Litigation process of social movements as a driver of norm transformation?

The political science and international relations literature has extensively analysed the role of norm entrepreneurs, states, and international institutions as relevant actors generating norm transformation. However, although social movements’ reliance on courts to address core social problems has become a significant phenomenon, the role of the litigation process of social movements in norm transformation is understudied. Social movements have an ambiguous relationship with litigation. On the one hand, social movements perceive litigation to be the tool of the powerful, reproducing the status quo; on the other hand, it is argued that even when social movements lose their cases before the courts in the short term, legal mobilization can provide longer-term achievements. This article constructs a theory about the process through which the litigation of social movements impacts norm transformation. It proposes four mechanisms through which litigation plays a role in norm transformation: legal framing, legal interpretation, precedent setting and public attention. Through the examination of the Sardar Sarovar Dam as a case study, the analysis reveals that the role of the litigation process of social movements in norm transformation depends on how litigation mechanisms impact norm transformation in specific cases.     

Drivers of innovation productivity of academic researchers through career advancement

The Journal of Technology Transfer - This paper studies the innovation productivity of academic researchers across their career advancement. Taking patents and invention disclosures as indicators...     

Correction to: Promoting academic engagement: university context and individual characteristics

The Journal of Technology Transfer - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The corresponding author’s name was incorrect. The given name and family name were...     

Beliefs,social identity,and the view of opponents in Swedish carnivore management policy

Policy Sciences - In the policy sciences, the intractability of disputes in natural resource governance is commonly explained in terms of a “devil shift” between rival policy...     

Reclaiming constructivism: towards an interpretive reading of the ‘Social Construction Framework’

Policy Sciences - The ‘Social Construction Framework’ which addresses the relationship between policy design and the construction of target groups is one of the central approaches...     

School and Family Factors Predicting Adolescent Cognition Regarding Bystander Intervention in Response to Bullying and Victim Retaliation

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Youth aggression occurs at high rates. Aggressive acts can be curbed through bystander intervention; yet, little is known about school and family factors that...     

Political sophistication affects how citizens’ social policy preferences respond to the economy

Theoretical and empirical accounts of public opinion show that people’s social policy preferences are affected by the state of economy. According to the countercyclical view, economic downturn increases citizens’ demands for social policy whereas the procyclical view states that citizens demand less social policy during economically tough times. This article argues that individuals’ differences in political sophistication and, specifically, the commonly associated social-psychological characteristics are part of the micro-foundations for those different responses. People acquire and process information differently, which influences their political preferences. Public opinion and macroeconomic data from Europe during the economic crisis support the argument. The results show that people with lower levels of political sophistication tend to be procyclical, whereas this relationship weakens and moves towards countercyclical opinion structures with increasing levels of sophistication. These findings help to explain social policy preferences in response to the economy, and they offer insights into the origins of social policy preferences.     

Debating War and Peace: US Congress and the Domestic Legitimization of Military Interventions

This article investigates how members of US Congress legitimized their votes in four cases of military interventions after the Cold War (Iraq 1991, 2002–2009; Somalia 1993; Libya 2011). Using an original dataset on congressional rhetoric, the qualitative content analysis highlights that the domestic legitimization of military interventions hinges on members of Congress’s perception of external threats and national interests. So far, international relations research focused on the executive and the war powers literature offered mainly quantitative accounts on voting patterns within the legislative branch―especially for the US case. The relevance of national interest arguments within congressional debates confirms the expectations of neoclassical realism while contradicting previous studies about a dominant discourse in US society, which legitimizes interventions with universal values, such as democracy promotion or human rights.     

State formation as it happens: insights from a repeated cross-sectional study in Afghanistan, 2007–2015

This paper contributes to an empirical understanding of state formation. Based on an original household-level data set, we provide a detailed picture of the process of state formation in Afghanistan over the last decade. State formation happens when state and society engage in reciprocal relations. Central to this relationship is an exchange of services for the acceptance of authority and increased legitimacy. Our data allows us to assess state-society relations across different dimensions. We focus on the provision of services, on the responsiveness of the state, on conflict regulation and on taxation. As a result we find more evidence of state formation than expected, but also see this as a contested process that unfolds unevenly and with different speed across different sectors.     

Comparing the autonomy of international public administrations: An ideal‐type approach

International Public Administrations (IPAs), that is, the secretariats of international organizations, are important actors in global governance. This article develops a new typology of IPAs that captures the potential influence of these bureaucratic bodies on international policy‐making. The main argument is that when conceptualizing the varying roles and potential policy impact of IPAs, it is useful to distinguish between their ability to develop autonomous preferences (autonomy of will) on the one hand, and their capacity to transform these preferences into action (autonomy of action) on the other. Based on this premise, the article introduces four distinct ideal‐types of international bureaucracies and suggests indicators to locate a diverse sample of 20 administrations within the four‐fold typology. The results reveal the empirical diversity of IPA autonomy and allow for a first empirical assessment of the factors behind this pattern.