Coup in Honduras? June 29, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : World politics , comments closedWhat does it take to make a coup? There might be some things I’m missing here, but according to this CNN report it appears to me that the president of Honduras has been deposed on orders from the parliament and the supreme court regarding what they have ruled are unlawful actions in trying to change the constitution. I see how it may be encroaching on the powers of the executive for the parliament and the supreme court to issue orders to the military, but it seems a bit of a stretch to call it a coup, doesn’t it?
Or have I just got the situation all wrong based on what is reported by American and European media?
The Iranian election undoubtedly rigged June 25, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : World politics , comments closedDaniel Berman and Thomas Rintoul of the Insitute of Iranian studies at the University of St. Andrews have analyzed the figures from the Iranian election. The report is published through Chatham House. They conclude that there is little doubt that the election was rigged to a degree that has decided the outcome.
Their most interesting finds:
· In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100% was recorded.
· If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was primarily caused by the increase in voter turnout, one would expect the data to show that the provinces with the greatest increase in voter turnout would also show
the greatest ‘swing’ in support towards Ahmadinejad. This is not the case.
· In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, all former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former
reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.
· In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas. That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces flies in the face of these trends.
Even in an unstable “democracy” such as Iran, it seems highly unlikely that such results could appear by coincidence. Of course this wasn’t unexpected, but it has become very hard for the Guardian Council to deny that there were irregularities. As the sham of democracy in Iran falls, we might see the regime losing even more of their popular support, which might turn out to become a catalyst for change in the long run. At the moment, however, it seems to me that the regime has the upper hand with its brutal treatment of the protests.
Hat tip to Kai Arzheimer for posting on this report.
My thesis and my blog June 24, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : My master thesis , comments closedThis blog hasn’t gotten the attention it did a few months ago. There are several reasons for this, but most of them boil down to the fact that I’ve been occupied with other things, among them my Norwegian language blog Det politiske dyr. Another thing that has gotten too little attention has been my master thesis. I’ll now be trying to kill two birds with one stone through using this blog as a tool for my master thesis work. Beginning with right now I am going to start posting bits and pieces from my thesis in temporary versions as I write them. My hope is that someone will actually read it and comment on any errors, weaknesses, disagreements or even encouragement. I don’t believe in hogging my secrets, arguments and data. If I open myself to continuous commentary, I might possibly have some insights I otherwise wouldn’t have.
I start off with posting the last rewrite of the outline of my thesis:
Thesis outline
I start out with a belief that deliberation is important to democracy and that our current systems of democracy are in several ways detrimental to good deliberation. I believe that this affects the quality and outcome of political decisions without actually empowering the people in the way supposed by much of current thought.
I do however realize that my beliefs are not very important to anyone but myself. My beliefs have no relevance to scientific debate if I cannot transform them from beliefs into complete scientific arguments. I am furthermore of the impression that current thought on deliberation, although far advanced, suffers a lack of credence in the social sciences because of weak empirical underpinnings.
This has led me to single out three research topics, each of which will be devoted a separate section of this thesis. The topics are separate and will be handled with different methodical approaches, but will hopefully constitute a meaningful totality. My main goal is to effectively argue that deliberation is important to democracy and to contribute in the search of effective ways to strengthen that idea through empirical research. (more…)
Norwegian universities opening up to the world June 19, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : Academic matters, Norwegian politics , comments closedThe Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research today announced its appointment of new external board members for the university boards of seven universities and academic colleges in Norway. In the Norwegian academic system, these boards are the supreme authority on matters both administrative and academic in universities and colleges. Traditionally these positions have been held solely by Norwegian nationals, but this trend has been broken today. Among the new members appointed by Minister of Higher Education and Research, Tora Aasland, Danish and Swedish academics were placed in 6 out of 7 boards.
I see this as an extremely positive development for higher education and research in Norway. I am myself a former university board member, and believe these institutions can benefit immensely from some external views as part of their governance. With the close language culture ties between the Scandinavian countries, it seems very unlikely that it should have any ill effects on the effectiveness of governance at all.
On behalf of my own university, NTNU, I welcome the director of the Swedish elite institution Karolinska Institutet, Mrs. Karin Röding as new board member.
No Hawthorne effect at Hawthorne? June 9, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : Methods in political science , comments closedIs nothing holy? Must I throw out my introduction textbook in methods now? The guys over at the Freakonomics blog have dug up and reexamined the original Hawthorne data and concluded that there actually was no Hawthorne effect in the original Hawthorne study! I’m disappointed right to the very core of my post-graduate student soul. What should i believe in now?
Polemarchus.net is on the move June 7, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : About , comments closed
Polemarchus.net has now been moved wordpress.com to a self-hosted WordPress solution. This will make the blog more flexible, and I’ll try to implement a few improvements over the coming weeks. Other than that, the transition will hopefully be seamless. Please notify me if links stop working or anything else seems wrong.
No freedom of speech in France? June 6, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : World politics , comments closedI can’t yet find any English sources on this, but Norwegian newspaper Aftenpostenand the Swedish Aftonbladet report of events in France that don’t belong in any democratic country. A French blogger was reportedly arrested and charged with “public insults” after having called the French Minister of Families, Nadine Sorano a liar. “Hou la menteuse” – “O, what a liar” are said to be the exact words of 49-year-old blogger Dominique Broueilh. The newspapers claim that Sorano has also called for tighter surveillance of bloggers in general by Frenchs ISPs.
If this is true, it is nothing short of an outrage. No democracy is possible if public figures are to be protected by such strict laws. Merely being impolite can’t be a reason to clamp down on free speach. I didn’t believe a democratic Western European country like France could employ such policies…
The death of a giant June 3, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : Norwegian politics , comments closedOn May 25th a giant in Norwegian politics, passed away. Haakon Lie might not be very well known to foreginers, but he was certainly one of the most influential people in Norway in the 20th century. He was a man of many controversies, but it is hard not to respect his role in building social democracy in Norway.
He was party secretary of the Labour party from 1945 to 1969, a period through which the Labour party was in government for most of the time. The joint leadership between Lie and the most prominent prime minister during the period, Einar Gerhardsen has become famous in Norwegian politics both for its effectiveness in building the country and for its latter days bitter rivalry.
Lie was one of the people who rebuilt the Labour party from a party of class struggle to a broader mass party building the welfare state on a compromise between capitalism and socialism. He was one of the ideologers that formed a new kind of socialism where anti-capitalism was replaced by a modern social democratic quest for liberty for all. In domestic policy he pushed for social reforms along with his comrade in arms Gerhardsen.
In foreign and security policy he was much more controversial. He was driven by a distaste for communism whose anti-democratic tendencies he felt was a corruption of socialism. He feared its spread and favoured NATO membership and nuclear armament. (more…)