Individualisation and destabilisation of the international order. The case of the responsibility to protect

We argue that the norm ‘responsibility to protect’, which was adopted at the 2005 UN World Summit, implies a radicalisation of the ongoing individualisation of international law, since it replaces the states with individuals as right-holders. We discuss this radical individualisation in the light of the English School and argue that the principle implies a destabilisation of international order based on states to a world order based on individuals. By examining the report The responsibility to protect, we first test whether this radical individualisation is recognised. We conclude that even though the report semantically favours the responsibility to protect, it still does not recognise the individual as right-holder and cannot therefore be seen as an example of a radical individualisation. Secondly, we argue that an interaction between sociological theory of individualisation and the English School would be mutually advantageous. The English School can gain explanatory potential and sociological theory can gain conceptual clarity.     

The application of graph theory and percolation analysis for assessing change in the spatial configuration of pond networks

Urban Ecosystems - Pond networks support high levels of biodiversity when compared to other freshwater ecosystems such as rivers, lakes and streams. The persistence of species in these small,...     

All the bottles in one basket? Evaluating the effect of intra-industry diversification on risk

This paper develops a framework using Monte Carlo simulation to examine risk/return properties of intra-industry product portfolio composition and diversification. We use product-level data covering all Swedish sales of alcoholic beverages to describe the risk profiles of wholesalers and how they are affected by actual and hypothetical changes to product portfolios. Using a large number of counterfactual portfolios we quantify the diversification benefits of different product portfolio compositions. In this market the most important reductions in variability come from focusing on domestic products and from focusing on product categories that have low variability. The number of products also has a large effect in the simulations, moving from a portfolio of 10 products to one of 20 products cuts standard deviation of cash flows in relation to mean cash flows by more than half. The concentration of import origins plays a minor quantitative role on risk/return profiles in this market.     

Ethnicity as skill: immigrant employment hierarchies in Norwegian low-wage labour markets

Immigrants are often concentrated in particular, often low-waged, segments of the labour market and employers tend to assume that immigrants posit (soft) skills which make them particularly suited for specific tasks. Less scholarly attention has been given to the real and perceived content of these skills and how employers may shift their view over time. We contribute to the literature by examining changing ethnic employment hierarchies in two immigrant-intensive labour markets in Norway. Drawing on qualitative data from the hotel and fish processing industries, we describe, first, how different ethnic groups are allocated into specific jobs forming a clear hierarchy in the eyes of employers, and, second, how employers’ preferences for particular groups change as new immigrants enter the labour market. Theoretically, we develop the concept of ‘ethnicity as skill’, which points to the tendency among employers to equate ethnic group membership with a set of informal qualifications.     

Mobility at the margins: The facilitating and risk-reducing role of clustered migration in migration for begging between Romania and Norway

This article describes the social and economic organization of migration for begging from Romania to Norway. Drawing on a survey among homeless Romanians in Oslo and qualitative interviews conducted in Norway and migrant-sending communities in Romania, we describe how migrants gain access to resources such as information, transport, places to beg and places to sleep, as well as social and emotional support when abroad. We argue that the particular, clustered structure of these migration flows makes migration available to persons who otherwise would not have opportunities to migrate, eases their adaptation in cities of destination and serves to protect the migrants from exploitation and abuse from external actors. This migration structure does, however, reflect a strong dependence on kinship networks, which may create vulnerabilities in itself.