When Does Government Listen to the Public? Voluntary Associations and Dynamic Agenda Representation in the United States

The aim of the article is to examine how the population size of voluntary associations affects the process through which the public's issue priorities are translated into policy priorities. We conduct a time series analysis of political attention in executive and legislative agendas at the U.S. federal level in the period 1971–2001, covering all issues addressed by the U.S. government. We show that the number of voluntary associations in a policy area has a positive conditioning effect on the link between public priorities and attention for the president's State of the Union Address. However, our results do not find a positive effect for voluntary associations at later stages of the policy cycle, which experience a higher degree of institutional friction. The findings underline the importance of distinguishing between different stages of policymaking when considering the impact of voluntary associations on dynamic agenda responsiveness.     

Towards Culture 3.0 – performative space in the public library

The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss the development of performative spaces in public libraries from a cultural policy perspective. First, a framework of three concepts of culture, 1.0–3.0, is used as a tool to analyse the overall development of public libraries. Against this background, we introduce the notion of performative spaces in public libraries by highlighting Nordic examples. The tendency can also be seen on a broader level in European and North American libraries, where a ‘performative turn’ can be seen as the relationship between the library and its users, especially the younger ‘digital natives’. The rationales behind the emergence of performative spaces in public libraries are analysed and discussed: democratisation, empowerment and economic impact. This article concludes that the performative spaces are legitimized by multiple rationales in the same way as cultural policies and cultural institutions are legitimised today.     

Technology and Global Politics: The Modern Experiences of Bertrand Russell and John H. Herz

As questions of technology and world government are returning to the agenda of International Relations (IR), there is a risk that technology is approached in a simple, instrumentalist manner. Beginning from an overview of the overwhelmingly instrumental approaches to technology lodged in the dominant traditions of IR, the article revisits the post-war decades when scholars thought profoundly about the impact of technology on global politics. Combining the history of (international) political thought, IR theory, and Science and Technology Studies (STS) the article examines the relationship between technology and politics, authority, and liberty in the thought of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and John H. Herz (1908–2005), which leads to the unearthing of a sophisticated and complex set of ideas. Particularly during the nuclear revolution, these figures developed global visions in which the interrelations among technology, security, democracy, sustainability, and freedom were critical. Russell and Herz's approaches to technology and (global) politics are insightful and relevant for IR's attempt to re-engage with technology: by anticipating contemporary critical and reflexive approaches to technology, they can help bridge the fields of IR and STS and open new avenues for research. The Large Technical Systems (LTS) approach within STS is used to exemplify this possibility.     

Was He Murdered or Was He Not?—Part II: Multi‐Elemental Analyses of Hair and Bone Samples from Tycho Brahe and Histopathology of His Bones

Hair and bone samples procured from the remains of Tycho Brahe were analysed by several analytical techniques. In segmented hair samples, concentrations of Fe, As, Ag and Au at the tips exceeded values for the contemporary population; however, they decreased towards the hair bulbs, similarly to Hg, indicating that recent exposure that was discontinued ~2 months prior to Brahe's death. Several other elements did not follow this pattern. Analyses of bones revealed signs of long‐term exposure to Au, while many other elements were within expected ranges. Histopathological examination of bone sections yielded no signs of severe bone metabolic disorders.     

Was He Murdered Or Was He Not?—Part I: Analyses of Mercury in the Remains of Tycho Brahe

World‐renowned Renaissance astronomer Tycho Brahe died on 24 October 1601, after 11 days of illness. Several conspiracy theories regarding his death have been aired, the first shortly after his death by William Shakespeare in the play Hamlet, published in 1603. A key factor in the still lively debate is whether he was administered mercury—as medicine by his own hand, or as poison by an unfriendly hand. In 2010, Brahe's grave was reopened and samples of his bones, hair, teeth and the textiles were procured and analysed. Here, we present evidence that Brahe was not administered lethal doses of mercury.     

Government Support Programmes to Promote Academic Entrepreneurship: A Principal–Agent Perspective

The commercialization of research has become a key task of universities and public research institutions. This development is partly stimulated by an increasing number of government support programmes (GSPs) that are designed to stimulate academic entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the role that is played by this new type of actor in the innovation system is not very well understood. We use a principal–agent theory to guide our analysis of a Norwegian GSP. The programme contributes to reducing the agency problems of adverse selections and moral hazards in the relationships between the government and the actors that are involved in the commercialization of research. Key tasks include collecting and sharing information, engaging in long-term relationships with principals and agents, developing strategies and specific contractual relationships, taking higher risks for risk-averse agents and using multiple indicators. The programme also plays an institutional role by reducing goal conflicts. This approach requires a long-term effort that is generally less visible for outside stakeholders, and it is under constant pressure from short-term expectations.     

The Danish St Croix Project: Revisiting the Lincoln Colonization Program with Foreign-language Sources

Working from previously unknown sources in Danish archives, this article establishes for the first time the important role that the island of St Croix played in the Lincoln administration's considerations on colonizing African Americans abroad. This article argues that U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, commonly viewed as an anti-colonizationist, was at least a mild proponent of colonization in its earliest stages. The article demonstrates further that in the summer of 1862, the St Croix colonization project was an important stepping stone in the Lincoln administration's legal justification for emancipation, and that it was recognized as such by high-ranking Confederates. The negotiations failed for reasons that had little to do with Lincoln or his opinion on the matter. Rather, the plan fell through because the Danes slowly turned against it for economic and political reasons. The substantial conclusion of this article is that, contrary to earlier perceptions in the historiography, African American colonization during the Civil War was not led and directed entirely from Washington. Rather, in this case, the Danish minister proposed a colonization plan and then worked with the U.S. Government to attempt to see it through.     

Affective politics and colonial heritage,Rhodes Must Fall at UCT and Oxford

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the spatial entanglement of colonial heritage struggles through a study of the Rhodes Must Fall student movement at the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford. We aim to shed light over why statues still matter in analyzing colonial traces and legacies in urban spaces and how the decolonizing activism of the RMF movement mobilizes around the controversial heritage associated with Cecil Rhodes at both places – a heritage that encompasses statues, buildings, Rhodes scholarship and the Rhodes Trust funds. We include a comparative study of the Facebook use of RMF as it demonstrates significant differences between the two places in the development of the student movements as political activism. Investigating in more detail the heritage politics of RMF at UCT we fledge out what we call an affective politics using non-representational bodily strategies. We argue that in order for actual social movements to mobilize in current political controversies, they need to put affective tactics to use.