Måned: april 2024

The TAXLAW team welcomes a new member, Jakob Laage-Thomsen, who has received a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship grant for his project, JUSTCARBON (Just Carbon Transitions). Jakob started his two-year project in February 2024.

Head of the TAXLAW-team, Marte Mangset, is Jakob’s supervisor. Like her, Jakob will be working from the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. Additionally, assistant Professor Johan Christensen, at the Institute of Public Administration (IPA), Leiden University, will also supervise the project.

Jakob’s project investigates contemporary policy processes around expansions of carbon tax systems and their implementation in national legal jurisdictions, and its effects on the professional organization of legal expertise.

As carbon taxes (taxes on Greenhouse Gas Emissions [GhGe]) are set to extend in depth with tariff increases and expand in scope beyond core industries and with fewer exceptions, it will be critical to follow them from policymaking to implementation.  This project aims to investigate the role of legal experts in translating models of economically efficient greenhouse gas emissions taxation into operational tax systems and implementing them in national legal jurisdictions. Through a comparison of three European countries with different energy-industrial composition – Denmark, Norway and France – the study will give us new insights into the implementation and operation of policies deemed central to a just and effective transition.

The study will combine methods from the sociology of professions and expertise and public administration by relying on a mapping of national professional structures, interviews with experts in and outside the public sector and policy discourse analysis. The study thus places itself in a sociological tradition of investigating the relationship between expertise and politics as drivers of societal change.

The project focuses on three main aspects of carbon taxation: first a ‘mapping’ of the professional structure of ‘green tax expertise’, focusing on what professional work is associated with the establishment of carbon tax systems, and which groups are claiming this work in the private and public sector. Second, how these changes impact the expertise and organisation of existing corporate tax lawyers. Third, how the current policy processes around the expansion in scope of carbon tax systems (as for example in the cases of agriculture, carbon capture and firm excemptions) are impacted and seen by different legal expert groups.

JUSTCARBON is funded by the European union.

The TAXLAW team organised a paper workshop on Money Professionals at the Centre Universitaire Norvégien de Paris/Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris, France, from March 11^th to 13^th.

Over the past few years, we have buildt a network of researchers whose work inspires us and who we believe can develop new insights and promising research avenues by discussing their work within the framework of the topic Money Professionals. These researchers come from a range of fields and use different theoretical and methodological approaches. However, they share a commonality in contributing new insights into the roles and influence of professionals or experts who work with money.

We held our first workshop on Money Professionals in Paris in June 2022, and another in Oslo in October 2022. This year, we followed up with a new workshop in Paris to consolidate and expand our network.

In addition to the TAXLAW team members Marte Mangset, Len Seabrooke, Jérôme Pélisse, Corentin Durand, Helle Dyrendahl Staven, and Jakob Laage-Thomasen, the workshop participants included Lola Avril (School of Law, University of Eastern Finland), Johan Christensen (Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University), Maj Grasten (Department of Business Humanities and Law, Copenhagen Business School), Benjamin Lemoine (Centre Maurice Halbwachs, CNRS), Saila Stausholm (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies), Alexandra Bahary-Dionne (Centre de sociologie des organisations, Sciences Po), Antoine Costes (IDHES, Nanterre University), and Nathan Darras (IDHES, Nanterre University).

Studies presented at the workshop fell under the themes of legal expertise and political influence, the interface of legal expertise between the state and the market, and professional networks. These were both work in progress and more finished texts, with a variation of theoretical perspectives and a variety of data.

From the TAXLAW team, Helle and Marte presented a paper on the autonomy and authority of academic expertise in the field of tax law. Marte and Len presented a work in progress on the revolving doors phenomenon in French tax law, while Jérôme and Corentin presented a paper on neutral spaces.

The workshop was a beneficial experience, facilitating meaningful exchanges on the research topic of money professionals. The participants, coming from varied perspectives, contributed to useful discussions that aided in the development of our collective research. Overall, the workshop was an engaging event that supported our ongoing study in this important area.