2022
War in Europe: The War in Ukraine – Perspectives from Political Science
Time and place: Mar. 4, 2022 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Aud. 1 (Ragnar Frischs auditorium) in Eilert Sundts Hus
Since last week, the Russian attack on Ukraine has become the dominant topic in politics and the media, both in Europe and Norway. The ongoing war – as well as global reactions to it – open several questions for both citizens and politicians, as well as for students and scholars of political science.
- What does the attack on Ukraine mean for diplomacy, foreign policy, and international collaboration today and in the future?
- In how far will these events influence European and global security policy?
- What does this war mean with regards to questions of nuclear weapons policy?
- What do we know from studies of autocratic regimes that can help us understand the politics within Russia?
- How are regional political dynamics and processes of European integration in Central and Eastern Europe affected by this conflict?
These are just a few examples of the pressing questions that this war brought to the forefront. To provide some reflections on these issues, the Department of Political Science will organize a panel debate. The panel brings together experts from the department covering different research foci from foreign policy, security policy, autocratic regimes, and Central and Eastern European politics. The panelists will have a moderated debate followed by the opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
The panel includes:
- Prof. Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Department of Political Science, UiO
- Dr. James Cameron, Postdoctoral Fellow, Oslo Nuclear Project, Department of Political Science, UiO
- Prof. Janne Haaland Matlary, Department of Political Science, UiO
- Dr. Kacper Szulecki, Researcher at the Department of Political Science, UiO & NUPI – The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
- Prof. Tore Wig, Department of Political Science, UiO
2019
Public lecture with Petra Schleiter: The parliamentary struggle over Brexit
Time and place: Dec. 5, 2019 2:15 PM – 3:30 PM, auditorium 4, Eilert Sundts hus
The process of terminating Britain’s membership of the European Union has raised specific challenges to the balance between government and Parliament. Seen against this backdrop, Brexit has brought to the fore changes to the executive/legislature relationship that have been brewing in the background for a while. Why have these occurred, and what might the consequences be?
Public lecture with Petra Schleiter, Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Oxford. Followed by Q&A.
2018
The Nils Klim symposium Constructing a majority: A micro-level study of voting patterns in Indian elections
Time and place: Dec. 10, 2018 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Abels utsikt, Niels Henrik Abels hus
Francesca R. Jensenius is the winner of the Nils Klim Prize 2018. In this seminar she presents from her most recent research, a forthcoming book about micro-level voting patterns in India.
Indian elections are known to be highly fractionalized and volatile, but also for having semi-authoritarian pockets where the same person or family controls the vote election after election. In their forthcoming book, Francesca R. Jensenius, Pradeep Chhibber, and Sanjeer Alam draw on polling-booth level data from across India to explore when and why we see such different voting patterns at the local level in India. They argue that the provision of public goods and the presence of the state tempers political fragmentation and semi-authoritarian local politics.
Programme
- Opening of the seminar by professor Sigmund Grønmo, former rector at the University of Bergen and Chair of the Holberg Board
- Presentation of the book manuscript by Francesca R. Jensenius and Pradeep Chhibber
- Comments from a distinguished panel:
- Chair: Anne-Julie Semb, head of Department of Political Science, UiO
- Irfan Nooruddin, Professor of Indian Politics, Georgetown University
- Mukulika Banerjee, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science
- Prerna Singh, Associate Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs, Brown University
Is democracy fading in Europe? The case of Catalonia
Time and place: June 5, 2018 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Georg Sverdrups hus
On 1 October 2017, more than 3 million people sought to participate in what had been declared an illegal referendum on independence organized by the Catalan government. Almost 2.3 million managed to cast their votes (43% turnout) despite heavy-handed repression by the Spanish police that left over one thousand people injured. Some 90% of those who managed to vote favoured an independent state for Catalonia. On 27 October, the Catalan parliament approved a text proclaiming Catalonia as an independent state 'in the form of a Republic'. Since then, the conservative central government of Mariano Rajoy, supported by the Citizens’ Party and the Spanish Socialist Party, has invoked Article 155 of the Constitution to take control of Catalonia's regional institutions, finances and police. This government has repeatedly threatened to take over Catalan public television and radio stations, and expressed the intention to change the Catalan education system, ending decades of prioritizing the Catalan language in classrooms.
The snap regional elections called by the Spanish government held on 21 December proved inadequate to unlock the situation. With two civil society leaders and two members of the deposed government in pre-trial detention and five members of the deposed government, including the president, in exile, pro-republican parties again won the majority in the parliament. At present, the three pro-independence parties, Junts per Catalunya (JuntsxCat), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), and Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) hold 70 of the 135 seats. Although these three parties support the re-election of the deposed president Carles Puigdemont, he has not been able to return to Catalonia without risking arrest on charges of sedition and rebellion. Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Turull, two presidential candidates nominated since January 2018, remain in pre-trial detention; despite calls by the United Nations, the Spanish judiciary has not respected their political rights.
This seminar will discuss the current situation, focusing on issues such as:
- why a majority of Catalans have been requesting a legal referendum on independence for the past eight years;
- the unwillingness of the Spanish government to agree to a self-determination referendum and their violent reprisals in the 1 October referendum;
- the democratic legitimacy of 'judicializing' politics as a strategy to fight against independence;
- the reasons behind the lack of explicit support for a democratic solution in Catalunya from most European countries, from EU institutions in particular;
- Finnish MP Mikko Kärnä’s proposal of April 2018 regarding Nordic Council mediation, and responses received so far.
Programme
- 09.30: Welcome. Øivind Bratberg, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo
- 09.35: Understanding Catalonia’s self-determination dream. Johannes Nymark, Associate Professor (Emeritus), Norwegian School of Economics (NHH); author of Draumen om Catalonia
- 10.00: From the 1 October referendum to the 21 December elections, and beyond. Vicent Partal, journalist, Director of VilaWeb (Catalan Digital Newspaper)
- 10.25: Break
- 10.35: EU responses to the democratic challenge in Catalonia. Øyvind Østerud, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo
- 11.00: Mediation: a proposal to the Nordic Council. Mikko Kärnä, Member of the Parliament of Finland, Centre Party Parliamentary Group
- 11.25: Plenary discussion
- 12:00: Event finishes
2017
Guest lecture: Pragmatism, pluralism, and the idea of social science
Time and place: May 4, 2017 4:15 PM – 5:30 PM, auditorium 4, Eilert Sundts hus
Professor Patrick Thaddeus Jackson from American University, Washington, D.C. is visiting and will give his lecture "Pragmatism, pluralism, and the idea of a social science".
For much of the past century, the social sciences have been caught between the "naturalist" insistence that they proceed just like the natural sciences are imagined to proceed, and the rival "anti-naturalist" rejection of systematic causal explanation in favor of the explication of social and cultural meaning. Both of these positions are fatally undermined by their misleadingly monolithic view of "science."
Against both naturalism and anti-naturalism, a pragmatic approach to the conduct of inquiry in the social sciences, which begins by accepting and affirming the irreducible plurality of ways of being scientific, provides a way forward that encompasses both causal and interpretive explanations without reducing either to the other. International studies, as a multi-disciplinary field investigating "the encounter with difference across boundaries," would benefit especially from an embrace of this kind of pragmatic approach.