Negotiating Transparency: The Role of Institutions

On 30 May 2001, a new regulation on public access to EU documents was presented and was heralded in the European press as a breakthrough for transparency. We argue that a focus on institutions can cast light on the negotiation processes that led to this decision, and explain the final-for realist negotiation theory puzzling-outcome. We demonstrate the importance of institutions in EU negotiations by detailing actor interests and strategies in the transparency case, and by tracing and analysing the negotiation process that resulted in the regulation. The institutions that receive particular attention are: agenda-shaping rules, decision-making procedures and voting rules, informal norms, time tables and deadlines, and intervention by institutional actors. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.

Thick Recognition: Advancing thoery on identity change in intractable conlficts

This study relates the concept of recognition to processes of conflict transformation. The recognition concept has been underdeveloped in recent IR literature, where the main emphasis has been on interstate relations and on recognition as cause of conflict. This article challenges that understanding through the introduction of the concept of thick recognition. Thus an understanding of recognition which is applicable also in intrastate conflicts is developed. Through a strong emphasis on intrastate relations and identity politics, I develop thoughts on how narratives of war can be reversed through the introduction of narratives of recognition. The study thus provides theoretical concepts and distinctions that can be used as a framework for the study of thick recognition and its relationship to broader processes of conflict transformation. The theoretical framework is employed in a case study on the Israeli debates about ‘New History’. Insights from the case contribute to understandings of inhibiting and facilitating circumstances for the introduction of narratives of thick recognition in conflicted societies. The study ends with a discussion on the usefulness of the theoretical concepts for further work on recognition within the field of IR