Research news
People tend to be less satisfied with a decision if they arrived at it after changing their minds – even if the outcome is the same.
In many European countries there are negative attitudes towards immigrants, which may be due to fear. Now a team of researchers have developed a tool to measure xenophobia.
Which of the figures below is brightest in the middle? Maybe when your brain plays tricks on you it isn’t a mistake, but rather a sort of improvement on reality.
The RECON project's final conference was held in Oslo on November 24 – 26. The three-day event started with a public seminar on ‘Europe’s democratic challenge’, where research coordinators and affiliated scholars presented findings from 5 years of research to a large audience
The European Union (EU) is not a state, yet it has developed a foreign policy. How can this be and what characterises this policy? Does it differ from foreign policy as it is conventionally understood, and if so, in what way is it different? And how can it be that the member states are able to agree to common policies despite their often initially diverging interests? These are the questions raised in Marianne Riddervold’s dissertation.
The methadone maintenance treatment programme recommended by the health authorities in Norway is a high dose programme. Professor Lianne Woodward from New Zealand urges caution.
See live streaming from RECON's outreach conference in Brussels 19 May. How to strengthen democracy in the EU was the key question of the conference.
The RECON project is summing up its five years of research in two outreach conferences, asking the key question: How to strengthen democracy in the EU? The first conference was held in Brussels on the 19th of May and the other one will be held in Oslo on November 24th.
The following is a presentation Johan P. Olsen gave of his book 'Governing through institution building' at an ARENA book seminar.
The following is a comment Ulf Sverdrup gave at an ARENA book seminar.
The following is a comment Daniel Gaus gave at an ARENA book seminar.
Controversial political debates may affect the course of European integration as mass media empower national parliamentarians in EU decision-making, shows Pieter de Wilde in his PhD dissertation.
The staff of the so-called cabinets of the European Commission are more multinational than before. This may lead to decisions less influenced by each commmissioner's national background, Morten Egeberg and Andreas Heskestad write in a recent article in Journal of Common Market Studies.
How does an agency balance between being a professional information provider as well as an institutional watchdog? A study of the European Environment Agency shows that it has gradually developed its own mission, role and identity beyond the original legal framework. Through trust building and learning it has proved an important role in the Commission's work on environment.
The Norwegian EU debate is almost non-existent, while Norway's ties to the Union are closer still. It can, at worst, contribute to undermining trust in democracy, say researchers John Erik Fossum and Ulf Sverdrup at ARENA to Norwegian website forskning.no.