Eurosceptic Challenger Parties and Political Opposition in European Union Politics: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

Despite extensive research on Eurosceptic challenger parties, our knowledge of their influence on political opposition has so far been sparse. In this article we make an in‐depth assessment of parliamentary EU opposition, based on 4,264 statements made by national parliamentarians in the European Affairs Committees (EACs) of Denmark and Sweden. Our analysis shows that the presence of Eurosceptic challenger parties in the national parliamentary arena impacts patterns and practices of EU opposition significantly. A greater presence of ‘hard’ Eurosceptic parties in parliament is associated with more opposition in EU politics. These parties deliver a vast majority of the polity‐oriented opposition towards the EU and present more policy alternatives than mainstream parties. The findings presented have implications for our understanding of national parliamentary EU opposition as well as for the assessment of the impact of Eurosceptic challenger parties on the process of European integration.     

Enhancing Precision and Clarity in the Study of Policy Narratives: An Analysis of Climate and Air Issues in Delhi,India

The study of policy narratives is challenged by inconsistencies and a need for more precise definitions and measurements. The goals of this article are to build precision and clarity in the study of policy narratives by developing a network‐based approach—the ego‐alter dyad—for coding characters and their interactions around a policy issue and then to illustrate this approach in the analysis of air and climate issues in Delhi, India. The empirical results show that (1) the same actors are often heroes and villains, (2) heroes and villains are associated with different actions but with similar victims or beneficiaries, (3) narrators differ in their propensity to tell hero‐heavy or villain‐heavy policy narratives, and (4) the proportion of hero‐heavy or villain‐heavy policy narratives changes over time and differs across subtopics. The article concludes with a research agenda for further theoretical and methodological advancement in studying policy narratives.     

Preventing radicalisation in Norwegian schools: how teachers respond to counter-radicalisation efforts

ABSTRACT

This article explores how selected educators respond to the integration of counter-radicalisation efforts into Norwegian secondary schools. Our research participants describe having limited encounters with youth extremism in practice, yet their narratives exhibit a professional responsibility to prevent students from being radicalised towards any form of violent extremism. There are, however, diverging views on how prevention should be carried out in school. When faced with concerns of radicalisation, most participants draw on therapeutic prevention, which conforms to the dominant radicalisation discourse in global politics aimed at identifying and rehabilitating vulnerable youth. We argue that these therapeutic prevention strategies are a form of pedagogical control intended to recondition “illiberal” students under the pretext of national security. Considering the strong normative and political connotations of extremism-related issues, we recommend that educators tread cautiously in their prevention efforts. Educators must especially strive to find a balance between deterring students from radicalisation and violent extremism, while also ensuring that these efforts do not impede the agency and autonomy of young lives. Overall, this research raises some ethical and practical concerns about preventing radicalisation and violent extremism in Norwegian schools.     

外交承认的旧模式和新趋势

承认是外交、国际关系、国际法领域里一个古老的概念。在国际关系领域,承认一直被视作国家交往的前提条件,是否给予承认也因此成了一种政治资源。随着非国家行为体越来越多地参与国际社会进程,外交承认的原则已经在包容性和排他性两个极端之间发生重大的变化,欧盟的对外行为最能反映外交承认的新特征。但欧洲的创新没有取代传统外交,而只是增加了新层面。从长远来看,NGO和其他行为体参与国际社会对外交承认标准提出了挑战。     

Global and Local Health Governance: Civil society,human rights and hiv/aids

From the outset in the mid-1980s the international response to hiv/aids has been characterised by an emphasis on the human rights aspects of the pandemic, and on recognition of the pivotal role of civil society actors (csos). But how the rights-based conception of hiv/aids and the international legitimation of csos play out at the local level depends not only on the vertical coordination between global and local levels but also on government–cso relations and the understanding of the pandemic in individual countries. South Africa and Cambodia provide comparative examples of ‘glocalised’ responses to hiv/aids. Both countries were among the hardest hit in their respective regions. But, while the South African government was slow to acknowledge the severity of epidemic, the Cambodian leadership quickly initiated a comprehensive response to it. The two cases illustrate how opportunity structures at the international and national levels created different local responses to hiv/aids, with significant consequences for the epidemic over time.     

Winners and losers: Conflict management through strategic policy engagement

In high-conflict policy debates, individuals often make strategic decisions about the ways in which they engage in efforts to influence the direction of the debate. Some individuals act to expand the scope of the conflict, whereas others would prefer to contain the scope of the conflict and maintain status quo. This study empirically examines the relationship between activities of political engagement and goals of conflict expansion or containment in a particular setting in which there are clear “winners” and “losers.” This research first explores the tactics an individual undertakes as either conflict expansion or containment. The patterns uncovered are then tested against sectoral affiliation, to draw conclusions about key factors that explain some variation in policy engagement. Findings confirm that there are predictable patterns to engagement decisions, paving the way for future testing in different policy arrangements.     

The Convention Method Revisited: Does It Have a Future and Does It Matter?

Scholars have argued that the convention method has democratised the process of treaty reform and increased the legitimacy of EU constitutionalisation. This article finds that the convention method has contributed to a slightly more democratic process, but has not, in any fundamental way, improved the democratic status of the EU's treaty reform process. We should accordingly not be too concerned over the future fate of the convention method. From a democratic perspective, we should be more worried over the possible scenario that future changes to the EU's institutional structure will come about through implicit constitutional change without any formal changes being made to the treaties. The often cumbersome ratification process could thereby be bypassed, but this would also deprive EU citizens of the only real opportunity they have of influencing decisions on the overall design of the integration project.