These papers represent work in various stages of progress, so while the usual draft caveats apply, I appreciate comments and critique.

• The subjects of legitimacy in international institutions

  Here, I criticise Allen Buchanan & Robert Keohane’s standard of legitimacy for global governance institutions, and the underlying conception of international institutions as such. One of my key arguments is that they misrepresent the problem political disagreement as an epistemic problem, to which they offer epistemic solutions. Prepared for the 7th SGIR Pan-European International Relations Conference, Stockholm, 9-11 September, 2010.

• The forgotten revolution: Challenging conventional wisdom on Sweden’s transition to democracy

  In this paper, I challenge the established view that Sweden’s transition to democracy was exceptionally gradual: At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sweden was one of the least democratic countries in Europe, yet established a full-fledged democracy in the course of a turbulent decade. However, the gradualist myth continues to influence Sweden’s official history and inform its democracy promotion abroad.

• The boundaries of transnational democracy: Alternatives to the all-affected principle of democratic inclusion

  I argue against the so-called all-affected principle in transnational democratic theory and suggest that being subject to the law is a better criterion for addressing the boundary problem in democratic theory. This paper has been accepted for publication by Review of International Studies (publisher’s version).

• Democracy versus human rights: Why Held and Habermas do not resolve the tension

  Here, I aim to show why David Held’s and Jürgen Habermas’s attempts to resolve the tension between human rights and democracy are unconvincing, and I suggest that we should not expect the tension to be solvable in principle. Most recently presented at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, 16 march 2010.

• The stability of a cosmopolitan political order: Functionalism vs federalism

  In this paper, I discuss two kinds of arguments institutional cosmopolitans offer in support of their vision of cosmopolitan order, and argue that drawing on both functionalist and federalist arguments make their case weaker rather than stronger. Presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention 2010, New Orleans, USA, February 17–20, 2010.

• Security, Equality and the Clash of Ideas: Sweden’s Evolving Policy Towards the Trafficking of Women for Sexual Purposes.

  Written together with Dr. Gregg Bucken-Knapp and Karin Persson-Strömbäck (both University of Stirling, Scotland), this NPPR paper analyses how Sweden’s response to trafficking has been influenced by security and gender frames. Presented at the 60th Political Studies Association Conference,  Edinburgh, Scotland, 29 March – 1 April 2010. Accepted for publication by Human Rights Review.

• The consensus paradox: Why deliberative agreement impedes rational discourse

  In this paper, we present a paradox in deliberative democratic theory: On the one hand, deliberative opinion-formation aims to reach consensual agreement, while on the other hand, consensus, once established, will impede the conditions for further rational public discourse. Demonstrating the paradox in theory and practice, we open up a research agenda for studying it empirically and assess its normative implications. With Dr. Henrik Friberg-Fernros (University of Gothenburg).