Jon Kåre Skiple new research fellow at Department of Comparative Politics

Skiple began his four year PhD studies at the Department of Comparative Politics October 1st. Skiple’s PhD dissertation addresses the internationalization of Norwegian law, through the EEA-agreement and the European convention on human rights, and asks how this internationalization affects the Supreme Court’s influence on the Norwegian society. A main question for the project is to what degree this internationalization generates new cleavages within the Supreme Court and the degree to which theories of judicial behavior can contribute to our understanding of court cleavages. 

Skiple completed his master’s degree in comparative politics in 2012. His master’s thesis examined how justices’ political preferences influenced their voting in economic rights cases in the Supreme Court. After his degree, Skiple has mainly been working on a project on judicial behavior on the Norwegian Supreme Court. Here Skiple has contributed to the development of an extensive database on decisions and justices on the Norwegian Supreme Court. He has also conducted a range of statistical analysis of voting in civilian cases in the Norwegian Supreme Court. He has co-authored an article on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions on asylum children, together with Frøy Gudbrandsen and Gunnar Grendstad.

In addition to his interest in justices and courts, Skiple is interested in research methodology generally and statistical methods in particular. He is currently organizing the seminar on statistical methods for the master students.