Niels Nagelhus Schia

Horseshoe and Catwalk: Power, Complexity and Consensus-making in the United Nations Security Council

This volume assembles in one place the work of scholars who are making key contributions to a new approach to the United Nations, and to global organizations and international politics more generally. Anthropology has in recent years taken on global organizations as a legitimate source of its subject matter. The research that is being done in this field gives a human face to these world-reforming institutions. Palaces of Hope demonstrates that these institutions are not monolithic or uniform, even though loosely connected by a common organizational network. They vary above all in their powers and forms of public engagement. Yet there are common threads that run through the studies included here: the actions of global institutions in practice, everyday forms of hope and their frustration, and the will to improve confronted with the realities of nationalism, neoliberalism, and the structures of international power.

Det frie internettet er under angrep

Kronikk: Kina og Russland prøver allerede å ta kontroll over «sitt» internett. Vil Vesten nå, etter USA-hackingen og foran vårens valg i Europa, følge etter? This op-ed is published in Norwegian only.

Trusselen fra cyberspace

(Op-ed in Norwegian only): Cyberangrep øker i omfang verden over. Norge er et av verdens mest digitaliserte land og dermed spesielt utsatt, men dette blir i stor grad oversett av politikere og næringslivsledere.

The Cyber Frontier

The cyber frontier perspective serves to explicate that the Global South’s participation in digitalization is not simply a matter of joining cyberspace. On the contrary, it is a matter of selective forms of global connection in combination with disconnection and exclusion. I contextualize security concerns by describing the trajectory of digitalization in the Global South. I proceed by exploring how “technological leapfrogging” can create new and unique societal vulnerabilities. By linking digitalization with security and economic growth, cybersecurity is seen in connection with development assistance and the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Finally, I hold that this triple knot (digitalization, security and economic growht) represents an opportunity for donors such as the EU to foster new types of development assistance building on a continued engagement in the Global South.

Cyber Security as Development Assistance - Growth and Vulnerability

The importance of digital technology underpins most of the social, economic and political development goals of most donor countries and international organisations today. Cyber Security Capacity Building (CCB), an approach aimed at advancing, cultivating and encouraging growth and stability in developing countries through digitalization, seems set to play an increasingly important role in future foreign policy considerations and government programmes. In the NUPI project ‘Cyber Security Capacity Building (2015-2016) we have mapped out concrete risks and challenges, proposed recommendations for dealing with them, and provided suggestions for implementing the adequate tools effectively. This policy brief presents a summary of the final report, which draws on project reports produced by NUPI related to this project.

Cybersikkerhet og utvikling

Teach a person how to surf: Cyber security as development assistance

Much policy literature on digitalization and development has focused on the importance of connecting developing countries to digital networks, and how such technology can expand access to information for billions of people in developing countries, stimulating economic activity, collaboration and organizations. Good connection to digital networks may have a fundamental impact on societies, changing not only how individuals and businesses navigate, operate and seek opportunities, but also as regards relations between government and the citizenry. Instead of adding to the substantial literature on the potential dividends, this report examines a less studied issue: the new societal vulnerabilities emerging from digitalization in developing countries. While there is wide agreement about the need to bridge the gap between the connected and the disconnected, the pitfalls are many, especially concerning cyber security, a topic often neglected, also in the recent World Bank report Digital Dividends (2016). The present report is an attempt at redressing this imbalance.