The Political Impact of Environmental Economic Ideas

CO₂ taxes on industry increased in the Scandinavian countries over the course of the 1990s, whereas taxation on agricultural emissions of nitrogen stagnated or decreased. Variations between the two policy fields can in part be explained by contrasting ideational viabilities. Two diverging expert communities exist in the agricultural sector: the first is dominated by agricultural scientists, whose analytical vantage point is field production; the other is dominated by economists; whose analytical vantage point comprises overall socio-economic benefits. In the debate between these diverging models of cognition, the taxation of nitrogen is increasingly perceived as inefficient and unfair. Administrative bias and the position in the ministerial hierarchy affect the advice passed on to policy makers. The political viability of nitrogen taxes consequently decreases as politicians hesitate to employ a policy measure that can be cast into doubt on scientific grounds by the political opposition and agricultural organisations. Instead, alternative instruments developed by agricultural scientist are employed. Thus, the interaction between ideas and interests can contribute to our understanding of why the idea of externality taxation gains more political trenchancy in relation to the taxation of industrial CO₂ emissions than in the taxation of nitrogen emissions from agriculture.     

Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen-State Interactions

One means by which the state reinforces inequality is by imposing administrative burdens that loom larger for citizens with lower levels of human capital. Integrating insights from various disciplines, this article focuses on one aspect of human capital: cognitive resources. The authors outline a model that explains how burdens and cognitive resources, especially executive functioning, interrelate. The article then presents illustrative examples, highlighting three common life factors—scarcity, health problems, and age-related cognitive decline. These factors create a human capital catch-22, increasing people's likelihood of needing state assistance while simultaneously undermining the cognitive resources required to negotiate the burdens they encounter while seeking such assistance. The result is to reduce access to state benefits and increase inequality. The article concludes by calling for scholars of behavioral public administration and public administration more generally to incorporate more attention to human capital into their research.     

Balancing acts in construction: A study of two women painters in Denmark and Britain

The construction industry is the most male-dominated labour market in every country in Europe. In Britain and Denmark, women constitute only 1% of those employed in this industry. In spite of the barriers to women entering and remaining in skilled construction work, inroads have been made. Amongst housepainters in Denmark, for instance, women constitute 27% of the workforce and 40% of trainees, and in a number of local authorities' Direct Labour Organisations in Britain, relatively high proportions are to be found. Through the example of two women painters in Britain and Denmark, each with over 14 years' continuous employment, the authors identify the opportunities and obstacles to women entering and remaining in the construction industry. The commonalities and differences between the two countries are illustrated, and it is shown how integration has successfully occurred where social and working conditions are better. The paper concludes that gender segregation and the exclusion of women can be attributed to structural discrimination through training and recruitment mechanisms, the nature of labour relations, employment conditions and the wage system.     

Neighborhood or School? Influences on Alcohol Consumption and Heavy Episodic Drinking Among Urban Adolescents

Little is known about the relative influences of neighborhood and school on the alcohol socialization process. Survey data from the Young in Oslo Study (N?=?10,038, mean age 17.1 years, 52% girls) were used to investigate the details of such influences, using cross-classified multilevel models. School and neighborhood contexts were equally important for ordinary alcohol use; however, neighborhood influences were mainly explained by individual and family factors, whereas peer-based sociocultural processes played a key role in explaining school effects. Neither context had much impact on heavy episodic drinking. The study suggests that “privileged” youth may be at risk of high alcohol consumption. Parental influences and peer-based sociocultural aspects of the school milieu should be considered in prevention efforts.     

RNICE Model: Evaluating the Contribution of Replication Studies in Public Administration and Management Research

Replication studies relate to the scientific principle of replicability and serve the significant purpose of providing supporting (or contradicting) evidence regarding the existence of a phenomenon. However, replication has never been an integral part of public administration and management research. Recently, scholars have called for more replication, but academic reflections on when replication adds substantive value to public administration and management research are needed. This article presents the RNICE conceptual model, for assessing when and how a replication study contributes knowledge about a social phenomenon and advances knowledge in the public administration and management literatures. The RNICE model provides a vehicle for researchers who seek to evaluate or demonstrate the value of a replication study systematically. The practical application of the model is illustrated using two published replication studies.     

From Female Shamans to Danish Housewives: Colonial Constructions of Gender in Greenland, 1721 to ca. 1970

Abstract

Taking its inspiration from post-colonial feminist scholarship, particularly the writings of Greenland scholar Karla Jessen Williamson, this paper sets out to trace the ways in which conceptions of gender in Greenland changed as a consequence of the eighteenth-century colonial encounter with Christian missionaries and a Danish trade monopoly. According to Jessen Williamson, pre-colonial Greenlandic conceptions of gender were characterized by a certain social indifference to gender, and the absence of a given hierarchy of male dominance/female subordination—a situation of genderlessness. During the process of colonization, European morals of sexuality and hierarchies of gender were introduced, along with hierarchies of race. The paper focuses on two historical periods, the 1700s and the 1900s. We see the first period as characterized by intricate intersections of gender, race, and class, as well as transformations of existing norms of gender and sexuality. As for the second period, the paper investigates how the notion of genderlessness might provide a background for understanding the different implications of the process of modernization for different groups of women in Greenland. Our aim is to contribute to a continued discussion of different understandings of gender in Greenland and elsewhere.     

The appearance of women's politics in the correspondence pages of Aberdeen newspapers, 1900–14

A newspaper's ‘Letters to the Editor’ column represents its readership in a unique way and can provide a useful ‘thermometer’ with which to measure the extent of critical debate and discussion a particular issue generated in a locality. In this article, the letters of women to the editor of the Aberdeen Daily Journal, 1900 to 1914, are analysed to discover the type of political issues with which these women concerned themselves. It is argued that the women must have felt particularly strongly about such issues since they were prepared to take their arguments outside their social circle and to identify themselves as politically active in the pages of their daily newspaper. Political issues dealt with include local government, the suffrage question and government legislation. While much of the evidence used comes from the letters of active suffragists who were usually members of national suffrage associations, it is argued that the period showed an expansion in the type of woman interested in politics, and the corresponding urge to write to the newspapers. This is evidenced in the number of women who firmly stated that they were not suffragists, but became politicised enough to write to the newspaper complaining about the Insurance Act in 1912.