Search

With national electricity systems, ‘transition’ may involve decentralising production and ownership, and digitalising the system. These processes are facilitated by smart metering, ‘prosuming,’ and changes in consumer behaviour. Driving factors may be national steering, or the process can be left to the market. In Norway, the government has opted for tightly steered national coordination of three key areas: national smart-meter implementation (since 2011), prosumer regulation (since 2016), and a national end-user demand flexibility regulation (expected to be adopted in 2020). These regulations influence production patterns, energy flows and grid activities. Drawing on organisational fields theory, this article asks: Why was it decided to adopt these policies centrally? Which actors have had greatest influence on policy outputs? And, finally, what of the possible implications? The regulations, developed in a sector in a state of field crisis, have generally been supported by the relevant actors. The Norwegian case can help to explain incumbent roles and field crisis, as well as nuanced drivers in complex transitions, beyond decarbonisation.

The 2013 NSR regime was explicitly aimed at attracting international users and transit shipping, but recent Russian policies point in a different direction. Expectations of a rapid increase in transit shipping have faded, whereas promoting the swift development of destination shipping serving large resource extraction projects has become a top political priority. Security concerns have become more pronounced, but have not impacted commercial shipping activity noticeably. There are tensions between the ambitions for increased output of minerals and the extensive protectionist measures which have been introduced, but, with one prominent exception, industrial stakeholders seem content with less-competitive shipping arrangements. The 2013 regulatory regime was designed to serve individual voyages. The new developments centre around large extractive projects with individual logistical solutions – including special conditions negotiated with the authorities. The NSR administration has undergone significant change, with a dominant role accorded to the state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom – itself engaged in commercial activities. The room for foreign shipping interests has shrunk, but not disappeared. Their opportunities will depend on alliances with key Russian players.

This introductory essay synthesises the contributions to this special 5 issue on polar regions and multi-level governance, showing how they address three important themes in the study of institutional complexes: interplay management; the influence that global institutions and processes exert on regional regimes; and the ways in which states and other actors pursue their interests within com- 10 plexes of institutions. The institutional complexes in focus here comprise institutions relevant to Arctic Ocean governance, EU– Arctic relationships, Arctic maritime boundary disputes, the Antarctic Treaty System (including CCAMLR), the preservation of cultural heritage and the traditional economy in Newfoundland and 15 Labrador, and scientific research in Svalbard. Introductory essay: Polar regions and multi-level governance

Since the Arab Uprisings in 2010–2011 and subsequent counter- revolutions, socio-economic and political crises have occurred with rapid frequency in the Arab Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel. The aim of our special issue is to investigate how and why social movements that use references to Islam or an explicit Islamist framework have adapted their ideology and their toolbox in order to negotiate and navigate the social and political terrain created by the upheavals in the recent period? Using recent field data to enrich our knowledge of Islamist movements in countries where the Islamist phenomenon has been understudied, this collection pro- vides a framework to understand the growing political volatility and hybridity in Islamist repertoires of contention. The authors of the volume each analyse cases of Islamist social movements shifting, or attempting to shift, from one repertoire to another – from transna- tional to national, from non-violent to violent or vice versa. The collection shows that social movements adapt in different ways and make use of resources available to them, at times moving far beyond their established ideology and traditional theological references. Islamist Social Movements and Hybrid Regime Types in the Muslim World

Complexity science provides us with a theoretical framework for understanding how complex social systems lapse into violent conflict, and how they can prevent, or recover from conflict. For a peace process to become self-sustainable, resilient social institutions need to emerge from within, i.e. from the culture, history and socio-economic context of the relevant society. International actors can assist and facilitate this process, but if they interfere too much, they will undermine the self-organising processes necessary to sustain resilient social institutions. Adaptive Peacebuilding navigates this hybrid peacebuilding dilemma with an adaptive methodology where peacebuilders, together with the communities and people affected by the conflict, actively engage in a structured process to sustain peace and resolve conflicts by employing an iterative process of learning and adaptation. A complexity informed approach to hybrid peacebuilding aims to safeguard, stimulate, facilitate and create the space for societies to develop resilient capacities for self-organisation.

Contestations about the way in which digital sequence information is used and regulated have created stumbling blocks across multiple international policy processes. Such schisms have profound implications for the way in which we manage and conceptualize agrobiodiversity and its benefits. This paper explores the relationship between farmers’ rights, as recognized in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and the dematerialization of genetic resources. Using concepts of “stewardship” and “ownership” we emphasize the need to move away from viewing agrobiodiversity as a commodity that can be owned, toward a strengthened, proactive and expansive stewardship approach that recognizes plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as a public good which should be governed as such. Through this lens we analyze the relationship between digital sequence information and different elements of farmers’ rights to compare and contrast implications for the governance of digital sequence information. Two possible parallel pathways are presented, the first envisaging an enhanced multilateral system that includes digital sequence information and which promotes and enhances the realization of farmers’ rights; and the second a more radical approach that folds together concepts of stewardship, farmers’ rights, and open source science. Farmers’ rights, we suggest, may well be the linchpin for finding fair and equitable solutions for digital sequence information beyond the bilateral and transactional approach that has come to characterize access and benefit sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Existing policy uncertainties could be seized as an unexpected but serendipitous opportunity to chart an alternative and visionary pathway for the rights of farmers and other custodians of plant genetic resources.

Article 50TEU acknowledges the right of Member States to withdraw from the EU, and contains a specific procedure. It also constitutes the legal basis of an exceptional EU competence whose purpose is to ensure that a Member’s departure is “orderly”. This qualification entails the conclusion of an agreement between the parties on the terms of the withdrawal, but also presupposes that the withdrawal does not undermine the integrity of the EU legal order, while contributing to the fulfilment of the Union’s integration objective. The unprecedented exercise of that competence has enriched the law of European integration: core components of the constitutional identity of the EU have been (re)affirmed, the role of its institutions bolstered, and Union membership law further articulated. Paradoxically, withdrawal may therefore be envisaged as an integration-friendly process.

By studying the change from the alderman model to parliamentary rule in Norwegian cities and regions, this article analyses how and why reorganisation of political institutions influ- ences support for the institutions reformed. We adopt a mixed methods approach consisting of a survey of politicians in all seven reformed Norwegian local governments, combined with a case study of reorganised governments with high and low levels of support for par- liamentary rule. We find that support for the institutional model in the reformed local gov- ernments depends on the reform’s effect on different political positions. Politicians in power are more positive towards parliamentary rule than members in opposition are, and politicians from the big parties are more positive compared to representatives from smaller ones. Institutional change affects the interests of these groups in different ways. In turn, the effects that reform has on different interests influence their support for the reformed insti- tutions. System support is also affected by how the change process is implemented. An inclusive political leadership that builds oversized coalitions and allocates positions such as committee chairs to the opposition results in stronger support for parliamentary rule. The overall finding is that both “pure” institutional effects and contextual factors influence sup- port for parliamentary rule. Support increases when there is a high level of readiness and capacity for change. The reform must also include relevant actors in a way meeting de- mands for procedural fairness. The practical implication for reformers is that they must communicate why the organisation needs reform, arrange for sufficient implementation ca- pacity and include relevant participants in decision-making and change processes.

Myanmar’s introduction of competitive elections after decades of military rule raised expectations for progress in economic and social development, including in the area of women’s rights. In this paper, we draw on data from two national surveys, interviews, and existing qualitative studies to explore public opinion on women’s rights and gender equality. Do Burmese people support gender equality? How are their views on gender related to other aspects of political culture, such as traditional values and views toward authoritarianism and democracy? Our objective is to gain better understanding of the opportunities and obstacles to egalitarian social change and democratic consolidation. Our analysis of survey data reveals that attitudes toward gender roles are conservative, traditional and anti-democratic beliefs are widespread, and these views are strongly associated. Our findings imply that tendencies in public opinion provide a resource for Burmese nationalist groups and politicians and an obstacle to activists seeking greater alignment with global norms on gender equality.

Among others, the deployment of the UN stabilization mission to Mali (MINUSMA) in 2013 has been characterized by a number of researchers as a ‘return’ of Western troop contributors to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping in Africa. The aim of this report is to look at the reality of that ‘return,’ and whether it has enhanced the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping overall and of the UN mission in Mali in particular. In policy and academic circles, the return has been hailed as an opportunity for Western member states to contribute niche capabilities such as ISRs including surveillance drones, military transport and attack helicopters, special forces, and to share experiences and practices developed over a long period of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism warfare in e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq. In Mali, the UN mission is mired in a situation where these experiences were considered as relevant, all the more so as some considered that new UN peacekeeping missions could be deployed to Libya, Somalia, Syria, or in Yemen, thereby making Mali a key testing ground for the future from this perspective. However, while Western countries may indeed have lessons to share, the report argues that so far their contribution to MINUSMA has been a very mixed blessing. The report explores these challenges and impact of them on the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping, defined as the ability to sustain peace over time.

Sustainability certification has become an increasingly important feature in aquaculture production, leading to a multitude of schemes with various criteria. However, the large number of schemes and the complexity of the standards creates confusion with respect to which sustainability objectives are targeted. As a result, what is meant by ‘sustainability’ is unclear. In this paper, we examine the operationalisation of the concept from the vantage point of the certifying authorities, who devise standards and grant or withhold certification of compliance. We map the criteria of eight widely-used certification schemes using the four domains of the Wheel of Sustainability, a reference model designed to encompass a comprehensive understanding of sustainability. We show that, overall, the sustainability certifications have an overwhelming focus on environmental and governance indicators, and only display scattered attempts at addressing cultural and economic issues. The strong focus on governance indicators is, to a large degree, due to their role in implementing and legitimising the environmental indicators. The strong bias implies that these certification schemes predominantly focus on the environmental domain and do not address sustainability as a whole, nor do they complement each other. Sustainability is by definition and by necessity a comprehensive concept, but if the cultural and economic issues are to be addressed in aquaculture, the scope of certification schemes must be expanded. The Wheel of Sustainability can serve as a valid lexicon and asset to guide such efforts. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).

После завершения проекта сжиженного природного газа (СПГ) на Ямале в последние годы движение по Северному морскому пути быстро увеличивалось. Развитие производства сжиженного природного газа ожидается и в последующие несколько лет. СПГ планируется направлять круглогодично в восточном направлении по Северному морскому пути (СМП) непосредственно в Азию. В настоящее время некоторые отрезки СМП практически недоступны для навигации несколько месяцев в год. Для того чтобы использовать весь морской путь и в самые холодные месяцы, необходимо присутствие там серии новых ледоколов. В настоящее время осуществляется программа их производства. Однако до сих пор не было публиковано внятного анализа затрат-выгод от круглогодичной эксплуатации морского пути. Цель статьи – провести анализ различных оценок затрат, появившихся в открытых источниках, а также представить расчет объемов перевозок и тарифов, необходимых для покрытия операционных и капитальных затрат на новый ледокольный флот.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis inPublic Performance and Management Review on 23. Nov. 2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/https://doi.org/10.1080/15309576.2019.1694545. This paper seeks to convey a broader understanding of policy transfers between different sectors, focusing on transfers from the for-profit sector to local government. Specifically, we study the reasoning in a transfer process of branding and reputation management policy. Our case is a rural Norwegian municipality struggling to combat depopulation. This study is longitudinal. We discover that some original program elements cannot easily be transferred to the democratic context of local government. The transfer involves both interpretations and adjustments of the policy because of municipal institutional characteristics and values. The success of transfer depends here on the ability to balance the original policy with practices widely valued within the new setting.

Certification schemes are becoming increasingly important within aquaculture management, but the indicators that are used by these schemes are subject to considerable debate. Many have questioned their actual impact on improving the industry, and whether they effectively address the many externalities of aquaculture production. In this paper, we study the choice of indicators in eight major certification scheme standards for salmon aquaculture and examine to what degree they manage to address impacts beyond individual production sites. We find that, in accordance with the criticism, the majority of indicators pertain only to the site-level. However, indicators related to traceability, and to coordination and sharing of information among producers can elevate local concerns to a higher level of impact. We, therefore, argue that among all the certification scheme standards considered here, these types of indicators should be emphasized to a larger extent., Level up or game over: The implications of levels of impact in certification schemes for salmon aquaculture

Growth in the number of certification schemes in the aquaculture industry has been attributed to several factors. The schemes contribute to improved traceability of products, provide healthier stocks, and provide more information to customers’ decision-making efforts. There is a wide range of certification schemes and standards available, addressing food safety, environmental impact, animal welfare, and worker conditions, to name a few. The abundance of certification schemes has resulted in concerns about consumers becoming confused with the number of labels and that certification schemes themselves may become a barrier to trade. This paper examines 5 major certification schemes in the aquaculture sector and categorizes them ac-cording to their purpose, proprietorship, and process. We investigate what has caused this wave of attention to be given to such a diverse range of issues, exploring how the diversity of these certifications is rooted in their inception and the areas they address., Swimming in a slurry of schemes: making sense of aquaculture standards and certification schemes

Organisational perspectives propose that structural arrangements affect policy outcomes. Drawing on these perspectives, it is worthwhile to find out whether and how disagreements among public authorities create barriers to public sector adaptation and preparedness. As the literature on weather vulnerabilities and climate adaptation recommends increased public sector coordination, exploring the possibilities of governance can contribute to the improvement of lifeline conditions. Insights from a Norwegian case study suggest that the different mandates of responsible public authorities sometimes clash. Such clashes limit the abilities to sustain welfare and business conditions when avalanches and blizzards cause highway outages. The findings also show that governance might only partly improve public sector peril response measures, as there is rarely sufficient flexibility to consider specific interests or preferences, for example, to keep a highway open until a school bus or a freight delivery has passed. Silos as barriers to public sector climate adaptation and preparedness: insights from road closures in Norway

States join security alliances to increase their level of security vis-à-vis neighbours that may pose a threat. The deterrence logic that was the main rationale for joining NATO in 1949 still represents the cornerstone of Norway’s security policy. However, belonging to a military alliance can also pose challenges. This policy brief focuses on some possible negative spillover effects that could emerge from being member of a military alliance. The focus here is on current challenges within NATO, and the possible implications for Norway. First, we present a broader conceptual framework. What are the internal and external challenges facing NATO? How do NATO and its members deal with them? We then proceed to the implications for Norway. Due to structural factors that shape relations in Norway’s strategic environment – including the location of Russian strategic bases close to the border, and the clear asymmetry in capabilities – negative developments in other regions and theatres may influence Norwegian security directly. We argue that, in order to minimize the likelihood of negative trends spilling over to Norway’s strategic neighbourhood, it is important to communicate the special features of this neighbourhood clearly to other members of the alliance. Further, to facilitate intra-alliance trust and cohesion, Norway should also emphasize NATO’s internal, shared value-base, in order to make the alliance better prepared to meet external security challenges. The risks of being an ally

Norway is the world's largest producer of farmed salmon. Aquaculture is the country's second largest export industry and thus vital for employment in coastal areas of Norway. The industry is dependent on public acceptance and good standing in local communities in order to gain access to new sites and to be able to sell its product. Public opinion (and assumptions about public opinion) on aquaculture may influence the industry's framework conditions and policy. Being located in coastal and rural areas, the industry must rely on the media to spread information to the public about the industry. Therefore, the media are an important source of information about farmed salmon, and the way the media present aquaculture issues has an impact on public opinion as well as authorities. This article examines how the aquaculture industry is portrayed in Norwegian newspapers and discusses how media topics and media framing may influence public opinion. The analysis shows that the most frequent topics covered in Norwegian newspapers are connected to the environment, aquaculture industry, and politics, where the concerns about the environment are dominant within the risk frame. The negative images portrayed by the media have a strong agenda-setting force and may skew public opinion to a narrow focus on environmental risks, influencing both the debate's content and the regulators’ increased emphasis on environmental risks. This is strengthened further by the focus on sustainability, where the focus is solely on the dimension of environment, making other sustainability dimensions less prominent in the media coverage. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

The concept of the bioeconomy is gaining in political importance in Norway and elsewhere in the world; moving from fossil-based to bio-based products and energy is considered to be important in tackling multiple societal problems, from climate change to food security, from health to industrial restructuring. At the same time, there are several important concerns and trade-offs inherent within the area of the bioeconomy, especially linked to the sustainability aspects of the extraction and use of biomass. This policy brief discusses the key perspectives from the contemporary debates on bioeconomy development and summarises the academic views on what may legitimise policy interventions for transformative change.

Fish farming has been a recurring topic of debate, not the least in the news media. The media is an important source of information about the aquaculture industry and its products to the public. However, the media is also an important debate arena, enabling representatives of the public, stakeholders, authorities, and the industry to engage in discussions as well as to influence policy and regulations. This paper focuses on the continuous debates in news media, the topics and storylines discussed, the various actors participating, and their arguments. Through a study of the content, positions, and producers of debate contributions in nine Norwegian newspapers, this paper sheds light on the public debate on aquaculture and the present controversies. Drawing on discourse theory, it is argued that the concept of discursive conflicts offers important insights into the controversies surrounding aquaculture. Discourse coalitions unite seemingly dissimilar and independent actors, and shared story lines provide political momentum, reduce complexity and reify the debate. However, such coalitions also contribute to maintaining the debate in a deadlock. © 2016 NTNU Samfunnsforskning. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bioenergy and rural development are increasingly under political focus. Bioenergy development is considered as a tool to deal with the climate change and rural areas crisis. The European Directive 2009/28/CE has set the goals for bioenergy production, and the Regulation 1698/2005 on rural development links the improving of conditions in rural areas to renewable energy production. Rural areas are the source of raw materials and the place to set bioenergy installations, while the new activity could provide rural citizens with new jobs and green energy. This policy context is understood in the view of other three main European policies, namely the regional, climate change and green growth and the innovation policies. Rural development is deeply tied to the former that points at rural regions as the ones to be stronger supported. The innovation policy engages regions in an effort to strengthen innovation policies and learning by interacting throughout the European Area. The focus of the thesis is on Italy and further on Emilia-Romagna, as one of the most developed Italian regions. Emilia-Romagna is compared with Norway, a non- European Union country that has a different administrative and policy structure, but one that is nevertheless influenced by EU policies through the ETA. Within the two main case studies, I considered individual case studies to find out the practices and the links between the two core policy areas. The results have been framed and assessed through the regional innovation systems theory, in order to explain how the bioenergy system and rural development are fostered in Emilia-Romagna and Norway. The main findings show two different policy frameworks and how they affect the development of the bioenergy and rural areas. Emilia-Romagna has a confused situation and a difficult confrontation between rural citizens, bioenergy investors and local governments, but the sector is still more developed than in Norway. Moreover the feed in tariff is fostering single random investments. By contrast, Norwegian policy framework is more easily accessible, the investments are more locally-based and there is no national feed-in-tariff. Thus, the actors cooperate more in order to invest in a bioenergy activity, while rural communities seem to experience positive local return in terms of new jobs and energy prices.

This article considers the use of a hybrid instrument to regulate .sheries, comparing this instrument with quantity control and linear taxation in regards to economic yields and the risk of resource deple- tion. Hybrid instruments have shown to be central in studies with static models but have hardly ever been explored in the context of dy- namic .sheries. A numerical example concerned with a single-species demersal .shery where the stock estimate is uncertain indicates that a combination of price and quantity control in the form of a strictly convex tax on landings is clearly superior to quantity control. When cost uncertainty is involved, it can also prove more e¢ cient than the price instrument.

Bygdeutviklingsordningen - BU-ordningen - har virkemidler for å styrke investeringene i landbruksbaserte næringer. Lønnsomheten i alle landbruksbaserte næringer gir grunn til å frykte mangelfull fornyelse av produksjonsapparatet. BUordningen er en liten del av landbrukspolitikken, og står alene som målrettet virkemiddel for å sikre tilstrekkelige investeringer. Vi finner at ordningen virker etter denne hensikten. Ordningen stimulerer investeringene i landbruksnæringene. Men ordningen kan gjøres mer målrettet. Målene er i dag mangfoldig og diffuse. Vi foreslår derfor endringer som klargjør og forenkler målene, skiller investeringsstøtte fra innovasjons- og omstillingstiltak, og skisserer endringer i organiseringen, blant annet for å sikre en bedre fordeling mellom sentralisert og desentralisert virkemiddelforvaltning.