Researcher
Minda Holm
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Minda Holm is a Senior Research Fellow with the research group Global Order and Diplomacy. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen (September 2023), a monography on ideology in global politics titled Towards a Social Theory of International Ideology, Ideological Scripts, and Counter-Ideology: Rethinking Liberal International Order and the Far Right’s critique.
Holm does social- and political theoretical work on liberalism in global politics (historically and present), anti-liberal forces globally including the far right’s global visions, global order, ideology, state ideals and sovereignty. She has also done research and published on Norwegian, Russian and U.S. foreign policy, misrecognition, morality in global order, international conceptual history and diplomacy.
She is an editor of the Scandinavian-language IR journal Internasjonal Politikk, an Associate Editor of New Perspectives, and from June 2024 an Associate Editor of Cooperation and Conflict. Holm also has a monthly column in the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen. As of fall 2023 she is working on the Research Council-funded projects CHOIR and ANGER.
See her personal webpage for more, including publications.
Expertise
Education
2018 – 2023 PhD, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Submitted November 2022, defended after maternity leave September 2023.
2015 – 2016 MA George Washington University, USA (Fulbright scholar)
2013 – 2014 MSc London School of Economics and Political Science, England
2008 – 2013 BA (2, in parallel), Political Science and Russia studies, University of Oslo and American University in Cairo, Oslo/Egypt
Main work experience
2023 – Senior Research Fellow, NUPI
2018 – 2022 PhD Fellow, NUPI, University of Copenhagen and Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS)
2017 – 2018 Research Fellow, NUPI
2012 – 2017 Research Assistant, NUPI (fulltime from January 2016)
2012 – 2012 Intern, Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Tajikistan
2010 – 2011 Trainee, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kazakhstan (covering all of Central Asia)
2009 – 2010 Journalist, Radio Nova
Aktivitet
Filter
Clear all filtersBrothers in Arms and Faith? The Emerging US-Central and Eastern Europe ‘Special Relationship’
In this policy note, we explore the nature, strength and tensions of the contemporary US-Central Eastern Europe relationship. We describe the expanding US-CEE ‘brotherhood in arms’: growing trade relations, intensified military cooperation, and rekindled diplomatic ties. Further, we unpack the striking and largely ignored dimensions of the US-CEE ‘brotherhood in faith’: the many ways in which the United States and Central and Eastern Europe are tied together by overlapping ideologies of national conservatism and a particular version of Christian ‘family values’. This involves addressing the complexities of an increasingly influential and ambitious Visegrád Group, whose key players – Poland and Hungary – may be brothers, but are by no means twins. It also means raising some broader, burning discussions about the future of NATO and the meaning of ‘Europe’. Universalist, multicultural and postnational? Or conservative, Christian and sovereigntist?
Om å være kvinne i akademia
Reflections on being a woman in academia. Published in longer version with Forskerforum, Agenda Magasin and Nupi.no.
Drømmen om å gjenkristne Europa
The political leadership in Hungary, Poland and Russia talks of protecting Christians abroad - and about saving Europe from itself.
Står den liberale epoken for fall?
30 years after the fall of the wall the world is more about continuity than change.
Common Fear Factors in Foreign Policy (COMFEAR)
COMFEAR aims to identify key issues of common concern and shared threats as perceived by publics and policymakers in Czechia and Norway....
Kreml og den liberale idéen
How radical is Kremlin's anti-liberalism?
Y-blokka og Syria
On the securitisation of different spheres of Norwegian society
Why Populist Foreign Policies in Europe are Doomed to Fail
Professor Andrew Moravcsik visits NUPI to talk about the surge of populism in Europe and its limitations for foreign policy.
The Politics of Diasporas and the Duty of Care: Legitimizing interventions through the protection of kin
The duty of care (DoC) is largely portrayed as being of a benevolent and liberal character, with welfare states aiding its citizens abroad. In this chapter Holm examines a more complex phenomenon involving the DoC: that of a state and its diaspora. Seeing Duty of Care in relation to diasporas poses a conceptual shift: often multinational in identification, with a perceived or real ‘homeland’, and at times with dual (legal) citizenship, diasporas may be sought protected under an extended, non-territorialized notion of belonging to a state’s citizenry. Looking at Russian rhetoric in the Georgia war in 2008 and the Crimean annexation and Ukraine crisis in 2014, Holm explores how the Duty of Care can be evoked rhetorically to defend diaspora groups by kin-states. In relation to a domestic audience, this prism proves highly effective, as the state portrays its actions as defending ‘their’ people abroad out of a moral necessity and responsibility for their kin. It also functions to dismiss international stigma and critique at home based on a perceived higher moral purpose. As in the case of diasporas in inter-state conflicts with Georgia and Ukraine, this turns the Duty of Care into a complicated, and potentially highly politicized, international matter. It also provides a communitarian alternative to the cosmopolitan R2P: in theory, any group can be defined as worth defending as one’s own, across and despite opposing claims to sovereignty. The chapter concludes with discussing the wider ramifications of diaspora group protection by kin-states for challenges to the liberal international order.
Ethnic Diversity in the Recruitment of Diplomats: Why MFAs Take the Issue Seriously
Diversity and its management have become an issue in all organisations. Ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) do not escape the issue. In the 2000s, states decided to consider more ethnic diversity in the recruitment of their diplomats. In some countries, this new goal requires affirmative action programs. This article is based on three case studies. The first case study analyses two Western countries — France and Norway — where MFAs have to reflect the diversity of immigration in their societies. The second case study analyses the case of Brazil, a country where the legacy of slavery still causes discrimination in the recruitment of diplomats. The third case study analyses ethnic diversity in the MFAs of India and Singapore, which recognise multiculturalism or multiracialism. The study draws five comparative conclusions to generalise on why MFAs in the world cannot escape the challenge of ethnic diversity in their recruitment policy.