CANCELLED: How can the EU improve its crisis response?
One month ago, the NUPI-led and Horizon 2020-funded research project EUNPACK was finalised. This seminar will provide an opportunity to look back at three years of research and fieldwork to consider the policy implications of its findings.
What is the impact of the UN missions in Mali and South Sudan?
On the occasion of the International Day of Peacekeeping, NUPI has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar with a focus on the effectiveness of the UN missions in Mali and South Sudan.
Report on significant distortions in the economy of the Russian Federation for the purpose of trade defence investigations (EU-Russia trade)
This project will produce a comprehensive study of Russia's economy, focusing on regulations, laws, subsidies and other aspects that may interfere in competition in the markets. ...
Local Ownership as Global Governance
The ownership discourse has profoundly altered the management of development aid. Nominally, it seeks to instil greater freedom as well as responsibilities among aid recipients. Revisiting two ethnographic studies (the World Bank–Uganda partnership and NGO relations in Ethiopia), this article shows how ‘ownership’ practices also involve new forms of tacit governance mechanisms that enable the donor to retain control. By using ‘freedom’ as a formula underpinning governance at a distance, developmentality is made contingent on the donor’s ability to frame the partnership and the conditions under which the recipient exercises the freedom that has been granted.
Forebygging av krig og konflikt i cyberdomenet
(Available in Norwegian only): Cyberdomenet representerer kanskje en av vår tids største trusler mot internasjonal fred og sikkerhet men er viet lite oppmerksomhet hva gjelder forebyg- ging av krig og konflikt. Det er behov for internasjon- ale forpliktende kjøreregler som hever blikket over IKT-forvaltning, digitalisering og cybersikkerhetstil- tak og fokuserer på fredelige relasjoner mellom sta- ter i cyberdomenet. Skal en slik diskusjon ha effekt må den tas i FNs Sikkerhetsråd.
There are very few BJP strongholds or Congress bastions in India. Data shows why
An important ongoing discussion in some political circles in India is whether the Election Commission should limit public access to the so-called Form 20 data, which reports the exact number of votes that each candidate receives in each polling booth in an election. The Form 20 data has been made available for the 2009 and the 2014 general elections, and also for the state elections held in recent years. The main reason offered by those who want to limit access to this data is that it is an important democratic principle that the vote is kept secret, and if the data reveals that most voters in a polling booth vote for the same party, it is no longer so secret how someone votes. This knowledge is important because it might allow powerful people to control the vote in a polling booth, undermining the freedom of the vote. Francesca R. Jensenius and colleagues discuss this in an op-ed published by The Print.
It’s a myth that 2014 election was exceptional in the vote share of winning candidates
Elections to the Lok Sabha are highly competitive. Indian politicians win with smaller margins than their counterparts in other countries with a similar electoral system, such as Canada and the United Kingdom. In a first-past-the-post electoral system, a candidate needs 50 per cent plus one vote to win the election if only two candidates compete for a seat. If there are three candidates who are equally strong, a winning candidate will need only one-third of the votes plus one additional vote. In India, usually a large number of candidates compete for each Lok Sabha seat, many of whom are non-serious. This makes it possible for several Indian politicians to get elected with a very low vote share. And, this may have important implications for their legitimacy and accountability as people’s representatives.
Political parties dominate India’s national elections, not candidates
A common perception regarding Indian politics is that it is the candidate, and not the party, who wins the elections. This makes it important for parties to pick the “right” candidates, and parties in India do spend enormous effort in local consultations and identity arithmetic while choosing who to allocate party tickets to. The belief that candidates win or lose elections has also led to many more independent candidates throwing their hat into the electoral arena. How do these independent candidates fare? In this piece, the writers show the impressive growth over time in the number of candidates, particularly independent candidates, standing for the elections, but also that there is a very small likelihood of an independent candidate actually winning a parliamentary seat. Parties dominate India’s national elections.
3 charts challenge lazy thinking on voter turnout and its link to literacy & urbanisation
India is known for a fairly high election turnout, but who turns out to vote in India, and why? In our last article, we discussed how constituency size, organisational networks, and social pressures may play a role in influencing voter turnout. Two other factors are commonly cited as having an impact on turnout: literacy and urbanisation. Our findings suggest that the impact of overall education levels and urbanisation on voter turnout in India may be more nuanced than what political observers have traditionally believed.