Researcher
Kari M. Osland
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Summary
Kari Margrethe Osland (PhD) is the Director of NUPI.
Osland’s work has predominantly focused on conflict dynamics, insurgencies, peace operations and peace building. Osland wrote her PhD on the impact of international assistance to police reform in post-conflict countries, comparing Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia and South Sudan. She wrote her MPhil on genocide, applying the securitization theory on the cases of Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
She has done consultancy work for the UN, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and for the Norwegian Police Directorate, in particular on international policing, rule of law and Security Sector Reform. She has field work experience from the Balkans (30+), Afghanistan (2) and a number of African countries (Niger, South Sudan, Sudan).
Expertise
Education
2014 PhD, Political Science, University of Oslo
2000 Cand. polit., (political science and social anthroplogy), University of Bergen
Work Experience
2023- Director, NUPI
2014-2023 Senior Research Fellow, NUPI
2014-2020 Head of the Research group for peace, conflict and development, NUPI
2008-2014 PhD candidate (incl. 33 months of maternity leave)
2004-2008 Research Fellow, UN Programme/Department of International Affairs, NUPI
2001-2002 Coordinator for the Nordic research group on Peace Support Operations
2000-2004 Researcher & head of UN Programme, Department of International Politics, NUPI
1998-2000 Coordinator and scientific assistant, UN Programme, NUPI
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersPolicy brief comparing the EU and other stakeholders’ prevention strategy towards violent extremism in the Balkans and the broader MENA region
This policy brief offers a cross-regional comparison of PREVEX findings regarding the efficacity of the EU’s PVE efforts. Based upon an amalgamation of PREVEX partners’ policy briefs over the Balkans (D5.1), the Maghreb/Sahel (D6.1) and the Middle East (D7.1), two reports on respectively EU’s policies and instruments for PVE (D4.1) and the implementation of these (D4.2), further corroborated by an extensive validation background study (D8), we have the following recommendations to the EU: EU – ‘DOs’ -Increase cooperation with High Muslim Councils -Enhance their standing -Empower them to act against IVE EU – ‘DON’Ts’ – A, B, C -Avoid the all-out securitization of everything ‘Islamic’. -Block imported Islamic ‘Madhhab’ (Wahabism) from entering European spheres -Consult ‘elders’ and rethink funding youth projects that lack proven PVEimpact
Background study: Cross-regional comparison of ‘DOs and DON’Ts’ in the EU’s PVE Measures: Balkans, Maghreb/ Sahel & Middle East
The following report presents the research findings of a cross-societal comparison of PREVEX-related regions, with the aim of providing ideas about what has been successful and what has proven detrimental to the EU’s preventing violent extremism (PVE) efforts. As per the PREVEX consortium’s project architecture, structured comparisons serve as a central pillar for the extrapolation and generation of cross-cutting lessons and policy recommendations concerning PVE. While sporadic, intra-regional, comparative elements are already apparent within three PREVEX regional Policy Briefs – on the Balkans (D5.1), the Maghreb/Sahel (D6.1) and the Middle East (D7.1) – these documents are confined to countries within these respective regions that partly share territorial, societal, and cultural similarities. In contrast, the explicit mandate for the research to be undertaken here under Work Package 8 is to conduct cross-cutting comparisons between these radically different regions – all without losing sight of domestic-specific PVE aspects, the highlighting of which might help to generate ideas for other contexts. The conduct of such cross-regional comparisons is premised upon the methodological prerequisite of being aware, as the comparisons are being conducted, of some wide qualitative differences between the regions compared. The identification of lessons for policymaking will be considerably stronger if one can demonstrate that, despite considerable divergences, certain PVE strategies continue to perform well across the board. The consolidation of such lessons – based on validations from across different cultures, structural contexts, and radically divergent Islamic traditions – provides for an additional measure of confirmation as to their pertinence. The overt attempt of the authors of this study has been to search diligently for such ‘across-the-board’ lessons.
Working Paper on a comparison of ‘enabling environments’, drivers and occurrence/nonoccurrence of violent extremism in the Balkans and the MENA region
The following working paper presents a cross-sectional and cross-regional comparison of the findings by PREVEX project partners across their three respective regional domains: the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the Balkans, and the Maghreb-Sahel, as stemming from their studies into the question of the occurrence and non-occurrence of violent extremism (VE). PREVEX deals with both ethno-nationalist and Islamic violent extremism (IVE).
Policy brief summarising the lessons learned from assessing the EU’s measures to prevent violent extremism in a comparative perspective
Elapsing 30 months into the PREVEX consortium’s work, synchronizing results from both PREVEX-generated and external research outputs, this policy brief presents three key lessons from the analysis of the EU’s measures to prevent violent extremism (PVE) across its three regional focal areas: MENA, Maghreb/ Sahel and the Balkans. It then teases out three policy recommendations emanating from these lessons. While lesson #1 speaks to the broader framework of the EU’s PVE efforts, lessons #2 & #3 are more specifically geared toward the regions under PREVEX’ scrutiny: The Balkans (#2) and MENA and Maghreb/Sahel (#3).
How can the EU promote democracy in Eastern Europe and Western Balkans in a time of war?
Human Rights Violations in the Taliban’s Afghanistan
HRRL presents the report "Revenge Killings and Other Serious Human Rights Violations in Afghanistan in the Aftermath of the Taliban’s Seizure of Power." The findings will be discussed by Afghanistan experts such as Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, and HRW researcher Fereshta Abbasi.
Kari M. Osland is NUPI's new Director
The Sahel - fragile states and violent entrepreneurs
The Sahel has recently gotten attention from the international community because of the many challenges this realm faces. This webinar marks the end of a three-year long project that has taken a closer look at the Sahel.
Securitisation of the EU approach to the Western Balkans: from conflict transformation to crisis management.
This chapter analyses the EU’s crisis response in the Western Balkans through the lens of EULEX. By exploring how those immediately responsible for mandate execution and those directly affected by its outcomes perceive EULEX, we discover gaps that highlight the pitfalls of direct and ingrained political interference in the mission’s work. While EULEX has been seen as an important watchdog for preventing further human rights abuses, the EU’s approach to Kosovo and the region continues to be characterised by competing priorities: the EU’s broader political objectives impact the mission’s legal work and hamper the EU in achieving a coherent and impactful rule of law policy. In turn, this decreases the local populations’ trust and approval of EULEX and ultimately undermines the EU’s overall goals of promoting good governance and a European perspective for Kosovo. This tension highlights the incompatibility of the EU’s short-term focus on crisis management and the more longterm focus on crisis transformation. We see this as particularly problematic for an actor whose self-image as a ‘normative power’, is underpinned by an assumption that its influence in the world in gained through ‘the power of ideas’.
Strengthening Fragile States through Taxation (FRAGTAX)
How is the political authority to tax established, exercised and maintained over time? State-building requires predictable income. Without a domestic revenue base, even core activities states are expe...