We are glad to inform that in late August, DIPA Researcher Hege Helland and Post-Doc Mathea Loen participated in the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference 2025 at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. This prestigious European event, held from August 26 to 29, showcased the development of research in various political science sub-disciplines relevant to the current global political landscape.
DIPA researchers participated in two panels on August 28. Both Hege and Mathea presented in the first panel titled “Juridification in the Welfare Sector”. Hege discussed her work, “Implementing International Human Rights Case Law at the Domestic Street Level: The Case of Norwegian Child Protection,” which examines how judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) are applied within the child protection system in Norway, focusing on the essential role played by street-level bureaucrats. On the other hand, Mathea presented about “Public Confidence in Courts and Judges Deciding in Child Protection Cases: A Cross-National Study of Public Support“, which examines public opinions from 41 countries and explores the drivers behind public confidence in family court judges. Mathea also presented in another panel titled “Welfare State Attitudes”, presenting her work on “Responsibility Counts, Need Decides: Cross-National Perspectives on Social Risks and Public Support for Welfare Services”. This study highlights citizen support for welfare services, based on a survey experiment conducted with population samples from Finland, Norway, Romania, and Poland.
We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in a prominent European conference in political science, which allows us to share some of our recent findings in the fields of child protection and the welfare state.