Dear all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
Just a quick note about financial matters.
The PSA's specialist-groups sub-committee has agreed to give £800 towards our activities this year. This is a good result, due largely to various efforts and initiatives last year, which contributed to what must be our relatively high level of activity among specialist groups. Thanks again to those who organised things. This is what we need to continue.
1. If anyone would be interested in receiving funding for an event, let me know. It could be a seminar, a workshop - anything that is concerned with (a) political science and (b) Nordic politics will be considered.
Our biggest donation last year was £750 for a conference, and something similar could be on offer this year. I've already had one pretty firm suggestion submitted, so that one is first in the queue. But we may well have room to fund additional projects.
2. As last year, around £150 is available to postgraduate students attending the PSA conference in Swansea in April 2008, to help with travel and the conference fee. Those interested should get in touch with me as soon as possible.
Best, from a gloomy Stockholm that's "enjoyed" its mildest winter since 1756,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College, Stockholm
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/samhallsvetenskaper
Showing posts with label admin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label admin. Show all posts
2008-03-10
2007-06-29
Scandinavian Politics: 2008 PSA conference, other research matters
Hej to all on the Scandinavian politics list,
A couple of quick messages about future events.
1. The call for panel proposals at next year's PSA conference has already been issued. This conference, which will apparently be the last with the traditional campus-based format, will be at Swansea University on April 1st-3rd 2008 (www.psa.ac.uk/2008/call.htm).
My own scope to attend this conference might be rather limited. But that shouldn't stop other members of the list applying to convene panels - and it won't stop me co-ordinating our efforts. Indeed, the conference's academic convenor (who, incidentally, I know to be a sound bloke) wants "to emphasise the importance I attach to the role of specialist groups in helping to compose the programme...In the call for papers I have also encouraged scholars to consult you if they need assistance in composing coherent panels that are in the general research area covered by your specialist group."
Our panel at the PSA conference last April worked rather well. They can be an excellent way to get feedback on a draft or to report more advanced findings. Do let me have any ideas that you might have.
As usual, a small amount of money (up to a £150 or so) can be made available by the group to help with postgraduate students' conference costs.
2. My own involvement in the joint research ideas that we discussed very preliminarily at the conference in April will, unfortunately, have to be shelved. Unexpectedly securing project money is always nice. The downside, of course, is that it inevitably crowds out other plans. But if others on our list would like to initiate some form of collaboration, perhaps on the lines that we discussed or on something quite different, that would be great.
One immediate option (the deadline is as soon as August 15th) is the money provided for "exploratory workshops" by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences. The link can be found (via a Danish research site) here:
http://fist.dk/site/forside/soeg-stoette/opslag-stoettemuligheder/2007/stoette-til-eksplorative-workshops-fra-nos-hs
Remember, too, that our group has a few hundred pounds available for financing small research-related events. I've received a few expressions of interest, but other ideas for how we might use this money are more than welcome.
Meanwhile, have a great summer.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/samhallsvetenskaper
A couple of quick messages about future events.
1. The call for panel proposals at next year's PSA conference has already been issued. This conference, which will apparently be the last with the traditional campus-based format, will be at Swansea University on April 1st-3rd 2008 (www.psa.ac.uk/2008/call.htm).
My own scope to attend this conference might be rather limited. But that shouldn't stop other members of the list applying to convene panels - and it won't stop me co-ordinating our efforts. Indeed, the conference's academic convenor (who, incidentally, I know to be a sound bloke) wants "to emphasise the importance I attach to the role of specialist groups in helping to compose the programme...In the call for papers I have also encouraged scholars to consult you if they need assistance in composing coherent panels that are in the general research area covered by your specialist group."
Our panel at the PSA conference last April worked rather well. They can be an excellent way to get feedback on a draft or to report more advanced findings. Do let me have any ideas that you might have.
As usual, a small amount of money (up to a £150 or so) can be made available by the group to help with postgraduate students' conference costs.
2. My own involvement in the joint research ideas that we discussed very preliminarily at the conference in April will, unfortunately, have to be shelved. Unexpectedly securing project money is always nice. The downside, of course, is that it inevitably crowds out other plans. But if others on our list would like to initiate some form of collaboration, perhaps on the lines that we discussed or on something quite different, that would be great.
One immediate option (the deadline is as soon as August 15th) is the money provided for "exploratory workshops" by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences. The link can be found (via a Danish research site) here:
http://fist.dk/site/forside/soeg-stoette/opslag-stoettemuligheder/2007/stoette-til-eksplorative-workshops-fra-nos-hs
Remember, too, that our group has a few hundred pounds available for financing small research-related events. I've received a few expressions of interest, but other ideas for how we might use this money are more than welcome.
Meanwhile, have a great summer.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/samhallsvetenskaper
2007-04-19
Scandinavian Politics: conference report
Dear all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
I have placed the group's annual report on its website, in the newsletters section.
I can also briefly report on our group's activity at the PSA conference last week.
1. Our panel, entitled Changing Dynamics in Nordic Party Politics, went very well, with all four papers drawing useful comment and feedback. The papers are available at the conference website, which can be found via the PSA's site (www.psa.ac.uk).
2. The following points can serve as minutes from the group's administrative meeting, which was quite well attended.
(a) The group's panels at the PSA conferences. I reported on the highly unsatisfactory dealings that I had with the academic convenor prior to this year's conference (which I won't bore people with here, and which with luck won't be repeated in future). It was generally agreed that it is worth applying for two panels, as we did (unsuccessfully) this year.
The theme and format of these panels was also raised. Ideally, we'd have at least one panel devoted to a broader project, with the ultimate aim of some sort of publication. Most of those at the meeting had an interest in party politics, which made that a natural focus for such a project; but there could well be others. Of course, the content of these panels will depend largely on individuals' availability and interest in a given year.
This, in turn, will largely determine procedure. Because most present at this year's panel had read the papers beforehand, we could easily have done away with paper presentations altogether and devoted the whole 90 minutes to questions and comment. Alternatively, fewer papers in each of two panels would allow for proper presentations. A third variant would be to have brief paper summaries given not by the paper author but by the discussant. Each of these scenarios might be considered for future conferences.
(b) Finance. I reported that the group's existing funds had been used up by the donation of £750 to Lee Miles's workshop the Nordic States and the EU this month (see the group's website for details) and £150 to a postgraduate's conference expenses. The availability of both types of funding had previously been announced via our newsletter.
I could also report that, thanks to this activity, the PSA had granted us £850 basic subsidy for the new financial year. I am open to all suggestions as to how this money could be spent. One plan already on the table has been formulated by Mary Hilson of UCL. Her idea has been submitted to the PSA's new competition for funding individual specialist-group-related events. Unfortunately, this application was unsuccessful, so some - but not all - of the basic subsidy will probably be allocated to this project. There is no deadline for sending ideas for workshops, seminars, etc to me. Unless there is good reason for doing otherwise, first come will probably be first served. Additional sources of funding for such events were also mooted.
(c) The group's website was also briefly discussed. It was suggested that some of the group's money could be invested in it, but my own feeling is that this would eat up too much of our meagre resources too quickly. Still, there are ways in which could be improved that don't require much time and money. If anyone has more such ideas, do let me have them.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
I have placed the group's annual report on its website, in the newsletters section.
I can also briefly report on our group's activity at the PSA conference last week.
1. Our panel, entitled Changing Dynamics in Nordic Party Politics, went very well, with all four papers drawing useful comment and feedback. The papers are available at the conference website, which can be found via the PSA's site (www.psa.ac.uk).
2. The following points can serve as minutes from the group's administrative meeting, which was quite well attended.
(a) The group's panels at the PSA conferences. I reported on the highly unsatisfactory dealings that I had with the academic convenor prior to this year's conference (which I won't bore people with here, and which with luck won't be repeated in future). It was generally agreed that it is worth applying for two panels, as we did (unsuccessfully) this year.
The theme and format of these panels was also raised. Ideally, we'd have at least one panel devoted to a broader project, with the ultimate aim of some sort of publication. Most of those at the meeting had an interest in party politics, which made that a natural focus for such a project; but there could well be others. Of course, the content of these panels will depend largely on individuals' availability and interest in a given year.
This, in turn, will largely determine procedure. Because most present at this year's panel had read the papers beforehand, we could easily have done away with paper presentations altogether and devoted the whole 90 minutes to questions and comment. Alternatively, fewer papers in each of two panels would allow for proper presentations. A third variant would be to have brief paper summaries given not by the paper author but by the discussant. Each of these scenarios might be considered for future conferences.
(b) Finance. I reported that the group's existing funds had been used up by the donation of £750 to Lee Miles's workshop the Nordic States and the EU this month (see the group's website for details) and £150 to a postgraduate's conference expenses. The availability of both types of funding had previously been announced via our newsletter.
I could also report that, thanks to this activity, the PSA had granted us £850 basic subsidy for the new financial year. I am open to all suggestions as to how this money could be spent. One plan already on the table has been formulated by Mary Hilson of UCL. Her idea has been submitted to the PSA's new competition for funding individual specialist-group-related events. Unfortunately, this application was unsuccessful, so some - but not all - of the basic subsidy will probably be allocated to this project. There is no deadline for sending ideas for workshops, seminars, etc to me. Unless there is good reason for doing otherwise, first come will probably be first served. Additional sources of funding for such events were also mooted.
(c) The group's website was also briefly discussed. It was suggested that some of the group's money could be invested in it, but my own feeling is that this would eat up too much of our meagre resources too quickly. Still, there are ways in which could be improved that don't require much time and money. If anyone has more such ideas, do let me have them.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
2007-04-05
Scandinavian Politics: Finnish govt, seminars, jobs, cash
Hej to all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
A few brief notices.
1. The new Finnish governing parties were announced yesterday. As expected, "Vanhanen II" is another surplus majority coalition. Also expected was that the Christian Democrats' eager office-seeking would not find favour with the prime minister, who prefered a little less ideological homogeneity in his cabinet in return for a broader base.
The Social Democrats were more or less content to go into opposition, where, apart from the Christians, they'll be joined by the Left Alliance and, on the other side of the spectrum, the True Finns.
The government thus looks like this:
Centre Party, 51 seats +
National Coalition, 50 +
Greens, 15 +
Swedish People's Party, 9 + 1 (Åland)
= 126 of 200 seats.
Portfolios still need to be decided.
2. Christine Agius of Salford University has sent me details of the following interesting-looking seminars at her place.
EUROPEAN STUDIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE (ESRI)
Centre for Contemporary History & Politics
Sponsored by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence
SEMINAR SERIES
Scandinavia, the EU, and Post-9/11 Challenges
Weds 18 April 2007 ‘Globalization and the Swedish Model of Welfare’
Anders Lindbom (University of Uppsala)
Room 106, Crescent House, 1pm
Weds 23 May 2007 ‘Islam, multiculturalism and Scandinavia: One year on from the Danish 'cartoon controversy'’
Ulla Holm (Danish Institute for International Studies)
Room 103, Crescent House, 12pm
ALL WELCOME. For further information please contact: Dr Chris Agius, Contemporary History & Politics (Tel: 0161 295 5309 or Email: C.Agius@salford.ac.uk).
3. Mary Hilson of UCL (ucmgmah@ucl.ac.uk, +44 20-7679 3184/7176) writes the following.
"Members of the list may be interested to hear about two new posts currently advertised at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
1) Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader in Baltic Politics
2) Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader in Finnish Studies
"More information about both posts is available at www.ssees.ucl.ac.uk/academic.htm. Closing date is 1st May 2007."
4. Finally, money matters. I've been told that our group will receive £850 in basic subsidy this year. As always, I'm open to suggestions - seminars, workhops, etc - as to how this money could be spent. Let me have any ideas that you might have.
I hope to see some of you in Bath next week for the PSA conference. Have a good Easter.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
A few brief notices.
1. The new Finnish governing parties were announced yesterday. As expected, "Vanhanen II" is another surplus majority coalition. Also expected was that the Christian Democrats' eager office-seeking would not find favour with the prime minister, who prefered a little less ideological homogeneity in his cabinet in return for a broader base.
The Social Democrats were more or less content to go into opposition, where, apart from the Christians, they'll be joined by the Left Alliance and, on the other side of the spectrum, the True Finns.
The government thus looks like this:
Centre Party, 51 seats +
National Coalition, 50 +
Greens, 15 +
Swedish People's Party, 9 + 1 (Åland)
= 126 of 200 seats.
Portfolios still need to be decided.
2. Christine Agius of Salford University has sent me details of the following interesting-looking seminars at her place.
EUROPEAN STUDIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE (ESRI)
Centre for Contemporary History & Politics
Sponsored by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence
SEMINAR SERIES
Scandinavia, the EU, and Post-9/11 Challenges
Weds 18 April 2007 ‘Globalization and the Swedish Model of Welfare’
Anders Lindbom (University of Uppsala)
Room 106, Crescent House, 1pm
Weds 23 May 2007 ‘Islam, multiculturalism and Scandinavia: One year on from the Danish 'cartoon controversy'’
Ulla Holm (Danish Institute for International Studies)
Room 103, Crescent House, 12pm
ALL WELCOME. For further information please contact: Dr Chris Agius, Contemporary History & Politics (Tel: 0161 295 5309 or Email: C.Agius@salford.ac.uk).
3. Mary Hilson of UCL (ucmgmah@ucl.ac.uk, +44 20-7679 3184/7176) writes the following.
"Members of the list may be interested to hear about two new posts currently advertised at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
1) Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader in Baltic Politics
2) Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader in Finnish Studies
"More information about both posts is available at www.ssees.ucl.ac.uk/academic.htm. Closing date is 1st May 2007."
4. Finally, money matters. I've been told that our group will receive £850 in basic subsidy this year. As always, I'm open to suggestions - seminars, workhops, etc - as to how this money could be spent. Let me have any ideas that you might have.
I hope to see some of you in Bath next week for the PSA conference. Have a good Easter.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
2006-08-08
Scandinavian Politics latest
Hej to everyone on the Scandinavian politics list,
Many apologies for the long period of silence from me, which can only partly be explained by the tradition, in Sweden at least, of the country more or less closing down during the summer. I've also had (happy) distractions on the family front, which I won't bore you with.
I have two brief notices and some short comments about political developments in Scandinavia.
1. I'm told by the PSA that "The editors of the PSA News are planning to make the September edition of the News a special ‘specialist group’ issue and would appreciate and welcome all reports from all on specialist group activities. Copy deadline is 14th August so can you please get your items by e-mail to the editorial team".
We've had plans to do stuff other than simply use this mailing list as a forum for communication, but time pressure always seems to frustrate these plans, so nothing much has happened since our London seminar a few years ago. We do have some cash (a few hundred pounds) in the kitty, however, which is available for anyone to use in ways that are (a) academic and (b) related somehow to Nordic politics. This could involve hosting a small conference or workshop, which would ideally be open to everyone but need not necessarily be so. I'm completely open to other ideas, too.
Meanwhile, do send me absolutely anything that you think might be appropriate for the mailing list – book news and reviews, articles, events, comments on current politics, whatever.
2. This will probably be my last message from my current institutional address. Again, I won't bore you with details. But, after nearly five tremendous years in Umeå, I'm moving next term to Södertörn University College, outside Stockholm.
3. The possible reorientation of the Danish party system seems – possibly – to be continuing.
At least some Social Liberals, long in bed with the Social Democrats, seem to be becoming increasingly open to a deal with the Liberal-Conservative government. The attraction for the Social Liberals is not only to get closer to where power lies. It's also to pull the government away from its relationship with the increasingly truculent Danish People's Party - one of whose leading lights made, even by his party's standards, some extraordinarily apocalyptic comments about Muslims recently in the newish Swedish news magazine, Fokus (fokus.se). Current Social Liberal leader Marianne Jelved is still cool on the idea of a shift, but others – most loudly, MP Nasar Khader – are keener.
My colleague Jacob Christensen will no doubt give this more attention on his excellent blog (blog.jacobchristensen.name) when he gets back from holiday.
4. Earlier in Denmark, broad cross-party agreement was reached on a major long-term package of welfare reforms. For brief details in English, see the June editions of the not-bad-at-all newspaper, the Copenhagen News, available online (www.cphpost.dk).
5. The Swedish election campaign is finally getting underway this week. With the two blocs neck and neck in the polls, one underlying issue is whether the four parties in the centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" can resist the temptation to turn their fire on each other in their desperation for votes, which they usually end up doing. It promises to be an exciting time for a political scientist. The election is on September 17th.
6. Meanwhile, a major topic of Swedish domestic political discussion in the last few weeks (admittedly, there's been little competition) has been the impending final report in an official "Inquiry into Power, Integration and Structural Discrimination" – that is, on ethnic relations in Sweden. Chief investigator has been a professor of "social work" ("applied sociology" might be better translation), Masoud Kamali, who has attracted massive criticism from all quarters of the media. The story of his inquiry is a long and rather bizarre one, but I'll keep this summary brief.
Basically, Kamali has a big idea, which he applies in pretty much all his very frequent appearances in the printed media. It is that Swedish society and Swedish culture, like others in Europe, are fundamentally racist; that their very essence rests on an identification of "the other", that is, non-European peoples; and that this explains the disadvantages suffered by ethnic minorities in the country today. Few academics would argue that there is obviously nothing in this argument. But not many, even those of a post-modern persuasion, would push it in such a rigid, encompassing and downright provocative form – especially in an official report. "Sweden needs a new [social integration] policy," he wrote recently. "The era of creating an integrated society based on the concept of ein Volk, ein Reich [sic] is past" (DN July 13th).
These eyebrow-raising allusions aren't the only reason why Kamali is controversial. He has been accused of offering little or no empirical evidence for his sweeping arguments. (I can't say I've read the official reports, but I have read the accompanying summaries published in the newspaper, DN. The one on political parties, on Dec 22nd 2005, was of particular interest to me, of course. I must say that it read like a sentence that had been painfully stretched to 1,500 words.) He also tends to respond to critics by attacking their sincerity or motives. Public figures of non-European extraction are said to have sold out to the dominant Swedish culture; apparently, he once referred in print to some of them as "Uncle Toms". On Sunday he told DN that the criticism he'd suffered while leading the inquiry had been worse than the physical torture he'd endured in his native Iran.
The saga has also been rather embarrassing for the Social Democratic government. This is because the original inquiry was led by someone else, a political scientist from Uppsala. In 2003 Kamali, a member of the inquiry, in effect staged a coup, by persuading the responsible minister to downgrade the original investigation and to appoint him as leader of a new one. Numerous political scientists in Sweden were furious at what they saw as the ideological manipulation of these official reports, which are supposed to be politically impartial. The relevant minister was Mona Sahlin, who must be quite relieved that she now has another portfolio.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Many apologies for the long period of silence from me, which can only partly be explained by the tradition, in Sweden at least, of the country more or less closing down during the summer. I've also had (happy) distractions on the family front, which I won't bore you with.
I have two brief notices and some short comments about political developments in Scandinavia.
1. I'm told by the PSA that "The editors of the PSA News are planning to make the September edition of the News a special ‘specialist group’ issue and would appreciate and welcome all reports from all on specialist group activities. Copy deadline is 14th August so can you please get your items by e-mail to the editorial team".
We've had plans to do stuff other than simply use this mailing list as a forum for communication, but time pressure always seems to frustrate these plans, so nothing much has happened since our London seminar a few years ago. We do have some cash (a few hundred pounds) in the kitty, however, which is available for anyone to use in ways that are (a) academic and (b) related somehow to Nordic politics. This could involve hosting a small conference or workshop, which would ideally be open to everyone but need not necessarily be so. I'm completely open to other ideas, too.
Meanwhile, do send me absolutely anything that you think might be appropriate for the mailing list – book news and reviews, articles, events, comments on current politics, whatever.
2. This will probably be my last message from my current institutional address. Again, I won't bore you with details. But, after nearly five tremendous years in Umeå, I'm moving next term to Södertörn University College, outside Stockholm.
3. The possible reorientation of the Danish party system seems – possibly – to be continuing.
At least some Social Liberals, long in bed with the Social Democrats, seem to be becoming increasingly open to a deal with the Liberal-Conservative government. The attraction for the Social Liberals is not only to get closer to where power lies. It's also to pull the government away from its relationship with the increasingly truculent Danish People's Party - one of whose leading lights made, even by his party's standards, some extraordinarily apocalyptic comments about Muslims recently in the newish Swedish news magazine, Fokus (fokus.se). Current Social Liberal leader Marianne Jelved is still cool on the idea of a shift, but others – most loudly, MP Nasar Khader – are keener.
My colleague Jacob Christensen will no doubt give this more attention on his excellent blog (blog.jacobchristensen.name) when he gets back from holiday.
4. Earlier in Denmark, broad cross-party agreement was reached on a major long-term package of welfare reforms. For brief details in English, see the June editions of the not-bad-at-all newspaper, the Copenhagen News, available online (www.cphpost.dk).
5. The Swedish election campaign is finally getting underway this week. With the two blocs neck and neck in the polls, one underlying issue is whether the four parties in the centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" can resist the temptation to turn their fire on each other in their desperation for votes, which they usually end up doing. It promises to be an exciting time for a political scientist. The election is on September 17th.
6. Meanwhile, a major topic of Swedish domestic political discussion in the last few weeks (admittedly, there's been little competition) has been the impending final report in an official "Inquiry into Power, Integration and Structural Discrimination" – that is, on ethnic relations in Sweden. Chief investigator has been a professor of "social work" ("applied sociology" might be better translation), Masoud Kamali, who has attracted massive criticism from all quarters of the media. The story of his inquiry is a long and rather bizarre one, but I'll keep this summary brief.
Basically, Kamali has a big idea, which he applies in pretty much all his very frequent appearances in the printed media. It is that Swedish society and Swedish culture, like others in Europe, are fundamentally racist; that their very essence rests on an identification of "the other", that is, non-European peoples; and that this explains the disadvantages suffered by ethnic minorities in the country today. Few academics would argue that there is obviously nothing in this argument. But not many, even those of a post-modern persuasion, would push it in such a rigid, encompassing and downright provocative form – especially in an official report. "Sweden needs a new [social integration] policy," he wrote recently. "The era of creating an integrated society based on the concept of ein Volk, ein Reich [sic] is past" (DN July 13th).
These eyebrow-raising allusions aren't the only reason why Kamali is controversial. He has been accused of offering little or no empirical evidence for his sweeping arguments. (I can't say I've read the official reports, but I have read the accompanying summaries published in the newspaper, DN. The one on political parties, on Dec 22nd 2005, was of particular interest to me, of course. I must say that it read like a sentence that had been painfully stretched to 1,500 words.) He also tends to respond to critics by attacking their sincerity or motives. Public figures of non-European extraction are said to have sold out to the dominant Swedish culture; apparently, he once referred in print to some of them as "Uncle Toms". On Sunday he told DN that the criticism he'd suffered while leading the inquiry had been worse than the physical torture he'd endured in his native Iran.
The saga has also been rather embarrassing for the Social Democratic government. This is because the original inquiry was led by someone else, a political scientist from Uppsala. In 2003 Kamali, a member of the inquiry, in effect staged a coup, by persuading the responsible minister to downgrade the original investigation and to appoint him as leader of a new one. Numerous political scientists in Sweden were furious at what they saw as the ideological manipulation of these official reports, which are supposed to be politically impartial. The relevant minister was Mona Sahlin, who must be quite relieved that she now has another portfolio.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2005-12-05
Scandinavian Politics latest
Hej to members of the Scandinavian Politics list,
Three quick notices - the first administrative, the others related to Scandinavian politics.
1. Here's a further appeal for potential paper-givers at the PSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE on April 4th-6th 2006 (www.psa.ac.uk/2006/default.htm). Any ideas, please let me know - and as soon as possible.
2. THE TSUNAMI REPORT. The findings of the "citizens' commission" that investigated the Swedish government's handling of the Asian disaster last Christmas, which claimed more Swedish lives than any incident since the battle of Poltava nearly 300 years ago, were published last week. My colleague Jacob Christensen summarises the reaction nicely on his blog ("The Perfect Flood I", http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/). There's also an English-language summary of the report, available at the commission's website (www.katastrofkommissionen.se). I can't say that I've read the report, so I can only add the following brief comments.
First, the commission's criticism of the government was unusually, even shockingly, severe. Not only were systemic and procedural flaws said to have delayed for a couple of days any state response to the suffering of so many Swedish citizens; individual ministers and under-secretaries of state were also singled out. Basically, it seems that pretty much every relevant decision-taker was enjoying Christmas and didn't want to be disturbed, so they thus totally misjudged the magnitude of the event. Although the under-secretary in her department probably received most criticism, foreign minister Laila Freivalds - who, it must be said, has looked completely miserable ever since she was surprisingly appointed to the job in late 2003 - has probably received the toughest media treatment.
Now, reasonable people can disagree about the fairness of these attacks. Can a European government really be blamed for what was, after all, a natural disaster on the other side of the world? Shouldn't cabinet ministers be able to enjoy Christmas? Whatever your views on that, it seems that the government's strategy of, as the Swedes say, "doing a poodle" - apologising profusely for your mistakes, accepting responsibility for what went wrong, but staying in your position - will bring about few immediate political consequences.
First, no one will be resigning. A cynic might suggest that nothing else could have been expected. Many observers, not least those on the citizens' commission (who included my esteemed colleague from Umeå, Professor Gunnel Gustafsson), have noted a problem of pinpointing responsibility and accountability in Swedish public administration. Certainly, compared with Britain, few ministers ever resign because of their own mistakes and misjudgments, never mind those of their underlings (deputy prime minister Bosse Ringholm, had he been British, would have surely resigned about 15 times during his career). But there's also a political factor here. The prime minister, Göran Persson, cannot allow anyone to resign - because, as he was explicitly criticised by the commission for failing in his overall responsibility for crisis-management, he cannot just allow someone else to shoulder the blame.
Second, the opposition seems unlikely to move a vote of no confidence in the government. There are some interesting tactical calculations going on here. But just now it seems that there's little appetite for inducing a vote that the opposition knows it would lose.
But, when the election comes around in September, will voters remember this sense that leading ministers are so out of touch that they don't bother to watch the news over a holiday? We'll see.
3. There are fun and games going on in COPENHAGEN CITY COUNCIL following last month's election. See Jacob's blog for details (http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/).
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Three quick notices - the first administrative, the others related to Scandinavian politics.
1. Here's a further appeal for potential paper-givers at the PSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE on April 4th-6th 2006 (www.psa.ac.uk/2006/default.htm). Any ideas, please let me know - and as soon as possible.
2. THE TSUNAMI REPORT. The findings of the "citizens' commission" that investigated the Swedish government's handling of the Asian disaster last Christmas, which claimed more Swedish lives than any incident since the battle of Poltava nearly 300 years ago, were published last week. My colleague Jacob Christensen summarises the reaction nicely on his blog ("The Perfect Flood I", http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/). There's also an English-language summary of the report, available at the commission's website (www.katastrofkommissionen.se). I can't say that I've read the report, so I can only add the following brief comments.
First, the commission's criticism of the government was unusually, even shockingly, severe. Not only were systemic and procedural flaws said to have delayed for a couple of days any state response to the suffering of so many Swedish citizens; individual ministers and under-secretaries of state were also singled out. Basically, it seems that pretty much every relevant decision-taker was enjoying Christmas and didn't want to be disturbed, so they thus totally misjudged the magnitude of the event. Although the under-secretary in her department probably received most criticism, foreign minister Laila Freivalds - who, it must be said, has looked completely miserable ever since she was surprisingly appointed to the job in late 2003 - has probably received the toughest media treatment.
Now, reasonable people can disagree about the fairness of these attacks. Can a European government really be blamed for what was, after all, a natural disaster on the other side of the world? Shouldn't cabinet ministers be able to enjoy Christmas? Whatever your views on that, it seems that the government's strategy of, as the Swedes say, "doing a poodle" - apologising profusely for your mistakes, accepting responsibility for what went wrong, but staying in your position - will bring about few immediate political consequences.
First, no one will be resigning. A cynic might suggest that nothing else could have been expected. Many observers, not least those on the citizens' commission (who included my esteemed colleague from Umeå, Professor Gunnel Gustafsson), have noted a problem of pinpointing responsibility and accountability in Swedish public administration. Certainly, compared with Britain, few ministers ever resign because of their own mistakes and misjudgments, never mind those of their underlings (deputy prime minister Bosse Ringholm, had he been British, would have surely resigned about 15 times during his career). But there's also a political factor here. The prime minister, Göran Persson, cannot allow anyone to resign - because, as he was explicitly criticised by the commission for failing in his overall responsibility for crisis-management, he cannot just allow someone else to shoulder the blame.
Second, the opposition seems unlikely to move a vote of no confidence in the government. There are some interesting tactical calculations going on here. But just now it seems that there's little appetite for inducing a vote that the opposition knows it would lose.
But, when the election comes around in September, will voters remember this sense that leading ministers are so out of touch that they don't bother to watch the news over a holiday? We'll see.
3. There are fun and games going on in COPENHAGEN CITY COUNCIL following last month's election. See Jacob's blog for details (http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/).
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2005-08-24
website and Norwegian election
Dear members of the Scandinavian Politics mailing list,
Just a quick message on two matters.
1. SCANDINAVIAN POLITICS GROUP WEBSITE (www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia).
This is now up and running, so do give it a quick surf. I hope you like its basic, simple style, which is carefully designed to promote a sense of rawness and edginess.
Can I draw your attention to two things in particular?
* If you'd like your name, institutional details and basic research/teaching interests mentioned on the members page (strictly speaking, the mailing-list recipients page), can you let me know? I thought I'd get people actively to say that they're happy for me to post their details.
* There was talk in the last few months about the possibility of the group's holding a special workshop or seminar some time in 2005. That is now off the agenda – pressure of work, etc, etc. Sorry. But something next spring, some time around the PSA conference (at which I expect us to hold panels as usual), is still a strong possibility.
2. NORWEGIAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN. With less than three weeks to go (the vote is on Monday September 12th), this is now in full swing. With thanks to my colleagues Nick Sitter and Niklas Bolin for their comments, here's a concise summary of the state of play.
* Unusually, two clear alternative governments are on offer to Norwegian
voters: (i) the governing minority coalition of the Christian People's Party (who provide the prime minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik), the Conservatives and the tiny Liberals; and (ii) a centre-left alliance of Labour, the Centre Party and the Socialist Left.
This opposition alliance is a real departure in Norway: wartime apart, Labour has never governed in a coalition, never mind pledged to do so before an election. After getting his fingers badly burnt during a short, unhappy time in government in 2000-1, the Labour leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is determined to have a firmer parliamentary base for his next spell in office.
* The polls, usefully summarised by political scientist Bernt Aardal on his website (http://home.online.no/~b-aardal/), suggest that the left alliance will indeed win a bare majority of the vote, which – if, as predicted, the Liberals fall below the 4 per cent threshold - should be enough for a comfortable parliamentary majority. But precisely how votes will translate into seats remains to be seen. The Norwegian periphery is overrepresented, although this time the seats reserved for making the overall result more proportional has risen from 8 to 19.
* What's more, there's always the great unpredictable player in Norwegian
politics: Carl I. Hagen, leader of the right-wing Progress Party. He implicitly backed the Christian-Conservative-Liberal government when it was formed in 2001, which gave it a parliamentary majority, and has mostly continued to do so in budget deals since then. But in June Hagen threw a grenade into the campaign when he said that Progress would NOT support another Bondevik government.
This has been a big blow to the governing parties' credibility. It's seen as an attempt by Hagen to force the Conservatives into thinking about doing a Schüssel – ie, to risk the condemnation of everyone to their left and bring the radical right into government, as happened in Austria in 2000. But could there possibly be a parliamentary majority that would accept that scenario?
And would Hagen really tolerate a left government in preference to a Christian-led one? (He did topple a centre-right coalition in 1986.) These and many other questions remain tantalisingly open.
* Policy-wise, some say that Labour has moved to the left for this campaign.
True, its foreign policy has pretty much nothing in common with that of the Centre Party, which is against EEA membership, or that of Socialist Left, which is against both EEA and NATO membership. But the three parties have simply agreed not to raise such tricky issues. Indeed, the question of EU membership has not reached the agenda, and is highly unlikely to in the next parliament. With their respective alliances both containing strongly anti-EU parties, Norway's only two pro-EU parties, Labour and the Conservatives, each know that pushing the issue would be political suicide.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Just a quick message on two matters.
1. SCANDINAVIAN POLITICS GROUP WEBSITE (www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia).
This is now up and running, so do give it a quick surf. I hope you like its basic, simple style, which is carefully designed to promote a sense of rawness and edginess.
Can I draw your attention to two things in particular?
* If you'd like your name, institutional details and basic research/teaching interests mentioned on the members page (strictly speaking, the mailing-list recipients page), can you let me know? I thought I'd get people actively to say that they're happy for me to post their details.
* There was talk in the last few months about the possibility of the group's holding a special workshop or seminar some time in 2005. That is now off the agenda – pressure of work, etc, etc. Sorry. But something next spring, some time around the PSA conference (at which I expect us to hold panels as usual), is still a strong possibility.
2. NORWEGIAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN. With less than three weeks to go (the vote is on Monday September 12th), this is now in full swing. With thanks to my colleagues Nick Sitter and Niklas Bolin for their comments, here's a concise summary of the state of play.
* Unusually, two clear alternative governments are on offer to Norwegian
voters: (i) the governing minority coalition of the Christian People's Party (who provide the prime minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik), the Conservatives and the tiny Liberals; and (ii) a centre-left alliance of Labour, the Centre Party and the Socialist Left.
This opposition alliance is a real departure in Norway: wartime apart, Labour has never governed in a coalition, never mind pledged to do so before an election. After getting his fingers badly burnt during a short, unhappy time in government in 2000-1, the Labour leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is determined to have a firmer parliamentary base for his next spell in office.
* The polls, usefully summarised by political scientist Bernt Aardal on his website (http://home.online.no/~b-aardal/), suggest that the left alliance will indeed win a bare majority of the vote, which – if, as predicted, the Liberals fall below the 4 per cent threshold - should be enough for a comfortable parliamentary majority. But precisely how votes will translate into seats remains to be seen. The Norwegian periphery is overrepresented, although this time the seats reserved for making the overall result more proportional has risen from 8 to 19.
* What's more, there's always the great unpredictable player in Norwegian
politics: Carl I. Hagen, leader of the right-wing Progress Party. He implicitly backed the Christian-Conservative-Liberal government when it was formed in 2001, which gave it a parliamentary majority, and has mostly continued to do so in budget deals since then. But in June Hagen threw a grenade into the campaign when he said that Progress would NOT support another Bondevik government.
This has been a big blow to the governing parties' credibility. It's seen as an attempt by Hagen to force the Conservatives into thinking about doing a Schüssel – ie, to risk the condemnation of everyone to their left and bring the radical right into government, as happened in Austria in 2000. But could there possibly be a parliamentary majority that would accept that scenario?
And would Hagen really tolerate a left government in preference to a Christian-led one? (He did topple a centre-right coalition in 1986.) These and many other questions remain tantalisingly open.
* Policy-wise, some say that Labour has moved to the left for this campaign.
True, its foreign policy has pretty much nothing in common with that of the Centre Party, which is against EEA membership, or that of Socialist Left, which is against both EEA and NATO membership. But the three parties have simply agreed not to raise such tricky issues. Indeed, the question of EU membership has not reached the agenda, and is highly unlikely to in the next parliament. With their respective alliances both containing strongly anti-EU parties, Norway's only two pro-EU parties, Labour and the Conservatives, each know that pushing the issue would be political suicide.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
2005-07-08
News
Dear all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
Even though many of you will already be well into your summer breaks, I thought I'd send out a quick message about more Nordic-orientated events.
1. The Scandinavian Specialist Group now has its own website! To be honest, it doesn't contain very much more information that many of you will already have. But it can be built upon, of course. So do give it a quick surf (...). I hope you like its basic, simple style, which is carefully designed to promote a sense of rawness and edginess.
Can I draw your attention to two things in particular?
* If you'd like your name, institutional details and basic research/teaching interests mentioned on the members page (strictly speaking, the mailing-list recipients page), can you let me know? I thought I'd get people actively to say that they're happy for me to post their details.
* There was talk in the last few months about the possibility of the group's holding a special workshop or seminar some time in 2005. That is now off the agenda – pressure of work, etc, etc. Sorry. But something next spring, some time around the PSA conference (at which I expect us to hold panels as usual), is still a possibility.
2. Election fever is mounting in Norway and Sweden. All sorts of coalition-related flirting and rejections are going on in Norway, where there will be an election in September. Meanwhile, in Sweden, where the vote will be held in September 2006, the four-party centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" holds a commanding lead in all the polls over the governing Social Democrats and their two support parties. This raises the real possibility of the first change of government for what would be fully 15 years. But plenty can still happen. Excitingly, this is not least because several new parties look like they will enter the contest – and, unusually, each looks as if it could just arch itself over the bar and win parliamentary seats.
* One likely to entrant is a version of the Eurosceptical JUNE LIST that did so amazingly well in last summer's European elections. It's chair, Nils Lundgren, frequently sounds doubtful (with good reason, if you ask me) about whether his type of cross-spectrum list could work in a national election, in which government office is at stake. But it sounds like his lot are going to try, anyway.
* Another likely contender might be called "WELFARE IN SWEDEN". It would run largely on a more-resources-for-healthcare platform (and if you want my opinion again, the grievance, if not necessarily the proposed remedy, is far from unreasonable). While such a party's chances of clearing the national 4 per cent threshold for gaining parliamentary seats are slim, what it might do is to get in through the back door – in other words, by getting at least 12 per cent in at least one constituency. This is what the Norbotten Party got moderately near to achieving in 2002, and the northern unhappiness that it highlighted then might well be exploited again. A "Healthcare Party" won nearly a quarter of the vote in Norbotten in the county election of 2002.
* The hottest tip of all is the FEMINIST INITIATIVE (Fi), launched with much fanfare in May. But its chances may have been dealt a serious setback by an astonishingly intense debate that has blown up in Sweden (and which I should have written to the list about earlier).
This year, at least two well-known (male) political scientists had written about what they saw as the intolerant and extreme characteristics of certain elements within Swedish feminism. But this latest furore was sparked by a two-part documentary on Swedish televsion, entitled "Könskriget" (The war of the sexes). Screened soon after Fi's launch, it presented an exposé of these radical elements, centred on the main network of women's refuges, an influential professor at Uppsala University and a circle around Margareta Winberg, the former minister for equality of the sexes. Although some of these subjects have bitterly questioned the methods of the (female) investigative reporter behind the programmes, some of the positions attributed to them were eyebrow-raising, to put it rather mildly.
Former Left Party leader Gudrun Schyman, the main figure in Fi, was counter-attacking this week during the annual gathering for political speeches, debate and seminars on the island of Gotland. But although she didn't feature in the documentaries, it might be tough for Schyman's project to recover from her wilingness to associate it to the most radical bits of feminism in the country.
* One group of almost certain non-runners can be among modernisers in the Left Party, some of whom co-ordinate through an association called (roughly) the LEFT'S CHOICE (Vägval vänster). Its congress recently decided that, despite its unhappiness at the Left's apparent shift back towards its communist roots, a breakaway party would not be formed, at least not before the 2006 election. The congress preceded a rash of resignations by Left modernisers at all levels; some, including an MP, have defected to the Greens.
* During last week's seminars on Gotland, credulous journalists also reported that yet another party was to enter the race, when a batch of well-known actors and other arty types launched a CULTURE PARTY. The next day, however, the "party" admitted on its website, and in full-page adverts in the newspapers, that it was a hoax.
The declared aim of the Culture Party, and that of the hoaxers, was and is to attract more public subsidies for "culture" in Sweden. Given that its cost was estimated at SKr200,000 (€21,000) of taxpayers' money, which came via the National Theatre, some observers have suggested that this hilarious bluff might just have undermined rather than promoted its political objective.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know.
Even though many of you will already be well into your summer breaks, I thought I'd send out a quick message about more Nordic-orientated events.
1. The Scandinavian Specialist Group now has its own website! To be honest, it doesn't contain very much more information that many of you will already have. But it can be built upon, of course. So do give it a quick surf (...). I hope you like its basic, simple style, which is carefully designed to promote a sense of rawness and edginess.
Can I draw your attention to two things in particular?
* If you'd like your name, institutional details and basic research/teaching interests mentioned on the members page (strictly speaking, the mailing-list recipients page), can you let me know? I thought I'd get people actively to say that they're happy for me to post their details.
* There was talk in the last few months about the possibility of the group's holding a special workshop or seminar some time in 2005. That is now off the agenda – pressure of work, etc, etc. Sorry. But something next spring, some time around the PSA conference (at which I expect us to hold panels as usual), is still a possibility.
2. Election fever is mounting in Norway and Sweden. All sorts of coalition-related flirting and rejections are going on in Norway, where there will be an election in September. Meanwhile, in Sweden, where the vote will be held in September 2006, the four-party centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" holds a commanding lead in all the polls over the governing Social Democrats and their two support parties. This raises the real possibility of the first change of government for what would be fully 15 years. But plenty can still happen. Excitingly, this is not least because several new parties look like they will enter the contest – and, unusually, each looks as if it could just arch itself over the bar and win parliamentary seats.
* One likely to entrant is a version of the Eurosceptical JUNE LIST that did so amazingly well in last summer's European elections. It's chair, Nils Lundgren, frequently sounds doubtful (with good reason, if you ask me) about whether his type of cross-spectrum list could work in a national election, in which government office is at stake. But it sounds like his lot are going to try, anyway.
* Another likely contender might be called "WELFARE IN SWEDEN". It would run largely on a more-resources-for-healthcare platform (and if you want my opinion again, the grievance, if not necessarily the proposed remedy, is far from unreasonable). While such a party's chances of clearing the national 4 per cent threshold for gaining parliamentary seats are slim, what it might do is to get in through the back door – in other words, by getting at least 12 per cent in at least one constituency. This is what the Norbotten Party got moderately near to achieving in 2002, and the northern unhappiness that it highlighted then might well be exploited again. A "Healthcare Party" won nearly a quarter of the vote in Norbotten in the county election of 2002.
* The hottest tip of all is the FEMINIST INITIATIVE (Fi), launched with much fanfare in May. But its chances may have been dealt a serious setback by an astonishingly intense debate that has blown up in Sweden (and which I should have written to the list about earlier).
This year, at least two well-known (male) political scientists had written about what they saw as the intolerant and extreme characteristics of certain elements within Swedish feminism. But this latest furore was sparked by a two-part documentary on Swedish televsion, entitled "Könskriget" (The war of the sexes). Screened soon after Fi's launch, it presented an exposé of these radical elements, centred on the main network of women's refuges, an influential professor at Uppsala University and a circle around Margareta Winberg, the former minister for equality of the sexes. Although some of these subjects have bitterly questioned the methods of the (female) investigative reporter behind the programmes, some of the positions attributed to them were eyebrow-raising, to put it rather mildly.
Former Left Party leader Gudrun Schyman, the main figure in Fi, was counter-attacking this week during the annual gathering for political speeches, debate and seminars on the island of Gotland. But although she didn't feature in the documentaries, it might be tough for Schyman's project to recover from her wilingness to associate it to the most radical bits of feminism in the country.
* One group of almost certain non-runners can be among modernisers in the Left Party, some of whom co-ordinate through an association called (roughly) the LEFT'S CHOICE (Vägval vänster). Its congress recently decided that, despite its unhappiness at the Left's apparent shift back towards its communist roots, a breakaway party would not be formed, at least not before the 2006 election. The congress preceded a rash of resignations by Left modernisers at all levels; some, including an MP, have defected to the Greens.
* During last week's seminars on Gotland, credulous journalists also reported that yet another party was to enter the race, when a batch of well-known actors and other arty types launched a CULTURE PARTY. The next day, however, the "party" admitted on its website, and in full-page adverts in the newspapers, that it was a hoax.
The declared aim of the Culture Party, and that of the hoaxers, was and is to attract more public subsidies for "culture" in Sweden. Given that its cost was estimated at SKr200,000 (€21,000) of taxpayers' money, which came via the National Theatre, some observers have suggested that this hilarious bluff might just have undermined rather than promoted its political objective.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know.
2004-06-05
Swedish Politics: revamped list
Greetings to all on the new mail-list of the PSA’s Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group,
Hej from Umeå, where the snow has almost gone and has been replaced by rather British weather (http://webcam.educ.umu.se/). I have a few items for your attention.
* FIRST, I’m copying this to several people who might be interested, but who aren’t technically subscribers to the list. In fact, to get round the awkwardness of actually signing up to the Keele-based group list, I’ve decided to replace it with a simple mail list of its existing members, plus a few others. (This means that, if you want to circulate an item, you have to send it to me first.) If anyone does NOT want to receive occasional messages in future, just let me know. I certainly won’t take offence.
* SECOND, I’ve written the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group’s report for 2003. It’s not the most exciting document that you’ll ever read, but, if you do want to see a copy, just let me know. The document, like those written by the PSA’s 39 other specialist groups, will eventually be posted on the association’s website (www.psa.ac.uk).
* THIRD, I should mention that this report suggests certain ways in which we could use the group’s resources. One is to offer small grants to postgraduates who want to present papers at our PSA conference panels. Another is to offer help with travel expenses to a group member or members who want to take part in a workshop, here in Umeå in August, on the Swedish European election. Your thoughts on these ideas would be appreciated.
* FOURTH, and talking of the European elections, I can report that campaign activity is beginning to get going here. The joker in the Swedish pack is a spin-off from the No side in the referendum campaign, the June List (www.junilistan.nu), which is looking to offer a home to moderately Eurosceptical voters who don’t fancy voting for the Left or the Greens. The other parties are irritated that the List’s candidates have been allowed to state their previous party affiliation (“Social Democrat”, “Christian Democrat”, etc) next to their name on the ballot paper; but opinion polls so far have not been desperately promising for the new group.
That could change, of course, if rapid progress is made on the EU constitutional treaty. The prime minister has made clear that, after last year’s fiasco on EMU, he doesn’t want any more referendums on European matters. Nor do the other parties, bar the Left and Greens. The spectacular British about-turn on this question has so far not had much impact on the Swedish debate.
Anyway, I and some colleagues will be writing a shortish report on the Swedish election to the European Parliament. If anyone else is writing something on the elections in other Nordic countries, please think of giving the other members of the list a sneak preview.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (forskarassistent) Department of Political Science, Umeå University (www.pol.umu.se) convenor, PSA Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se).
Hej from Umeå, where the snow has almost gone and has been replaced by rather British weather (http://webcam.educ.umu.se/). I have a few items for your attention.
* FIRST, I’m copying this to several people who might be interested, but who aren’t technically subscribers to the list. In fact, to get round the awkwardness of actually signing up to the Keele-based group list, I’ve decided to replace it with a simple mail list of its existing members, plus a few others. (This means that, if you want to circulate an item, you have to send it to me first.) If anyone does NOT want to receive occasional messages in future, just let me know. I certainly won’t take offence.
* SECOND, I’ve written the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group’s report for 2003. It’s not the most exciting document that you’ll ever read, but, if you do want to see a copy, just let me know. The document, like those written by the PSA’s 39 other specialist groups, will eventually be posted on the association’s website (www.psa.ac.uk).
* THIRD, I should mention that this report suggests certain ways in which we could use the group’s resources. One is to offer small grants to postgraduates who want to present papers at our PSA conference panels. Another is to offer help with travel expenses to a group member or members who want to take part in a workshop, here in Umeå in August, on the Swedish European election. Your thoughts on these ideas would be appreciated.
* FOURTH, and talking of the European elections, I can report that campaign activity is beginning to get going here. The joker in the Swedish pack is a spin-off from the No side in the referendum campaign, the June List (www.junilistan.nu), which is looking to offer a home to moderately Eurosceptical voters who don’t fancy voting for the Left or the Greens. The other parties are irritated that the List’s candidates have been allowed to state their previous party affiliation (“Social Democrat”, “Christian Democrat”, etc) next to their name on the ballot paper; but opinion polls so far have not been desperately promising for the new group.
That could change, of course, if rapid progress is made on the EU constitutional treaty. The prime minister has made clear that, after last year’s fiasco on EMU, he doesn’t want any more referendums on European matters. Nor do the other parties, bar the Left and Greens. The spectacular British about-turn on this question has so far not had much impact on the Swedish debate.
Anyway, I and some colleagues will be writing a shortish report on the Swedish election to the European Parliament. If anyone else is writing something on the elections in other Nordic countries, please think of giving the other members of the list a sneak preview.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (forskarassistent) Department of Political Science, Umeå University (www.pol.umu.se) convenor, PSA Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se).
2001-11-09
Dear all,
Members of the Political Studies Association may have seen last week's e-mail about its annual conference in Aberdeen on April 5th-7th 2002. Particularly as the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group didn't manage to run a panel at last year's conference, but also because of the strong presence of Nordic-orientated political scientists in Aberdeen, we really ought to make sure that something happens this year. I have no objections to co-ordinating a SPSG panel, but we need a theme. Are there people who have papers that they'd like to air, the topics of which would inform the focus of the panel? Please let me know if anyone is in such a position, and I'll get moving with the application as soon as possible.
There's another issue that we need to discuss, and Aberdeen would be a good place to do so. I'll be leaving Keele in the new year for foreign fields - Umeå, to be precise. Now, a lot can be done remotely these days. But I wonder whether a specialist group of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom ought to have a co-ordinator who is resident and works in the United Kingdom.
Finally, keep Friday April 12th 2002 clear in your diaries if you can. We're planning a joint workshop with the Nordic History Group on that day, in London. The topic will be Scandinavian populist parties across the political spectrum, and I'm hopeful of a star-studded cast. Members of the group will be very welcome to take part.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Members of the Political Studies Association may have seen last week's e-mail about its annual conference in Aberdeen on April 5th-7th 2002. Particularly as the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group didn't manage to run a panel at last year's conference, but also because of the strong presence of Nordic-orientated political scientists in Aberdeen, we really ought to make sure that something happens this year. I have no objections to co-ordinating a SPSG panel, but we need a theme. Are there people who have papers that they'd like to air, the topics of which would inform the focus of the panel? Please let me know if anyone is in such a position, and I'll get moving with the application as soon as possible.
There's another issue that we need to discuss, and Aberdeen would be a good place to do so. I'll be leaving Keele in the new year for foreign fields - Umeå, to be precise. Now, a lot can be done remotely these days. But I wonder whether a specialist group of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom ought to have a co-ordinator who is resident and works in the United Kingdom.
Finally, keep Friday April 12th 2002 clear in your diaries if you can. We're planning a joint workshop with the Nordic History Group on that day, in London. The topic will be Scandinavian populist parties across the political spectrum, and I'm hopeful of a star-studded cast. Members of the group will be very welcome to take part.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
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