Search results for "Comparative politics"
showing 10 items of 39 documents
Spain and EU foreign policy after Lisbon ; still calling the tune in EU Latin America policy?
2014
Masteroppgave offentlig politikk og ledelse- Universitetet i Agder, 2014 Ever since its accession to the EU in 1986 Spain has been considered to be the main driver of the EU Latin America policy, regardless of government. This particular domain of EU foreign policy has for a long time been of relatively little interest among the other member states, which in other words left Spain as its undisputed leader, with permission from Portugal. Spain has therefore been quite successful in shaping EU Latin America policy according to its national foreign policy preferences, in particular during the 1990s when conditions such as the international context, the institutional set-up of the EU and the do…
Hva er uønsket med deltid? : en historisk-sosiologisk analyse
2011
Masteroppgave i velferdsstudier - Universitetet i Agder 2011 Denne oppgaven tar utgangspunkt i begrepet uønsket deltid, som strengt tatt viser til den enkelte arbeidstakers arbeidstidsønsker, men som åpnes opp for mulige andre betydninger. Hensikten har vært å undersøke hva som i det hele tatt er uønsket med deltid, og hvorfor. Metoden har vært dokumentanalyse. Fokuset er blitt rettet mot situasjonen i helse- og omsorgsektoren. Det konkluderes med at deltidsarbeid kan være uønsket ut fra en rekke hensyn som både viser til den enkelte arbeidstakers interesser i form av tap av goder som lønn og pensjonspoeng, tilhørighet og integrasjon, men også til samfunnsøkonomiske og velferdspolitiske int…
Welfare State Development, Individual Deprivations and Income Inequality: A cross-country analysis in Latin America and the Caribbean
2019
Several scholars have confirmed the role that the welfare state (WS) plays in reducing poverty, promoting equality and ensuring the common wellbeing. One of the limitations of the scholarship has been the conceptualization and operationalization of the WS and poverty as one-dimensional variables. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between welfare state development –as a one-dimensional and multidimensional variable-, single-dimensions deprivations and income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, before and after controlling for demographic and cyclical factors. The WS is operationalized taking into account its multidimensional nature. Three individual deprivat…
A Political Scientist's Experience in the Real World of Politics
2009
Doctoral candidates in political science have a universe of potential career options to choose from. These include not only academia, but also the non-governmental sector, political consulting, and government work. When I obtained my doctoral degree in 1993, little did I imagine that within fifteen years I would have tried my hand in all of these fields, including serving as a cabinet minister. In this article, I reflect on how this professional whirlwind came about, how each field helped and/or hindered the others, what these wanderings taught me about post-communist democratic politics, and particularly what lessons a political scientist learned from entering, albeit briefly, the ‘real wo…
Aesthetic Political Thought: Benjamin and Marker Revisited
2003
The complexity of contemporary political life has challenged traditional political theory in several Western democracies. With the emergence of new approaches to the interpretation of political praxis, we are forced to confront issues such as the New Right, the Christian Right, communitarianism, post-liberalism, post-colonialism, post-Marxism, feminism, globalization, and green thought. Many of these approaches continue to both reflect and critically challenge major ideological movements dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Since alterations to earlier theories are commonly the result of changes in political, cultural, and social conditions, new approaches to understanding…
Political Discussion in Modern Democracies
2010
1. Introduction: Political Discussion in Modern Democracies from a Comparative Perspective Michael R. Wolf and Ken'ichi Ikeda Part 1: Deliberation and Discussion as the Object of Analysis 2. Dissecting Deliberative Democracy: A Review of Theoretical Concepts and Empirical Findings Andre Bachtiger and Seraina Pedrini 3. The Equality Paradox of Deliberative Democracy: Evidence from a National Deliberative Poll Kasper Moller Hansen 4. What Political Discussion Means and How Do the French and (French-Speaking) Belgians Deal with It? Sophie Duchesne and Florence Haegel 5. Participatory Budgeting, Discussion Networks and Political Information in Two Brazilian Cities Lucio R. Renno and Barry Ames …
A Brief Political History of the Baltic States
2015
Political discourse in the Baltic states is marked by debates on the past as much as on the future. The 1980s drive to break from the Soviet Union, driven by an overwhelming sense of historical injustice, began with small ‘calendar demonstrations’ marking significant dates in Baltic history. Key domestic and international disputes are based on contested interpretations of history. This is particularly visible each spring in Latvia. On 16 March a shrinking number of Latvian Waffen SS Legion veterans, along with several hundred nationalist supporters, march from the historic Dom Church in the Old Town of Riga to the towering Freedom Monument, the symbol of Latvia’s independent statehood. Ther…
Elected and Unelected Institutions
2015
Having broken away from the Soviet Union, the Baltic states rapidly moved towards new constitutional orders more in line with the demands of the new democratic and market-economy framework that they were committed to building. The aim was to construct the major elected and unelected political institutions that would allow them to join the principal European organisations and usher in an era of boring normality. From what was a similar starting point, the Baltic states chose very different constitutional frameworks (although the demands of integration with the Western world has led to some institutional convergence). Nevertheless all three have largely achieved their ambition of making polit…
introduction – eu simulations as a multi-dimensional resource: from teaching and learning tool to research instrument
2015
Simulations, understood as complex role plays, are nowadays widely used in (university) teaching to actively engage students and promote content-specific interactive learning, understanding, and communication. There is a growing debate about the functions and benefits of simulations in the university teaching context. Simulating the EU is not yet as common as simulating the UN, but the use of EU simulations gradually increases. In this paper, we discuss several aspects of EU simulations. First, we briefly review the importance of the EU in current European politics, and to its growing complexity, which represents a challenge for teaching and studying European integration. Second, we indicat…
Legislative agenda-setting in parliamentary democracies
2009
Various strands of literature in comparative politics regard governments as the only noteworthy initiators and mainsprings of legislative policy making in parliamentary democracies. Opposition activity in policy making is more often associated with the intention to prevent, rather than to shape, policy. Does this perception reflect real-life politics? To answer this question, this article discusses different arguments that link institutional and policy-related characteristics to the incentives and constraints of different government and parliamentary actors to initiate or co-sponsor legislative bills. More specifically, it relates policy-, office- and vote-related incentives, as well as ins…