Researcher
Pernille Rieker
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Summary
Pernille Rieker's research interests are European integration (EU) and European foreign and security policies. This includes the foreign and security policies of France and the Nordic countries. She has also worked with dialogue and conflict prevention more generally. Rieker obtained her PhD from the University of Oslo in 2004. At NUPI Rieker is part of the Security and Defence research group (SecDef). Furthermore, she is the coordinator of the NUPI Centre for European Studies (NCE) and co-editor of the journal Internasjonal Politikk.
Publications:
Books: Franske tilstander: Forstå det moderne Frankrike? (Universitetsforlaget 2024); European Actorness in a Shifting Geopolitical Order. European Strategic Autonomy Through Differentiated Integration (Palgrave 2024); French foreign policy in a changing world. Practicing grandeur (Palgrave 2017); External governance as security community building – the limits and potential of the European Neighbourhood Policy (Routledge 2016); Dialogue and Conflict resolution. Potential and limits (Routledge 2015); and Europeanization of National Security Identity. The EU and the changing security identities of the Nordic states (Routledge 2006).
Articles: Making Sense of the European Side of the Transatlantic Security Relations in Africa (Politics & Governance, 2022); 'Not so unique after all? Urgency and Norms in EU foreign and security policy' (Journal of European Integration, 2021); 'Differentiated integration and Europe's Global Role: A Conceptual Framework' (European Foreign Affairs Review, Special Issue, 2021); 'Differentiated Defence Integration Under French Leadership' (European Foreign Affairs Review, Special Issue, 2021); 'Plugging the capability-expectations gap: towards effective, comprehensive and conflict-sensitive EU crisis response?' (European Security nr. 1, 2019); 'EU-supported reforms in the EU neighbourhood as organized anarchies: the case of post-Maidan Ukraine' (Journal of European Integration nr. 4, 2018); 'Autonomy and Integration? Small-state responses to a changing European security landscape' (Global Affairs nr. 3, 2017); 'The EU, Russia and the potential for dialogue – Different readings of the crisis in Ukraine' (European Security nr. 3, 2016); and 'The EEA Grant. A source of Soft Power?' (Journal of European Integration nr. 4, 2015).
More information on her work is included in her CV.
Current Research:
Pernille Rieker leads the RE-ENGAGE-project, which overarching ambition is to assist the EU in refining its foreign policy toolbox, including its enlargement and neighbourhood policies - to enhance the Union’s geopolitical leverage and provide better tools for democracy promotion in its neighbourhood.
Within the framework of Norway and the EU towards 2030 Rieker analyses the evolution of the EU as a security policy actor and the implications for Norway.
In the ADHOCISM project, she takes a closer look at France's military role in Mali.
Expertise
Education:
2004 PhD, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo
1998 Can. Polit. in Political Science, University of Oslo
Work experience:
2017- Research Professor, NUPI
2011-2017 Senior Researcher, NUPI
2009-2011 Senior adviser, NordForsk
1999-2009 PhD-candidate/Senior Researcher/Head of Departement, NUPI
Aktivitet
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What does Trump’s Space Force mean for Europe?
The American President wants his own Space Force, and this could contribute to a shift in the dynamics of space that until now has been characterized by cooperation.
CANCELLED: How can the EU improve its crisis response?
One month ago, the NUPI-led and Horizon 2020-funded research project EUNPACK was finalised. This seminar will provide an opportunity to look back at three years of research and fieldwork to consider the policy implications of its findings.
EUNPACK Executive Summary of the Final Report & Selected Policy Recommendations. A conflict-sensitive unpacking of the eu comprehensive approach to...
Since adopting a ‘comprehensive approach’ to crisis management in 2013, the EU has spent considerable time and energy on streamlining its approach and improving internal coordination. New and protracted crises, from the conflict in Ukraine to the rise of Daesh in Syria and Iraq, and the refugee situation in North Africa and the Sahel, have made the improvement of external crisis-response capacities a top priority. But the implementation of the EU’s policies on the ground has received less scholarly and policy attention than the EU’s actorness and institutional capacity-building, and studies of implementation have often been guided primarily by a theoretical or normative agenda. The main objective of the EUNPACK project has been to unpack EU crisis response mechanisms and provide new insights how they are being received and perceived on the ground by both local beneficiaries and other external stakeholders. By introducing a bottom–up perspective combined with an institutional approach, the project has tried to break with the dominant line of scholarship on EU crisis response that has tended to view only one side of the equation, namely the EU itself. Thus, the project has been attentive to the local level in target countries as well as to the EU level and the connections between them. The research has been conducted through an inductive and systematic empirical research combining competencies from two research traditions that so far has had little interaction, namely peace and conflict studies and EU studies. A key finding in our research is that while the EU has been increasingly concerned with horizontal lessons learnt, it needs to improve vertical lessons learnt to better understand the local dynamics and thus provide more appropriate responses.
Assessing the EU’s Toolbox in Handling Internal and External Challenges
In recent years, the EU has faced several major challenges. Experts meet in Brussels for a roundtable discussion on what tools the Union has to solve these, and what role it can play in the time to come.
Plugging the capability-expectations gap: towards effective, comprehensive and conflict-sensitive EU crisis response?
Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the European Union (EU) has spent considerable time and energy on defining and refining its comprehensive approach to external conflicts. The knock-on effects of new and protracted crises, from the war in Ukraine to the multi-faceted armed conflicts in the Sahel and the wider Middle East, have made the improvement of external crisis-response capacities a top priority. But has the EU has managed to plug the capability–expectations gap, and develop an effective, comprehensive and conflict sensitive crisis-response capability? Drawing on institutional theory and an approach developed by March and Olsen, this article analyses whether the EU has the administrative capacities needed in order to be an effective actor in this area and implement a policy in line with the established goals and objectives identified in its comprehensive approach.
Ever looser union? Differentiation in European integration
Professor Frank Schimmelfennig is visiting NUPI to discuss differentiated integration, which has become a core feature of European integration.
Is the EU ready to handle the major challenges it is facing?
Ivan Krastev reflects on the future of the EU, and whether the union is ready to handle major challenges such as migration, the spread of right-wing populism, and instability in the east.
French status seeking in a changing world. Taking on the role as the guardian of the liberal order
France has a long history as a traditional European great power. But is this still the case today? The analysis in this article shows how French exceptionalism, often referred to as ‘grandeur’ is still the guiding principle of French foreign policy, but that it is being practised differently today. President Macron may be right in arguing that ‘France is back’, but it is important to note that modern French power projection or status seeking takes place through a set of very different mechanisms. The key argument put forward in this article is that French status is increasingly based on a type of symbolic power, and to understand the mechanisms through which this power is managed, insights from social psychology and Social Identification Theory (SIT) are helpful. SIT points to three different strategies for maintaining a position within a social hierarchy that may also be valid for international politics: social mobility, social competition and social creativity. While France has adopted different types of strategies in earlier periods (social mobility in the immediate post-war years and social competition during the Cold War), the analysis in this article shows that French foreign policy practices are now increasingly being legitimised through the creation of a new narrative. Interestingly, this narrative consists of the current French political leadership’s eagerness to take on the role as ‘the guardian of the liberal order’, which fits nicely with what SIT identify as a strategy of social creativity.
UK’s foreign policy in Europe after Brexit
What will the British foreign policy look like after the Brexit negotiations finish next year?
How has Trump pushed Europe and Asia together?
One of the unforeseen consequences of President Trump’s erratic foreign policy has been to push Europe and Asia closer together. This is what Fraser Cameron will argue when he visits NUPI on 19 September.