Jacob Christensen

Jethro Tull on iTunes!

Yes, I know that my musical taste is now thoroughly discredited but sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

Some colleagues from the Department of Political Science in Århus made political classics a theme for their contribution to a students’ day. Besides drinking Ceres Classic in their office (this could never ever have happened in Sweden and it is for this reason that I do not name them here…), potential visitors were challenged with the task of choosing three pre-20th century and three 20th century political theorists from this list (and yes, I know they are all white men with the exception of Theda Skocpol who is a white woman – Kwame Anthony Appiah, anyone?)

That was a bit of a challenge as all those listed are highly relevant reads and you could easily enter a few additional names – I’m not quite convinced by the argument that Stein Rokkan was covered with the inclusion of Seymour Martin Lipset. On the other hand, you may argue that Rokkan wasn’t a political theorist at heart. The authors of the list have also bent their heads in shame and admitted that they forgot Arend Lijphart.

Anyway, if I am asked to give a course in 6 names in political theory in my next job (Umeå was never big in political theory), my pick would probably be:

Pre-20th century – Niccolò Machiavelli, John Locke and John Stuart Mill

20th century – Robert A. Dahl, Giovanni Sartori, Max Weber

Perhaps Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Liberal Democracy would be a sexier name for such a course?

I wanted to say a few words about the Finnish elections at today’s class in Swedish Politics, but as I have caught a cold and have a really sore throat, I had to cancel the lecture.Here are instead a link to Tapio Rauno’s notes sent to the PSA Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group.

There is nothing quite like local politics. These days all of Umeå is talking about the fate of the hot-dog stands gracing the central pedestrian street, Kungsgatan.

Did the local planning committee of the local council call for the eviction of the hot-dog sellers as Liberal councillor Britt-Marie Lövgren claims?

Was it all a misunderstanding as the chairman of the committee stated: The stands would have to go temporarily while the street works were performed but the hot-dogs would be back!

Now even the mayor Lennart Holmlund has added his voice and promised the continued provision of hot-dogs to the good citizens of Ume.

The former German Labour Minister Norbert Blüm became famous for promising “the pensions are safe“. Will “the hot-dogs are safe” be Holmlund’s legacy?

Time will tell.

The Chronicle: Hemlock Available in the Faculty Lounge.

Socrates is a real drag, I don’t know how in hell he ever got tenure. He makes students feel bad by criticizing them all the time. He pretends like he’s teaching them, but he’s really ramming his ideas down student’s throtes. He’s always taking over the conversation and hardly lets anyone get a word in.

Via Daniel Drezner.

This week and next week, Swedish Television is broadcasting four one-hour programmes with interviews reporter Erik Fichtelius made with Göran Persson during his time as Swedish prime minister and chairman of the Social Democrats.

News of the project first emerged in 2002 and caused some controversy as Fichtelius was working on the project while he was also political commentator on SvT’s news programme Aktuellt. Fichtelius was eventually forced to resign from that job and concentrate on the Persson project.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to watch the first two programmes but have recorded them for later viewing.

According to media reports, the first programmes have already given some examples of vintage Persson including – depending on your point of view – insults against or frank analyses of party comrades Mona Sahlin and Erik Åsbrink as well as the former leader of the Left Party Gudrun Schyman and the then leader of the Conservative Party Carl Bildt.

Some years ago, Lycksele Djurpark faced a nasty problem. One of the female brown bears had two 2-year old cubs. At that age, brown bear cubs living in the wild leave their mother to start their own adult life but things are a little more complicated in zoos.To make a long story short: Lycksele Djurpark failed in exporting the young bears to another zoo and consequently decided to have them killed. There’s nothing unusual about that: The mortality among bear cubs in the wild is very high and these cubs wouldn’t bring in new variation to the gene pool of brown bears kept in zoos.Unfortunately, the story broke to local media and the management of the zoo was faced with some pretty angry reactions from some members of the public. People reacted as if someone had stolen their little child’s favourite teddy bear. According to reports, members of the management even received death threats. Killing a bear cub is somehow tabu.The good news is that the next cub born in Lycksele was fathered by a bear that was born in the wild which meant that the youngster would be a well-needed supplement to the gene pool should he reach adulthood. So the zoo could not only announce that a bear was unto us born but that he would also be allowed to live.And this brings us to the story which has been making the rounds in Scandinavian media today: Knut, the cute little polar bear cub, whose life is threatened by evil animal rights campaigners.Actually, the story is a case of Rule #1 in journalism: You should never let research ruin a good story.As Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported yesterday, it is true that a German animal rights activist raised the question about whether Knut, who was abandoned by his mother at birth, should be hand-raised by staff at Berlin Zoo or killed. The activist did so in a rather convoluted way which didn’t help him getting his message through – and when Der Spiegel and Bild-Zeitung had chosen their angle on the story (“Crazy Animal Activist Wants to Kill Cute Polar Bear Cub”), there was no holding back in public opinion.But the activist did have a point – and a point experts agree on: New-born animals that are abandoned by their mothers should only be raised by humans if it serves a biological point. That Knut not only looks cute but at his young age resembles a teddy bear is a proven fact but the only real motivation Berlin Zoo has given for keeping him alive is that he is the first polar bear to be born in Berlin for thirty years.So maybe he will be a welcome addition to the polar bear pool in zoos around the world in five to six years’ time – at which point he will weigh 5-600 kilos and eat anything that comes near him. Especially those cute little seals.PS: In case you wonder, the teddy polar bear pictured above is named Bianca. You are free to guess what her brown bear companion is called.

I also managed to read Knud Romer Jørgensen’s best seller (by Danish standards) “Den som blinker er bange for døden” during the week-end. Interesting, but I’m not quite sure if it was the book of the year.

What? No discussion of Mona Sahlin’s first speech as chairman of the Social Democratic Party?

My excuse is that I’ve spent the last four days in Stockholm attending the yearly conference of the Swedish Network for European Studies (very interesting and a big thank you to Karl Magnus Johansson for the arrangements) and taking some days off, visiting the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery as well as enjoying the company of friends.

I even got to see Lars von Trier’s latest œuvre “Direktøren for det hele”. (Press release here, IMDB here). Trier has the ultimate warped mind but I’ll have to admit that I liked the film.

In case anybody wondered: The Danish Social Liberals are firmly united behind the politics of the other way and political leader Marianne Jelved.

The Op-Ed columnists will be having a feast.

Now, we are just waiting for someone to begin talking about the coming election.