schwedische und britische Entwicklungspolitik zwischen ‚Solidarität‘ und ‚Eigeninteresse‘

Political scientists have long been interested in the rationale behind giving official development assistance (ODA). With a few notable exceptions, scholars have neglected the impact of governing parties of differ-ent provenience on a donor country’s foreign aid policy. In order to address this shortcoming, this paper focuses on the change of government from conservative (‚right‘) to social democratic (‚left‘) parties in Sweden (1994) and the United Kingdom (1997). The results contradict and qualify much of the conven-tional wisdom on the allegedly more benign foreign aid policy of social democratic parties. The paper reveals instead that the Swedish and British foreign aid policies of the 1990s share an interesting pattern: Social democrats tend to display a rhetoric that is more attuned to the idea of solidarity than the conserva-tive foreign aid agenda, but in neither case does this tendency translate into a higher degree of solidarity as measured by five quantitative measures. On the contrary, conservative ODA actions speak louder than their words suggest, expressing at least as much, if not more, solidarity than their social democratic rivals

The global governance of systemic risk:How measurement practices tame macroprudential politics

This article explores how systemic risk has been governed at the international level after the financial crisis. While macroprudential ideas have been widely embraced, the policy instruments used to implement them have typically revolved more narrowly around the monitoring of risk posed by discrete ‘systemically important’ entities. This operational focus on individual entities sidelines the more radical implications of macroprudential theory regarding fallacies of composition, fundamental uncertainty and the public control of finance. We explain this tension using a performative understanding of risk as a socio-technical construction, and illustrate its underlying dynamics through case studies of systemic risk governance at the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund). Drawing on official reports, consultation documents and archival sources, we argue that the FSB’s and IMF’s translations of systemic risk into a measurable and attributable object have undermined the transformative potential of the macroprudential agenda. The two cases illustrate how practices of quantification can make systemic risk seemingly more governable but ultimately more elusive

Bad science : international organizations and the indirect power of global benchmarking

The production of transnational knowledge that is widely recognized as legitimate is a major source of influence for international organizations (IOs). To reinforce their expert status, IOs increasingly produce global benchmarks that measure national performance across a range of issue areas. This article illustrates how IO benchmarking is a significant source of indirect power in world politics by examining two prominent cases in which IOs seek to shape the world through comparative metrics: (1) the World Bank–International Finance Corporation Ease of Doing Business ranking; and (2) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index. We argue that the legitimacy attached to these benchmarks because of the expertise of the IOs that produce them is highly problematic for two reasons. First, both benchmarks oversimplify the evaluation of relative national performance, misrepresenting contested political values drawn from a specific transnational paradigm as empirical facts. Second, they entrench an arbitrary division in the international arena between ‘ideal’ and ‘pathological’ types of national performance, which (re)produces social hierarchies among states. We argue that the ways in which IOs use benchmarking to orient how political actors understand best practices, advocate policy changes, and attribute political responsibility thus constitutes ‘bad science’. Extending research on processes of paradigm maintenance and the influence of IOs as teachers of norms or judges of norm compliance, we show how the indirect power that IOs exercise as evaluators of relative national performance through benchmarking can be highly consequential for the definition of states’ policy priorities

Do concepts of individuality account for individuation practices in studies of host-parasite systems? A modelling account of biological individuality

In recent discussions the widespread conviction that scientific individuation practices are governed by theories and concepts of biological individuality has been challenged, particularly by advocates of practice-based approaches to individuation and individuality. Some science scholars argue that the function of concepts of individuality is not to provide individuation criteria that guide scientific practice but instead to adequately describe and explain scientific practices. This discussion raises questions about the relationship between individuation practices and concepts of individuality. To explore this relationship, I discuss four scientific studies of host-parasite systems and analyze the respective individuation practices to see whether they correspond to established concepts of biological individuality. My analysis suggests that scientists individuate biological systems on different levels of organization and that the researchers’ respective emphasis on one of the levels depends on the research context as well as their epistemic aims and purposes. Thus, it makes sense to use different concepts of individuality to account for different individuation practices. However, not all individuation practices are represented equally well by concepts of biological individuality. The discrepancy between theory and practice results from a reciprocal dependence between concepts of individuality and individuation practices where theory is informed by empirical findings and vice versa. To account for this observation, I propose understanding concepts of individuality as abstracted, idealized, or simplified models that only represent certain aspects of scientific practice. A modelling account suggests a pluralistic view of concepts of biological individuality that not only allows the coexistence of different kinds of individuality (e.g. evolutionary individuality, immunological individuality, ecological individuality) but also of normative and descriptive concepts

Two kinds of historical explanation in Evolutionary Biology

Historical explanations in evolutionary biology are commonly characterized as narrative explanations. Examples include explanations of the evolution of particular traits and explanations of macroevolutionary transitions. In this paper, I present two case studies of explanations in accounts of pathogen evolution and host-pathogen coevolution, respectively, and argue that one of them is captured well by established accounts of time-sequenced narrative explanation. The other one differs from narrative explanations in important respects, even though it shares some characteristics with them as it is also a population-level historical explanation. I thus argue that the second case represents a different kind of explanation that I call historical explanation of type phenomena. The main difference between the two kinds of explanation is the conceptualization of the explanandum phenomena as a particulars or type phenomena, respectively. Narrative explanations explain particulars but also deal with generalization, regularities and type phenomena. Historical explanations of type phenomena, on the other hand, explain multiply realizable phenomena but also deal with particulars. The two kinds of explanation complement each other because they explain different aspects of evolution

Do concepts of individuality account for individuation practices in studies of host-parasite systems? A modelling account of biological individuality

In recent discussions the widespread conviction that scientific individuation practices are governed by theories and concepts of biological individuality has been challenged, particularly by advocates of practice-based approaches. This discussion raises questions about the relationship between individuation practices and concepts of individuality. To explore this relationship, I discuss four scientific studies of host-parasite systems and analyze the respective individuation practices to see whether they correspond to established concepts of biological individuality. My analysis suggests that scientists individuate biological systems on different levels of organization and that the researchers’ respective emphasis on one of the levels depends on the research context as well as epistemic aims and purposes. Thus, it makes sense to use different concepts of individuality to account for different individuation practices. However, not all individuation practices are represented equally well by concepts of biological individuality. The discrepancy between theory and practice results from a reciprocal dependence of inner-scientific and meta-scientific concepts of individuality and individuation practices where concept formation is informed by empirical findings and vice versa. To account for this observation, I propose that concepts of individuality should be understood as abstracted, idealized, or simplified models that only represent certain aspects of scientific practice. A modelling account suggests a pluralistic view of concepts of biological individuality that not only allows the coexistence of different kinds of individuality (e.g. evolutionary individuality, immunological individuality, ecological individuality) but also of normative and descriptive concepts