This thesis asks when and why interest groups influence political parties. I address this question in two ways: 1) by examining the organizational ties between parties and interest groups, given that party-interest group ties may constitute an important step on groups' way to influence, and 2) by more directly examining interest group influence on parties. By doing this, the thesis contributes to the literatures on interest group influence, party positions, and party-interest group ties. Paper I examines the relationship between private and public party finance and party-interest group organizational ties. The paper lends systematic support to the idea that groups and parties are more likely to maintain closer relationships today when the groups donate money. The institutional setting the actors operate in may furthermore affect ties.Paper II gives an overview of the Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies (PAIRDEM) datasets, and presents descriptive results regarding the organizational ties parties and interest groups maintain today. Paper III considers the relationship between parties' goals and interest group influence on parties. I find that interest groups are more likely to perceive that they influence parties they are ideologically similar to as well as parties that are more willing to compromise on policy. Interest groups' access to parties moreover seems to be an important mechanism here. Paper IV asks whether organizational ties affect one-sided interest group influence on parties as well as mutual party-interest group influence. We find positive correlations between stronger ties and both types of influence.Paper V asks when parties listen to interest groups and adopt their input. I find that parties are more likely to do this when 1) the issue in question is less publicly salient, 2) parties emphasize the issue more than their competitors, 3) the interest group input is supported by a larger and/or more coordinated interest group coalition, and 4) parties are in opposition.
Political order in outer space has so far been perceived as an extension of the terrestrial political order. In contrast, I argue that the political order emerging in outer space defines international relations on Earth. Therefore, with a refreshed understanding of the political dynamics of outer space, we will be better equipped to grasp the contemporary world order. Moreover, deeper knowledge about the kind of order that is emerging in outer space opens up possibilities to influence its evolving direction, should we find this desirable. Consequently, the overarching research question of this thesis is how can we understand the kind of order that is emerging in outer space and the impact that this order has on the broader world order? Exploring this question, I visit everyday working environments and key sites for outer space ordering where I conduct multi-sited ethnography and elite interviews (2017-2020). This explorative inquiry shows that the kind of order emerging in outer space can best be conceptualized not as anarchical, nor as hierarchical but as heterarchical. I find that quantum-mind entangled professional orders are the principal units that define the outer space order’s evolving direction. Using space as a crucial and illustrative example of the world order, I argue that these professional orders constitute the depoliticized fabric of the world setting its direction. I find that the prominent and defining professional orders are the scientific, commercial and military orders, which trajectories extend well into the future. Moreover, I theorize that the emerging outer space order foreshadows a transition into hypermodernity as the constellations of satellites for fast-speed-Internet that are being launched in outer space are creating a gigantic ‘transmission belt’. In addition, this inquiry reveals an imminent cosmological shift, as the world is yet again extended. This time further and more permanently into outer space with consequences for our sense of responsibility for Earth. I conclude that the increasingly heterarchical world, the ‘emboosted transmission belt’ and prevailing visions of the extended world call for a different ‘way of being political’ – for reflective political reason at the individual level including reconsiderations of professional identities. (Less)
The concept of green democracy has been advanced in green political theory as a way to include the natural world in the political and, by that, overcome an alleged wall, a fundamental disunity, separating humans and nature in modernity and substitute it with a unity of identity that would bridge the gap between them. It has also been vested with the coupled power to transform society in a sustainable direction. This study argues that green democracy disqualifies the concept of democracy it adopts and that, instead of bringing humans and nature together in a unity of identity, it reproduces a relation between them according to which they form a unity of difference, a relation where they are connected as if being the inside and outside of a door. Through a historical analysis of medieval, early modern, and modern modes of Western thought, it is shown that modernity does not wall humans off from nature but instead relates them in such a unity of difference and that this particular relation is fundamental for the modern concept of democracy in general, which is shown to have the same meaning as democracy has in the concept of green democracy. A tendency within the modern concept of democracy to disqualify itself is also delineated. The analysis suggests that the conceptualisation of green democracy in green political theory reproduces a unity of difference between humans and nature because it adopts a modern concept of democracy presupposing such a relation, and that it disqualifies its own concept of democracy because modern democracy tends to disqualify itself. Also, this tendency, it is argued, is exacerbated in green democracy.
This thesis explores the meta-ethical question: What properties would be required of a normative critical concept in order for it to be (a) derived from the social facticity of prevailing norms, practices and institutions in a given society and (b) still be capable of informing radical critique? This thesis takes radical critique to mean one that escapes all charges of status quo biases and thus truly transcends the immanent content of the norms, practices and institutions from which it was derived.This thesis asserts that the necessary property of such a concept is recursion. That is, the property of a self-referentiality that allows for something to hierarchically contain copies of itself. The idea of finding the property of recursion in normative political theory and defending its utility is undertheorized in the political theory literature. By locating the property of recursion in the formal pragmatics of Jurgen Habermas, in Axel Honneth’s concepts of recognition and social freedom and in Rainer Forst’s concept of justification, this thesis remedies this situation. In doing so, a space is carved out for normative political theory between foundationalism and anti-foundationalism and between the utopian and realist approach.
This thesis examines the multiple and often overlapping encounters between ‘global’ and ‘local’ norms, actors, practices, and discourses which take place when norms travel between different socio-political contexts. This is done through a study of how global gender equality norms embedded in the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda are promoted in two war to peace transitions: Mali and Rwanda. Since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000, the WPS agenda has emerged as a powerful international normative framework and has become a key component of international peacebuilding efforts. Through four papers, the thesis demonstrates how global and local actors engage with WPS norms in multiple, overlapping and sometimes unexpected ways, producing a range of outcomes that shape both the meanings and trajectories of norms. The thesis advances the empirical study of norms by combining a number of analytical approaches and data sources, including unique and comprehensive data on the peace process in Mali generated through extensive fieldwork. It outlines a conceptual framework for studying normative encounters and related processes of contestation, friction, localization and appropriation. These processes are explored in the papers, where I develop existing theories and concepts from the literatures on the ‘agency of the governed’ and critical peacebuilding. Together, the papers provide important insights concerning the ability of agents to shape the meanings and trajectories of norms through meaning-making practices. These include practices of resistance and refinement at the Malian peace negotiations (Paper 1), frictional interactions in the Malian peace process (Paper 2), discursive practices of re-presentation by local elites in Mali (Paper 3) and policy production by the Government of Rwanda (Paper 4). Further, when agents are involved in these processes, they construct and produce new meanings and realities through their engagement with norms. The thesis shows how actors contribute to increased norm precision through the development of operating principles (Paper 1), how they construct positions and locations from which to claim authority and legitimacy (Papers 2, 3 and 4), as well as new identities (Papers 2 and 3) and subjects to be governed (Papers 3 and 4). (Less)
