Kristin Haugevik

From partners to allies: Finland and Norway in a new era

Finland’s decision to apply for NATO membership in 2022 altered Nordic security and defence dynamics. It also reset Finland’s relations with its neighbouring states – including longstanding NATO member Norway. In this policy brief, we discuss the evolving relationship between Finland and Norway. Despite their history as peaceful neighbours, divergent security arrangements generated political distance between Finland and Norway during the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War, their security policies gradually became more aligned, as evident also in heightened Nordic security cooperation, Finnish and Swedish participation in NATO exercises, and, more recently, the signing of a series of defence agreements with each other as well as with Sweden and the United States. Following Finland’s NATO accession, both states have anticipated a deepening of the Finnish-Norwegian alliance. We identify some areas where Finland and Norway may benefit from collaborating and exchanging perspectives in the coming years. This includes in the management of shared institutional frameworks, security concerns in the Arctic and Baltic Sea regions, the future relationship with the United States, and a more antagonistic Russia.

How the UK’s post-Brexit foreign policy came home

After leaving the EU, the UK needed to rethink its place in the world. Kristin Haugevik and Øyvind Svendsen examine the aspirations and meanings underpinning the “Global Britain” narrative and argue that its scope and ambitions have changed significantly in the years following the Brexit referendum.

On safer ground? The emergence and evolution of ‘Global Britain’

Why did Theresa May’s government introduce the narrative about ‘Global Britain’, and how did this narrative evolve and manifest itself in UK foreign policy discourse in the ensuing years? We make the case that Brexit distressed the United Kingdom’s foreign policy identity, and that the ‘Global Britain’ narrative emerged as a means to consolidate that identity—at a time marked by uncertainty and political turmoil. Scholarship on ontological security has theorized how states employ narratives to restore and stabilize their identities when they become ontologically insecure. It has not sufficiently addressed how these narratives evolve, and the conditions under which they come to resonate with key audiences. We suggest that identity consolidating narratives are more effective when they are anchored in familiar spaces and contexts—what we here call ‘home turfs’. We show how filling ‘Global Britain’ with content constituted a process of moving from existential anxiety about the country’s future role, to anchoring UK foreign policy in and around such ‘home turfs’. Tracing the emergence and evolution of the ‘Global Britain’ narrative in official UK discourse, we find that ‘Global Britain’ gradually homed in on two secure narrative bases: first, security and defence; and second, the Anglosphere and Euro-Atlantic.

The future of NATO and collective security

Guest lecture at EDS380 International Organizations

Hjemsendte diplomater

Norske diplomater hjemsendt fra ambassaden i Moskva.

Panel debate, "War in Europe: Nordic Cooperation in a Changing Security Environment"

Paneldebate, annual conference held in collaboration with the Foreign Ministry, the Nordic House, the Institute for Public Administration and Politics at the University of Iceland and the Icelandic Political Scientist Association.

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