The 2015 Norwegian Local Elections: Support for Governing Radical Right Progress Party Plummets and Great Gains for Greens in ‘Second-Order’ Elections

Two years into the first term of the right wing Conservative/Progress Party coalition government, the 2015 Norwegian local elections displayed many features of a ‘second-order’ election: the governing parties lost considerable support, minor parties did well and voter turnout was low. For the second local elections in a row, political circumstances prevented the far right Progress Party from mobilizing on the anti-immigration issue, adding to the burdens of governing nationally for the first time. The Green Party leveraged its 2013 entry into the national parliament into record support, consolidating the progress made in the 2011 local elections. Although the elections were shaped by national politics, municipal and county variation shows that local political factors did matter.     

Easy Money: Tax Exporting and State Support for Higher Education

There is a substantial literature that assesses the effects of tax‐exporting capacities on the tax structures and aggregate spending levels that state governments choose to implement, but no work exists that isolates the effects of state tax exporting on higher education spending. Using state‐level data for 1989, 1995, 2002, and 2007, we estimate for the median voter in each state the change in the marginal cost of higher education subsidization generated by tax exportation, and calculate the increased higher education spending that results. We consider three types of spending: state appropriations to public universities as well as need‐ and non‐need‐based aid awarded to in‐state students. We find that neither type of aid is responsive to the marginal cost, or tax price, faced by the median voter. However, the median voter's price elasticity of demand for state appropriations is statistically significant and negative. We find that the median voter's tax price is substantially reduced by the presence of prominent mining and tourism industries and by the federal deductibility offset available to firms. Thus, these tax‐exporting capacities exert upward pressure on voter demand for state appropriations to public universities.     

Exploring the role and place of the Permanent Representative Committee within the African Union

It can be confidently stated that, since its constitutive act came into effect in July, 2001, the African Union (AU) has enjoyed increasing attention at the administrative level from a number of scholars. Most of these scholars focus, however, on the evolution of the AU in general or on the Peace and Security Council and its components and how it links with regional organisations and the United Nations. This article adds to the existing literature by looking closely at the role and place of the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) in the decision-making framework of the AU. It also critically analyses the potential of the PRC and the challenges facing it as one of the most important decision-making committees of the AU. Lastly, it examines the evolution of the PRC and its functions. Finally, among other things, the article questions the lack of transparency practised by the PRC and proposes new approaches.     

“Empowered patient” or “doctor knows best”? Political economy analysis and ownership

Efforts to incorporate “political thinking” into policy-making and practice in OECD-DAC development agencies have increasingly focused on the use of “political economy analysis” (PEA) frameworks and tools. While recognising the fundamental value of promoting politically informed programming, this article nevertheless highlights how contemporary efforts to this end have largely ignored another central development agenda: the ownership paradigm. Emphasising the highly donor-centric nature of PEA design and methodology, we explore critiques and justifications of this state of affairs, ultimately arguing that donors would benefit from embracing a more flexible and context-specific understanding of ownership.     

A legal perspective on university technology transfer

In the thirty-five years after passage of the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, a robust literature has documented the emergence of university technology transfer as a critical mechanism for the dissemination and commercialization of new technology stemming from federally-funded research. Missing from these investigations, however, is what this paper terms the legal perspective, an understanding of how the law and its attendant mechanisms impact university technology transfer. Specifically, the paper reviews the extant legal scholarship and provides examples of how case law, legal structures, and the unique nature of intellectual property law affects technology transfer, as well as higher education policy and management. Throughout, we propose critical questions for future investigation, which serve to form a cross-disciplinary research agenda that can contribute fresh insights to scholarly and policy discussions related to the role of universities in economic and social development.     

Path-Dependent Danish Welfare Reforms: The Contribution of the New Institutionalisms to Understanding Evolutionary Change

Political attempts to reform existing policies often fail to bring about substantial change. When they succeed, the new policy is heavily influenced by the pre-existing policy path. This is confirmed by the story of Danish welfare reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, which can be explained in terms of their path dependency. In order to understand better the mechanisms of path dependency I draw on the fundamental insights of the new institutionalisms: rational choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and social constructivist institutionalism. The article begins with a brief presentation and comparison of the three new institutionalisms. It then discusses the dialectics of path shaping and path dependency before seeking to explicate the mechanisms of path dependency. Finally, the various accounts of path dependency are applied in an empirical study of the failure of welfare retrenchment in the 1980s and the relatively successful restructuring of the welfare state in the 1990s.     

Democracy and mediation in territorial civil wars in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific

The awarding of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize to former President Martti Ahtisaari, Finland, cites his involvement in the settlement of the Aceh conflict. This at the same time highlights the lack of such efforts in the regions of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. While internal conflicts throughout the world often tend to be resilient to conflict management initiatives, conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region have proven to be particularly difficult to resolve. Internal conflicts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific often concern territorial issue, for instance, East Timor and ethnically based conflicts in Myanmar. This is also true for conflicts in the South Pacific, notably in Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) and New Caledonia (France). Territorial conflicts last longer, are more difficult to manage, and generally produce more adverse consequences than those over other issues such as ideology, government, and national power. Further, conflicts in this region appear to be of low priority for third parties, with comparatively few interventions from third parties. The strong central governments seem to be a factor in preventing mediation-based solution to such conflicts. Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. Third party mediation, democratization, and the recent success in Aceh provide promise for the future, and the recent Nobel Prize confirms this.