– Which research project are you mostly working on now?
– At the moment, I am working a lot on the Norwegian Comparative Agendas Project (CAP). This is the Norwegian contribution to an ongoing international research collaboration that studies agenda-setting dynamics in countries around the globe. To this end, we collect policy documents from different stages of the policymaking process, such as election manifestos, state budgets or coalition agreements, and manually code their content by assigning one of over 250 issue codes that describe what topic is addressed in a sentence, budget line etc.
– What do you wish to find out?
– In CAP we are interested in finding out which policy issues receive how much attention in the policymaking process and what factors influence increases or decreases in attention to a topic. As politicians work with a limited amount of attention that they can devote to issues as well as information they can process on an everyday basis, the constant and overwhelming amount of policy problems that demand consideration create a need for prioritization.
– This is even more pressing when going beyond just thinking about a policy problem and considering which policy areas a government spends money on or what kind of laws they attempt to pass in the parliament.
– Based on this premise, our work in CAP wants to get a better understanding of these selection processes that decide which issues receive how much attention at different stages of the policymaking process. In doing so, we ask questions such as; Are shifts in attention driven by changes in the governing parties? Or are external events more important factors for deciding which topics receive attention?
– Why is this important?
– In a democracy, politicians get elected based on policy programs that they outline to voters, for example in election manifestos. Subsequently, governments often describe their plans for the time in office in a coalition agreement outlining several key policy initiatives that the electorate then expects them to follow-up on. To realize many of these initiatives, governments need to devote public funding in the annual budget or put forward a law in the parliament. Throughout all these steps, politicians need to carefully consider which policy issue receives how much attention and the selections made in this process have huge implications for policy outputs. Moreover, suddenly emerging problems might challenge the previously outlined agendas, forcing politicians to re-balance their attention while trying to remain responsive to the wishes of the electorate.
– Our work in CAP provides us with key insights into these processes and helps us to better understand, which topics Norwegian politicians focus on, in how far the distribution of attention changes over time, or to what extent political or societal factors influence shifts in attention. All of this allow us to better understand how democracy and policymaking in general, as well as in Norway more specifically, work, and which factors influence issue attention in policymaking.
– Who are you collaborating with?
– In our work on the Norwegian CAP, we collaborate closely with the global CAP community. This group consists of more than 25 national CAP teams each of which working on creating data from their respective context using a joint codebook that makes all the data comparable. In annual workshops the community comes together discussing latest developments and ongoing research interests. These meetings also allow to identify common interests and spark joint work between different national teams.
– What do you look for when choosing collaborators?
– I choose my collaborating partners based on two aspects. First, they have to be relevant for the work I am doing and contribute knowledge or skills that are needed for realizing the project. Second, there is also a social element, as one also needs to get along well with collaborators. Having a similar outlook on research and a common understanding of how good teamwork functions are key aspects that ensure successful and harmonious collaboration.
– What other research projects are you involved in?
– Besides my work in CAP, I am also working in a project led by Assoc. Prof. Mari Elken at the Department of Education in which we study the impact that Centers of Excellence in Research and Education have on the organizational structures and work processes in universities in Norway and Denmark.
– I also just finished a project with colleagues in Germany, Poland, and Spain in which we investigated how being a football fan in professional men’s football can contribute to create a European identity and thus more cohesion in Europe.
– What do you find most interesting about being a researcher?
– For me it is a combination of the freedom to choose my own line of research and the ability to spend time on getting deeply immersed in a topic to really understand it and capture its complexity. If this work can be done in collaboration with motivated and knowledgeable colleagues, it is the most engaging form of academic work.
– What is the most common question you receive about your job when you are with others?
– Most people usually ask me to explain why a politician or a political party did or said something, or even ask me to predict what the outcome of a political process or election might be. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint people most of the time as I am, more often than not, not an expert on the topic in question and thus not very well suited to predict or explain the issue with full certainty.