Showing papers on "Sovereignty published in 2003"

Can the Subaltern Speak

Abstract: Some of the most radical criticism coming out of the West today is the result of an interested desire to conserve the subject of the West, or the West as Subject. The theory of pluralized ‘subject-effects’ gives an illusion of undermining subjective sovereignty while often providing a cover for this subject of knowledge. Although the history of Europe as Subject is narrativized by the law, political economy, and ideology of the West, this concealed Subject pretends it has ‘no geo-political determinations.’ The much publicized critique of the sovereign subject thus actually inaugurates a Subject. . . . This S/subject, curiously sewn together into a transparency by denega­ tions, belongs to the exploiters’ side of the international division of labor. It is impossible for contemporary French intellectuals to imagine the kind of Power and Desire that would inhabit the unnamed subject of the Other of Europe. It is not only that everything they read, critical or uncritical, is caught within the debate of the production of that Other, supporting or critiquing the constitution of the Subject as Europe. It is also that, in the constitution of that Other of Europe, great care was taken to obliterate the textual ingredients with which such a subject could cathect, could occupy (invest?) its itinerary not only by ideological and scientific production, but also by the institution of the law. ... In the face of the possibility that the intellectual is complicit in the persistent constitution of Other as the Self’s shadow, a possibility of political practice for the intel­ lectual would be to put the economic ‘under erasure,’ to see the economic factor as irreducible as it reinscribes the social text, even as it is erased, however imperfectly, when it claims to be the final determinant or the tran­ scendental signified. The clearest available example of such epistemic violence is the remotely orchestrated, far-flung, and heterogeneous project to constitute the colonial

Policy without polity? Policy analysis and the institutional void

Abstract: How should policy analysis respond to the changing context of policy making? This article examines three aspects of policy analysis in this changing context: polity, knowledge and intervention. It argues that policy making now often takes place in an ‘institutional void’ where there are no generally accepted rules and norms according to which politics is to be conducted and policy measures are to be agreed upon. More than before, solutions for pressing problems transgress the sovereignty of specific polities. Furthermore, the role of knowledge changes as the relationship between science and society has changed: scientific expertise is now negotiated rather than simply accepted. And, with the weakening of the state, it is far less obvious that the government is the sole actor to intervene in policy making. This article calls for a reconsideration of the analysis of policy making in the light of this changing context. Based on a contextual perspective it calls for a revitalization of the commitments of Harold Lasswell toward a policy science of democracy by proposing a new ‘deliberative’ policy analysis.

Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador

Abstract: List of illustrations and tables Preface and acknowledgments List of abbreviations 1. The puzzle of insurgent collective action 2. Ethnographic research in the shadow of civil war 3. Redrawing the boundaries of class and citizenship 4. From political mobilization to armed insurgency 5. The political foundations of dual sovereignty 6. The re-emergence of civil society 7. Campesino accounts of insurgent participation 8. Explaining insurgent collective action Epilogue: legacies of an agrarian insurgency Appendix: A model of high-risk collective action by subordinate social actors Chronology of El Salvador's civil war List of references.

Transnational migration and the redefinition of the state: Variations and explanations

Abstract: In this article, we examine the shifting policies of sending country states towards communities living abroad, demonstrate the ways in which these are redefining the relationship between the state and its territorial boundaries, and highlight how these reconfigure conventional understandings of sovereignty, citizenship and membership. We begin by delineating the ­different types of policies that sending states are adapting in order to break down categories like "global nations policies" and to identify similarities and differences between states. We then suggest some possible explanations both for the convergence we see on the "repertoire" of policies that states employ and divergence we see in how far states are willing to go to ensure that migrants remain enduring long-distance membership. We draw on material from several countries, but look most closely at Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

The Democratic Advantage: Institutional Foundations of Financial Power in International Competition

Abstract: Despite their presumed liabilities, institutions associated with democracy serve as a source of power in prolonged international competition by increasing the financial resources that states can bring to bear. The theory of sovereign debt suggests that a state's ability to raise money through public borrowing is enhanced when debtholders have mechanisms for sanctioning state leaders in the event of default. Institutions associated with liberal government provide such mechanisms. All other things being equal, states that possess these institutions enjoy superior access to credit and lower interest rates than do states in which the sovereign has more discretion to default unilaterally. Liberal states can not only raise more money from a given economic base but can also pursue tax-smoothing policies that minimize economic distortions. The ability to finance competition in a manner that is consistent with long-term economic growth generates a significant advantage in prolonged rivalries. These claims are explored by analyzing the Anglo-French rivalry (1688–1815) and the Cold War.

Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern

Abstract: Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 Comparative and Historical Perspectives Chapter 1 3 Imperialism and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century Chapter 2 4 Manchukuo: A Historical Overview Part 5 Civilization and Sovereignty Chapter 3 6 Asianinsm and the New Discourse of Civilization Chapter 4 7 Embodying Civilization: Women and the Figure of Tradition within Modernity Part 8 The Authenticity of Spaces Chapter 5 10 Imperial Nationalism and the Frontier Chapter 6 11 Local Worlds: The Politics and Poetics of the Native Place Chapter 12 Conclusion Chapter 13 Glossary of Chinese Terms Chapter 14 Glossary of Japanese Terms

Subsidiarity as a Structural Principle of International Human Rights Law

Abstract: There is an inherent tension in international human rights law between affirming a universal substantive vision of human dignity and respecting the diversity and freedom of human cultures. Although understanding and securing human rights in international law requires us to grapple with that conflict, classic notions of state sovereignty cannot adequately address the issue. The principle of subsidiarity, instead, gives us a conceptual tool to mediate the polarity of pluralism and the common good in a globalized world and helps us make sense of international human rights law. I argue that we should regard subsidiarity as a structural principle of international human rights law.

The spread of nuclear weapons : a debate renewed : with new sections on India and Pakistan, terrorism, and missile defense

Abstract: In this text, two leading scholars of international politics debate the pros and cons of nuclear weaponry. This text serves as a concise introduction to an issue that encapsulates some of the most basic themes in international relations: are states rational? Are states sovereign? Does international organization work? New to this second edition is a case study of the precarious relations between India and Pakistan, exploring specific problems and consequences of nuclear competition.

Europe Divided? Elites vs. Public Opinion on European Integration

Abstract: This article compares preferences for Europeanizing 13 policies among European elites, national elites, and public opinion. Elites are more willing to cede national authority in sovereignty areas, ...

The American colonial state in the Philippines : global perspectives

Abstract: In 1898, the United States declared sovereignty over the Philippines, an archipelago of seven thousand islands inhabited by seven million people of various ethnicities. While it became a colonial power at the zenith of global imperialism, the United States nevertheless conceived of its rule as exceptional - as an exercise in benevolence rather than in tyranny and exploitation. In this volume, Julian Go and Anne L. Foster untangle this peculiar self-fashioning and insist on the importance of studying U.S. colonial rule in the context of other imperialist ventures. A necessary expansion of critical focus, "The American Colonial State in the Philippines" is the first systematic attempt to examine the creation and administration of the American colonial state from comparative, global perspectives. Written by social scientists and historians, these essays investigate various aspects of American colonial government through comparison with and contextualization within colonial regimes elsewhere in the world - from British Malaysia and Dutch Indonesia to Japanese Taiwan and America's other major overseas colony, Puerto Rico. Contributors explore the programme of political education; constructions of nationalism, race, and religion; the regulation of opium; connections to politics on the United States mainland; and anti-colonial resistance. Tracking the complex connections, circuits, and contests across, within, and between empires which shaped America's colonial regime, "The American Colonial State in the Philippines" sheds new light on the complexities of American imperialism and turn-of-the-century colonialism. Contributors are: Patricio N. Abinales, Donna J. Amoroso, Paul Barclay, Vince Boudreau, Anne L. Foster, Julian Go, and Paul A. Kramer.

Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World

Abstract: This article explores the importance of distinct non-core and non-Western perspectives for critical interpretations of international relations. A series of arguments are offered as to why third world scholarship is invisible within the field, and why features such as culture, everyday life and hydridity make looking at IR from third world loci of enunciation fundamentally different. In order to observe the ways in which such readings complement and refine prevailing understandings of global politics, the article reexamines several key categories, including war and conflict, the state, sovereignty and autonomy, and nationalism, making use of distinct third world perspectives.

The New Sovereignty in International Relations1

Abstract: The academic study of sovereignty is undergoing a mini-renaissance. Stimulated by criticisms of classical conceptions of sovereignty in systemic theories of politics, scholars returned to sovereignty as a topic of inquiry in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their studies are finally bearing fruit. This essay focuses on the new conceptions of sovereignty that are emerging and (1) discusses the fundamental nature of sovereignty, (2) reviews the classical perspective on sovereignty, (3) surveys new constructivist alternatives to this classical view, (4) examines important new work on the problematic nature of sovereignty, (5) identifies continua of hierarchic relationships that make sense of the various forms of mixed or restricted sovereignty that we observe in world politics, and (6) argues why it is important to study alternative, hierarchic relationships in international relations. The principal themes throughout are that sovereignty is far more problematic than recognized in the classical model, that important elements of hierarchy exist in the global system, and that both our theories and practice of international politics would be improved by explicitly incorporating variations in hierarchy.

The Politics of Direct Democracy: Referendums in Global Perspective

Abstract: Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Understanding Referendums * Referendums in Democratic Societies * Theoretical, Conceptual, and Procedural Problems * Referendums on Constitutional Issues * Canada's 1992 Constitutional Referendum * The 1993 Russian Constitutional Referendum * Electoral Reform in New Zealand * A Bill of Rights and a Republic? The Australian Constitutional Referendums of 1988 and 1999 * Referendums on Treaties and International Agreements * Spain's 1986 Referendum on NATO * The 1992 French Referendum on the Maastricht Treaty * The Nordic Referendums on European Union Membership * Denmark Says 'NO' Again: the 2000 Referendum on the European Currency * Referendums on Sovereignty, National Self Determination, Devolution * The Quebec Sovereignty Referendums * The 1991 Independence Referendum in Ukraine * Local Self Government for Scotland and Wales * Statehood for Puerto Rico? * Referendums on Public Policy Issues * Sweden's 1980 Referendum on Nuclear Power * Ireland's Referendums on Divorce and Abortion * The "California Model" * Switzerland: Government By Referendum? * Citizens, Parties and Voters * The Present and Future of the Referendum in Democratic Politics References Index "

Constructing a Global Law‐Violence against Women and the Human Rights System

Abstract: This ethnographic analysis of one of the core human rights conventions suggests that despite the lack of enforceability of this convention and its operation within the framework of state sovereignty, it is similar to state law. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, the major UN convention on the status of women, articulates a vision of women's equal protection from discrimination and addresses gender-based violence as a form of discrimination. It had been ratified by 171 nation states as of mid-2003. Its implementation relies on a complex process of periodic reporting to a global body meeting in New York and a symbiotic if sometimes contentious relationship between government representatives and international and domestic NGOs. Like state law, it serves to articulate and name problems and delineate solutions. It provides a resource for activists endeavoring to address problems of women's status and turns the international gaze on resisting nations. Its regulatory strength depends on the cultural legitimacy of the international process of consensus building and related social movements to define social justice in these terms. Thus, like state law, its impact depends on its cultural legitimacy and its embodiment in local cultures and legal consciousness. This examination of CEDAW as quasi law extends our understanding of law as a plural and a symbolic system rooted in a particular historical moment of globalization.

Dynamics of formal and informal institutional change in the EU

Abstract: The introductory article to this special issue pursues two main objectives, one empirical the other theoretical. First, we argue that in order to obtain more comprehensive explanation of European integration we need to make a distinction between scholarship on history-making integration – departing from the assumption that transfers of sovereignty are chiefly the result of formal inter-state bargains at treaty-amending intergovernmental conferences (ICGs) – which dominates most of the analyses on European integration, and the often-neglected sphere of interregnum integration – connoting that transfers of sovereignty result from informal bargains among EU actors in-between treaty-amending IGCs. Secondly, we seek to explore the conditions under which (informal) interregnum integration is likely to occur and how it interlinks with (formal) history-making integration. For this purpose, we develop a theoretical framework – rational choice historical institutionalism (RCHI) – and deduce a set of hypotheses abou...

Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace

Abstract: Maps Introduction 1. Origins of the Conflict 2. The Kashmir-India Debacle 3. The War in Kashmir 4. Sovereignty in Dispute 5. Pathways to Peace Notes Glossary Acknowledgments Index

The right of intervention under the African Union's Constitutive Act: From non-interference to non-intervention

Abstract: In a revolutionary article the Constitutive Act of the African Union provides for the right of the Union, in cases of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, to intervene in a Member State. The author examines the article’s historical background and the principal objectives and underlying motivations of this major exception to the principle of territorial sovereignty, as well as foreseeable practical, legal and procedural difficulties in its future implementation.

Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied

Abstract: If we think there is a fast solution to changing the governance of Iraq, warned U.S. Marine General Anthony Zinni in the months before the United States and Britain invaded Iraq, "then we don't understand history." Never has the old line about those who fail to understand the past being condemned to repeat it seemed more urgently relevant than in Iraq today, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the Iraqi people, the Middle East region, and the world. Examining the construction of the modern state of Iraq under the auspices of the British empire—the first attempt by a Western power to remake Mesopotamia in its own image—renowned Iraq expert Toby Dodge uncovers a series of shocking parallels between the policies of a declining British empire and those of the current American administration. Between 1920 and 1932, Britain endeavored unsuccessfully to create a modern democratic state from three former provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which it had conquered and occupied during the First World War. Caught between the conflicting imperatives of controlling a region of great strategic importance (Iraq straddled the land and air route between British India and the Mediterranean) and reconstituting international order through the liberal ideal of modern state sovereignty under the League of Nations Mandate system, British administrators undertook an extremely difficult task. To compound matters, they did so without the benefit of detailed information about the people and society they sought to remake. Blinded by potent cultural stereotypes and subject to mounting pressures from home, these administrators found themselves increasingly dependent on a mediating class of shaikhs to whom they transferred considerable power and on whom they relied for the maintenance of order. When order broke down, as it routinely did, the British turned to the airplane. (This was Winston Churchill’s lasting contribution to the British enterprise in Iraq: the concerted use of air power—of what would in a later context be called "shock and awe"—to terrorize and subdue dissident factions of the Iraqi people.) Ultimately, Dodge shows, the state the British created held all the seeds of a violent, corrupt, and relentlessly oppressive future for the Iraqi people, one that has continued to unfold. Like the British empire eight decades before, the United States and Britain have taken upon themselves today the grand task of transforming Iraq and, by extension, the political landscape of the Middle East. Dodge contends that this effort can succeed only with a combination of experienced local knowledge, significant deployment of financial and human resources, and resolute staying power. Already, he suggests, ominous signs point to a repetition of the sequence of events that led to the long nightmare of Saddam Hussein’s murderous tyranny.

The Responsibility to Protect - Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

Abstract: The Responsibility to Protect - Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. 1st ed. Ottawa: The International Development Research Center, December 2001, 91 stran, ISBN 0-88936-960-7.

Sovereignty in Transition

Abstract: Sovereignty in Transition brings together a group of leading scholars from law and cognate disciplines to assess contemporary developments in the framework of ideas and the variety of institutional forms associated with the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty has been described as the main organising concept of the international society of states - one which is traditionally central to the discipline and practice of both constitutional law and of international law. The volume asks to what extent,and with what implications, this centrality is challenged by contemporary developments that shift authority away from the state to new sub-state, supra-state and non-state forms. A particular focus of attention is the European Union, and the relationship between the sovereignty traditions of various member states on the one hand and the new claims to authority made on behalf of the European Union itself on the other are examined. The collection also includes contributions from international law, legal philosophy, legal history, political theory, political science, international relations and theology that seek to examine the state of the sovereignty debate in these disciplines in ways that throw light on the focal constitutional debate in the European Union.

Environmental Justice and American Indian Tribal Sovereignty: Case Study of a Land–Use Conflict in Skull Valley, Utah

Abstract: This paper examines environmental justice in the context of questions of American–Indian tribal sovereignty through an analysis of a land–use dispute over the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians’ decision to host a high–level radioactive waste facility on their reservation in Tooele County, Utah. The case study entails a far more intricate story than that presented in the majority of existing literature, which is dominated by analytical frameworks of environmental racism and distributive environmental justice. By elucidating the historical geography of Skull Valley and politics of tribal sovereignty, I argue that a prolonged process of historical colonialism has produced a landscape of injustice in which the tribe's choices have been structurally limited. The historical colonialism, intertwining with the capitalist political economy, has geopolitically isolated the tribe to suffer procedural environmental injustice. At the same time, the tribe has struggled to pursue self–determination through the retention of sovereignty and Goshute identity in the arenas of tribal environmental management and the environmental–justice movement. Conflict over the definition and practice of tribal sovereignty at different geographical scales reveals the social, historical, and political–economic complexity of environmental justice.

United States hegemony and the foundations of international law

Abstract: List of contributors Preface Introduction: the complexities of foundational change Michael Byers Part I. International Community: 1. The international community, international law and the United States: three in one, two against one, or one and the same? Edward Kwakwa 2. The influence of the United States on the concept of the 'International Community' Andreas Paulus 3. Comments on chapters 1 and 2 Martti Koskenniemi, Steven Ratner and Volker Rittberger Part II. Sovereign Equality: 4. Sovereign equality: 'the Wimbledon sails on' Michel Cosnard 5. More equal than the rest? Hierarchy, equality and US predominance in international law Nico Krisch 6. Comments on chapters 4 and 5 Pierre-Marie Dupuy, Matthias Herdegen and Gregory H. Fox Part III. Use of Force: 7. The use of force by the United States after the end of the Cold War, and its impact on international law Marcelo G. Kohen 8. Bending the law, breaking it, or developing it? The United States and the humanitarian use of force in the post-Cold War era Brad R. Roth 9. Comments on chapters 7 and 8 Thomas Franck, Jochen Abr. Frowein and Daniel Thurer Part IV. Customary International Law: 10. Powerful but unpersuasive? The role of the United States in the evolution of customary international law Stephen Toope 11. Hegemonic custom? Achilles Skordas 12. Comments on chapters 10 and 11 Rainer Hofmann, Andrew Hurrell and Rudiger Wolfrum Part V. Law of Treaties: 13. The effects of US predominance on the elaboration of treaty regimes and on the evolution of the law of treaties Pierre Klein 14. US reservations to human rights treaties: all for one and none for all? Catherine Redgwell 15. Comments on chapters 13 and 14 Jost Delbruck, Alain Pellet and Bruno Simma Part VI. Compliance: 16. The impact on international law of US noncompliance Shirley V. Scott 17. Compliance: multilateral achievements and predominant powers Peter-Tobias Stoll 18. Comments on chapters 16 and 17 Vaughan Lowe, David M. Malone and Christian Tomuschat Conclusion Georg Nolte Index.

The Transformation of the State: Beyond the Myth of Retreat

Abstract: The Debate: Context, History and Concepts Economic Globalization and State Transformation Economic Globalization and the Third World Political Changes: From National Government to Multilevel Governance? Nationhood and Identity: Community Beyond the State? The Transformation of Sovereignty? The Transformation of War? The Modernizing States: Winners or Losers? Transformation to What? And Why?: Sovereign Statehood in a New Millennium Theoretical Perspectives and New Debates

Sovereignty - Modern: A New Approach to an Outdated Concept

Abstract: Although much criticized, the concept of “sovereignty” is still central to most thinking about international relations and particularly international law. The old “Westphalian” concept in the context of a nation-state’s “right” to monopolize certain exercises of power with respect to its territory and citizens has been discredited in many ways (as discussed below), but it is still prized and harbored by those who maintain certain “realist” views or who otherwise wish to prevent (sometimes withjustification) foreign or international powers and authorities from interfering in a national government’s decisions and activities. Furthermore, when one begins to analyze and disaggregate the concept of sovereignty, it quickly becomes apparent that it has many dimensions. Often, however, the term “sovereignty” is invoked in a context or manner designed to avoid and prevent analysis, sometimes with an advocate’s intent to fend off criticism orjustifications for international “infringements” on the activities of a nation-state or its internal stakeholders and power operators.

The democracy sourcebook

Abstract: The Democracy Sourcebook offers a collection of classic writings and contemporary scholarship on democracy, creating a book that can be used by undergraduate and graduate students in a wide variety of courses, including American politics, international relations, comparative politics, and political philosophy. The editors have chosen substantial excerpts from the essential theorists of the past, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and the authors of The Federalist Papers; they place them side by side with the work of such influential modern scholars as Joseph Schumpeter, Adam Przeworski, Seymour Martin Lipset, Samuel P. Huntington, Ronald Dworkin, and Amartya Sen. The book is divided into nine self-contained chapters: "Defining Democracy," which discusses procedural, deliberative, and substantive democracy; "Sources of Democracy," on why democracy exists in some countries and not in others; "Democracy, Culture, and Society," about cultural and sociological preconditions for democracy; "Democracy and Constitutionalism," which focuses on the importance of independent courts and a bill of rights; "Presidentialism versus Parliamentarianism"; "Representation," discussing which is the fairest system of democratic accountability; "Interest Groups"; "Democracy's Effects," an examination of the effect of democracy on economic growth and social inequality; and finally, "Democracy and the Global Order" discusses the effects of democracy on international relations, including the propensity for war and the erosion of national sovereignty by transnational forces.

Cultural governance and pictorial resistance : reflections on the imaging of war.

Abstract: If we assume that the state has no ontological status apart from the many and varied practices that bring it into being, then the state is an artefact of a continual process of reproduction that performatively constitutes its identity. The inscription of boundaries, the articulation of coherence, and the identification of threats to its sense of self can be located in and driven by the official discourses of government. But they can equally be located in and driven by the cultural discourses of the community, and represented in sites as ‘unofficial’ as art, film and literature. While such cultural locations are often taken to be the sites of resistance to practices of government, their oppositional character is neither intrinsic nor guaranteed. Indeed, states have often engaged in or benefited from practices of cultural governance. As Michael Shapiro argues, cultural governance involves support for diverse genres of expression to constitute and legitimise practices of sovereignty, while restricting or preventing those representations that challenge sovereignty. In this sense, cultural governance is a set of historical practices of representation – involving the state but never fully controlled by the state – in which the struggle for the state's identity is located.

Contract of Mutual (In)Difference: Governance and the Humanitarian Apparatus in Contemporary Albania and Kosovo

Abstract: In his book Le malheur des autres, Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres and the former French Health Minister, wrote that “[h]umanitarian activities have become customary.” Kouchner’s statement points to the new forms of globally organized power and expertise, located within new transnational regimes, humanitarian networks, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multiand bilateral organizations that are now developing. These new transnational regimes, parallel to local forms of rule, constitute a mobile apparatus which I have defined as migrant sovereignties. With the explosive growth of NGOs of all scales and varieties that has occurred since 1945, we are witnessing a massive transformation in the nature of global governance. Such growth has been fueled by the connected development of the U.N. system, and, more particularly, by the increasing global circulation and legitimization of discourse and politics of “human rights.” Resolutions adopted by the U.N. Security Council and various international agencies and meetings show that new forms of sovereignty have come into place alongside older, territorialized forms. These new forms legitimize the right of interference and intervention, identifying a deterritorialized sovereignty that migrates around the globe to sites of “crisis” and humanitarian disaster.

Fear's Empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy

Abstract: The author of Jihad vs. McWorld analyzes how American foreign policy has gone wrongand how it could go right. In this hard-hitting but pragmatic new critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy, Benjamin R. Barber exposes in detail the folly of an agenda of preventive war, placing it in the context of two hundred years of American strategic doctrine (including the recent history of deterrence and containment). He shows how chosen "rogue states" have been made to stand in for terrorists too difficult to locate and destroy, and how the United States continues to support dictatorship in nations it regards as friends, while still believing we can impose democracy on vanquished enemies at the barrel of a gun. Barber argues for an America that promotes cooperation, multilateralism, international law, and pooled sovereignty. For as law and citizenship alone secure liberty within nations, law and citizenship alone can secure liberty among them, freeing them from fear.

Narratives of Norwegian governance: elaborating the strong state tradition

Abstract: Any account of Norwegian governance must engage with four different state traditions (Olsen 1988): the sovereign rationality–bounded or centralised state, the institutional state, the corporatist–pluralist state and the supermarket state. The first three traditions are historically interconnected, while the supermarket state is a fundamental and recent challenge to them. These traditions have co–existed in different combinations and their significance has changed several times, since the Constitution of 1814. In this article, first, I outline each tradition, tracing its historical roots, dominant actors and the competing definitions and interpretations. Second, I discuss the problems or dilemmas that confronted these traditions and the reforms enacted in response to them. Finally, I assess the consequences of these reforms. I focus on the post–World War II period. I finish by discussing the dynamic interdependence of the different state traditions.