LawTransform Effects of Rights & Law project builds virtual teaching material consisting of prequalified, relevant lectures that students and scholars can use and match. We aim to strenghten the use of new and innovative digital learning and teaching methods.

Here you will find useful teaching materials produced during previous Bergen Exchanges, organized by topics:

• Indigenous rights
• Methods
• Natural Resources

LawTransform Effects of Rights & Law project builds virtual teaching material consisting of prequalified, relevant lectures that students and scholars can use and match. We aim to strenghten the use of new and innovative digital learning and teaching methods.

Here you will find useful teaching materials produced during previous Bergen Exchanges, organized by topics:

• Indigenous rights
• Methods
• Natural Resources

Here you will find useful teaching materials for courses as part of our INTPART project.

Videos taken during Bergen Exchanges 2019:

• Rights to the City – Bergen as a Human Rights City (event description)
• Professor Louise Shelley: Natural Resource Corruption – How to research and address it? (event description)
• Political corruption and corruption as a political strategy (event description)
• Rachel Sieder: Indigenous Rights as political tools – struggles over land and identity (event description)
• Indigenous governance, intersectionality and gender equality (event description)
• Malcolm Langford: Multimethod Research and Socio-Legal Studies (event description)
• Leo Heller: The Human Right to Water as a Governance Mechanism and Political Tool followed by a roundtable on the project ‘Elevating Water Rights to Human Rights’ (event description)
• Water rights and indigenous struggles (event description)
• Kristin Sandvik: Legal technology: a field guide to ethical problematization and reflection (event description)
• War on facts and responsible evidence appraisal (event description)

One of the core LawTransform’s activities is using knowledge produced by research projects based at the centre to improve courses taught at the University of Bergen. On this page you will find the course programs and reading lists for such courses, at the PhD level.

Gendered Autocratization (University of Bergen) Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Administration and Organization Theory 21-22 March 2024.

• Effects of Lawfare (University of Bergen – Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Administration and Organization Theory): Annual course of seminar discussions, guest lectures and group work. The course offers an introduction to the debates on potential and limits of law as an instrument of social change, and opportunities to engage with international research projects currently seeking better answers to these questions.

• Bergen Summer Research School (University of Bergen): An annual event, which explores the interfaces between science, society and global challenges. The courses will run between 7-17 June in 2022, and LawTransform affiliates Lise Rakner and Ragnhild Muriaas will hold one of the courses: ‘Governance and Inequality‘ during that period.

One of the core LawTransform’s activities is using knowledge produced by research projects based at the centre to improve courses taught at the University of Bergen. On this page you will find the course program and reading list for such courses, at the master’s level.

COURSES SPRING 2022

JUS286-2-A/AORG216: Constitution and Politics (University of Bergen, Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Administration and Organization Theory)

This is a course of lectures and seminars for MA and advanced BA students.

The course is an interdisciplinary project between the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Administration and Organization Theory and the Faculty of Law, and addresses the topic both from a legal and a social science perspective.

The lectures will be given by teachers from both faculties, as well as invited guests. The aim is to bring together students who share the same interest or constitutional matters in the conjunction between law and politics, but who rarely meet in the spaces created by the university.

The course introduces students to ongoing research on central aspects of
constitutional development and bring students up to date on the frontiers
of research and literature in the field, encourages active participation and
independent thinking in engaging with the issues, and provide a forum for
students to exchange ideas and reflections. Through this course the student
will gain an overview of the research literature on constitutionalism and the relationship between rule of law and democracy in Norway and compared with other countries. A constitution is an outcome of political activity, and at the same time it constitutes rules and arenas for politics, establishing the boundaries for all branches of the state, including the parliament, the central administrative apparatus and the courts. The students will engage with the main theoretical perspectives to understand the dilemmas involved in securing the rule of law in a modern state, and the checks and balances between the executive, the legislator and the courts. This is done though group work and engagement with art and film, in addition to guest lectures and seminars.

Language of teaching: English

ECTS Credits: 10,00

Start: Spring semester 2022

Course plan: here

Reading list: here (NB: Reading list for spring 2021)

COURSES SPRING 2021

Lawfare: Law as Political Strategy (University of Bergen – Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Comparative Politics)

This is a course of seminar discussions, guest lectures and group work. The course offers an introduction to the debates on the potential and limits of law as an instrument of social change, and opportunities to engage with international research projects currently seeking better answers to these questions and will include guest lectures by prominent scholars. The course will be offered at irregular intervals.

Language of teaching: English

ECTS Credits: 10,00

Start: Spring semester 2021

Understanding Backlash Against Democracy (University of Bergen – Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Comparative Politics)

Description:

This is a course of literature seminars and workshop/writing seminars. Across the globe, democracy is challenged in ways that challenge the scholarly literature on democratic development. Breaking Bad: Understanding Backlash Against Democracy is a graduate research seminar focusing on theoretical and empirical analyses of the state of democracy in the world today, with a particular emphasis on new democracies in the global south. The graduate course project aims to develop a rigorous empirical basis for understanding the scope, causes, responses to and effects of the backlash against democracy. The course is structured around four distinctive democratic rights clusters, contestation rights, associational rights, gender rights and rule of law (judicial independence). To each rights dimension, we will present and discuss central theoretical arguments and empirical applications. The course is offered at irregular intervals.

Language of teaching: English

ECTS Credits: 10,00

Start: Spring semester 2021

To find out more about previous courses, email mathea.loen@uib.no

One of the core LawTransform’s activities is using knowledge produced by research projects based at the centre to improve courses taught at the University of Bergen. On this page you will find the course program and reading list for such courses, at the bachelor’s level.

COURSES SPRING 2022

JUS286-2-A/AORG216: Constitution and Politics (University of Bergen, Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Administration and Organization Theory)

This is a course of lectures and seminars for MA and advanced BA students.

The course is an interdisciplinary project between the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Administration and Organization Theory and the Faculty of Law, and addresses the topic both from a legal and a social science perspective.

The lectures will be given by teachers from both faculties, as well as invited guests. The aim is to bring together students who share the same interest or constitutional matters in the conjunction between law and politics, but who rarely meet in the spaces created by the university.

The course introduces students to ongoing research on central aspects of
constitutional development and bring students up to date on the frontiers
of research and literature in the field, encourages active participation and
independent thinking in engaging with the issues, and provide a forum for
students to exchange ideas and reflections. Through this course the student
will gain an overview of the research literature on constitutionalism and the relationship between rule of law and democracy in Norway and compared with other countries. A constitution is an outcome of political activity, and at the same time it constitutes rules and arenas for politics, establishing the boundaries for all branches of the state, including the parliament, the central administrative apparatus and the courts. The students will engage with the main theoretical perspectives to understand the dilemmas involved in securing the rule of law in a modern state, and the checks and balances between the executive, the legislator and the courts. This is done though group work and engagement with art and film, in addition to guest lectures and seminars.

Language of teaching: English

ECTS Credits: 10,00

Start: Spring semester 2022

Course plan: here

Reading list: here (NB: Reading list for spring 2021)

COURSES SPRING 2020

Constitution and Politics (University of Bergen – Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Comparative Politics)

This is a course of lectures and seminars for MA and advanced BA students.

The course is an interdisciplinary project between the Faculty of Social Sciences, department of Comparative Politics and the Faculty of Law, and addresses the topic both from a legal and a social science perspective.

Language of teaching: English

ECTS Credits: 10,00

Start: Spring semester 2020

Course plan: here

Reading list: here

Courts, Law and Politics (University of Bergen – Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Comparative Politics)

This course aims to provide students with an understanding of the role of courts and judges in contemporary politics. The role of courts as political actors and arenas for political battles has increased significantly in the past decades, across geographical regions as well as policy areas. This has raised a range of controversies: Is it undemocratic to give more powers to the courts? Does it lead to government that is more accountable and respect for citizen’s rights? – Or are we moving towards a “juristocracy” where “politicians in robes” decide cases based on their own ideology? Who benefits from the increased judicialisation of politics? The course introduces the students to the central scholarly debates around the political role of courts, judicial behavior and judicial politics, and draws empirical examples from all regions of the world.

Language of teaching: English

ECTS Credits: 10,00

Start: Autumn semester 2020

To find out more about previous courses, email mathea.loen@uib.no