focuses on why the three parties, despite a common vision of Europe, differ when it comes to the question of membership in the European Union. The analysis stresses that both differences in party history and political context have to be accounted for when explaining the parties’ policy stands.     

Presidential elections in Finland: A plea for approval voting

The Finnish President is elected by an indirect method-the people elect special electors who carry out the final election. A proposal for a reform aiming at direct elections is, however, presently being considered. This paper agrees with this proposal and suggests that approval voting is a proper method for direct elections. Several properties of the approval voting system are discussed and the method is demonstrated to be superior to the plurality runoff method in presidential elections. It is argued that the approval voting system chooses a candidate who has overall support in the electorate and that the system therefore promotes the position of the President as a neutral and moderating political force.     

Foreign Policy Objectives: Left Socialist Opposition in Denmark, Norway and Sweden

Due to their foreign policy opposition, the left socialist parties in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden remain among the few parties in Western democracies that lack governmental experience. When political parties confront political issues, they can either choose a competitive or a cooperative strategy. The Norwegian and Swedish left socialists chose competition when the EU issue appeared on the scene in the early 1990s. The Danish Socialist People's Party, on the other hand, opted for a cooperative strategy and accepted EU membership and the 1993 Edinburgh Agreement. Drawing on coalition theory, this article asks why.     

The 22 July Terrorist Attacks in Norway: Impact on Public Attitudes towards Counterterrorist Authorities

Did the terrorist attacks in Norway affect citizens’ attitudes to security‐related institutions and policies? To answer this question this study pools two cross‐sectional surveys, collected shortly before and after the 2011 terrorist attacks, to determine the attacks’ effects on people's attitudes. One important finding is that general support for the institutions responsible for security increased slightly, whereas specific support for government agencies capability to prevent and cope with crises decreased markedly. A second important finding concerns the potential for politicisation of crises: On issues of security, the distance between right‐wing voters and other party voters increased after the attack. Irrespective of party attachment, Norwegians have become less satisfied with governmental policies on security‐related issues, but dissatisfaction has increased significantly more among right‐wing than among left‐wing voters. Thus, even in a country where politicians responded to the crisis with an appeal to togetherness and common values, citizens’ attitudes on security policies were politicised.     

When is a Reminder Enough? Text Message Voter Mobilization in a European Context

Sending text messages reminding people to vote has only been examined as a mobilization tool in three studies, two of them done in the United States. The results from these studies are mixed. We investigate this tool’s effectiveness using a field experiment in a different context, municipal elections in Norway. We find strong mobilization effects among groups traditionally low in participation (immigrants and youth voters). Young native Norwegians show an intent-to-treat (ITT) effect of 4.58% points, foreign nationals who have recently established Norwegian residency show an ITT effect of 2.93% points, and among immigrants who have lived in Norway for 7 years or more the treatment effect is 2.7% points. Even among native Norwegian voters over 30, with a baseline turnout of 73%, text messages generate a 0.96% points increase in turnout.

     

Service quality and the optimum number of members in intermunicipal cooperation: The case of emergency primary care services in Norway

Intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) is often used as a mean to reap scale benefits. Most studies on the effects of IMC focus on cost savings, while service quality is overlooked. In this study, the focus is set on input quality in a service characterized by high asset specificity and need for redundancy: emergency primary care. We analyze how mode of governance affect performance by (1) measuring whether IMC versus single-municipal production affects input quality and (2) identifying optimum scale of operation; effect of the number of participants in the cooperation on input quality. The findings indicate that cooperation weakens the input quality of medical workforce, but that this negative effect is balanced out as the number of participants increases, indicating that cooperation needs to reach a certain size to achieve optimum scale of operation. Concerning equipment, both cooperation in general and an increasing number of participants decrease the input quality.     

‘State of exception’ or ‘state in exile’? The fallacy of appropriating Agamben on Palestinian refugee camps

To refer to Palestinian refugee camps as states of exception, appropriating the paradigm of Giorgio Agamben, is definitely tempting. Agamben argues that in times of crisis, individual rights of citizens are diminished and entire categories of people kept outside the political system. Nevertheless, there are flaws in applying Agamben’s perspective on Palestinian camps. It acquits the camp residents from the autonomy over their own political agency. Historically, in Lebanon, camp residents experienced an almost limitless access to free political organisation. But this access has not been converted into the development of representative, legitimate political structures.     

The Role of International Clientelism in the National Factionalism of Palestine

In this article I investigate the role of the international community's policy in the national factionalism in Palestine. I attempt to illuminate how international policy has contributed to the sustaining of internecine Palestinian violence as Fatah, which lost the elections in 2005 and 2006, has been motivated not to hand over power. In the process of selecting allies in the fight against Islamist terrorism, the epitomic undemocratic feature of Arab political culture, clientelism, has been promoted over democracy. Hamas seizing power in Gaza in 2007 probably resulted from the need to tame unruly militant groups which were sponsored by leaders of the Palestinian Fatah party, which again were supported by Western powers. To understand the national splitting in Palestine there is a need to analyse the interconnection between warlords, local clientelism and international clientelism.     

Book reviews

Consuming Public Services, Nicholas Deakin and Anthony Wright (eds), 1990, pp. ix + 222, Routledge, £30.00.

Managing under Pressure: Industrial Relations in Local Government, Martin Laffin, 1989, pp. 207, Macmillan, £30.00 hardback, £8.95 paperback.

Targeting Urban Employment Initiatives, Ivan Turok and Urlan Wannop, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £8.50.

Tourism and the Inner City: An Evaluation of the Impact of Grant Assisted Tourism Projects, Polytechnic of Central London, Leisureworks and DRV Research, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £15.50.

Five Year Review of the Bolton, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Programme Authorities, PEIDA Ltd, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £16.50.

Getting People into Jobs: Good Practice in Urban Regeneration, Keith Hayton, Department of the Environment, (Inner Cities Directorate) HMSO, 1990, £13.00.

US Experience in Evaluating Urban Regeneration: Reviews of Urban Research, Tim Barnekov, Douglas Hart and Wilhelm Benfer, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £7.70.

American Development Control: Parallels and Paradoxes from an English Perspective, Richard Wakeford, HMSO, 1990, pp. 277, £25.00.

Urban Government in the 1990s: Lessons from the USA, Robin Hambleton, School for Advanced Urban Studies, University of Bristol, 1990, pp. 129, £7.45.

Shropshire County Council: A Centenary History, D. C. Cox, Shropshire County Council, 1989, pp. 104, £5.95.

A History of Devon County Council 1889–1989, Jeffrey Stanyer, Devon Books, 1989, pp. 105, £3.95.

Government and County. A History of Northamptonshire County Council 1889–1989, Jonathan Bradley, University of Bristol Press, pp. 280.

Political Parties and Coalitions in European Local Government, Colin Mellors and Bert Pijnenburg (eds), Croom Helm, 1989, pp. 311, £35.00.

London 2001, Peter Hall, Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 226, £17.95

Abolition: The Reform of Metropolitan Government in England 1983–86: A Review and Bibliography, Ken Young and Lesley Grayson, 1988, Technical Communications, pp. 186.