Event

20 years ago, NUPI both established a Russia department and organized our first annual Russia Conference. This year’s anniversary conference is organized in collaboration with the NORRUSS program - the Research Council of Norway’s program for research on Russia and the High North/the Arctic. We will seek to give an overview of developments both within Russia and within Norwegian research on Russia over the past twenty years and to give a status report with regards to Russian politics today. Which trends do we see? Where is Russia headed?

The conference will focus on three broad topics: Russia and international politics, Russian domestic politics and the relationship between Norway and Russia in the High North.
State secretary Tore Hattrem, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institution will each give a keynote address. The three panels contain prominent experts on Russian politics, from Russia, Norway, Great Britain and the U.S.

The event is open for the public, but admittance requires completing a sign-up through NUPI’s web pages. The conference language is English. The program will be updated closer to the conference.

IMPORTANT: We are occasionally experiencing technical sign-up problems. Our experience is that your sign-up will be registered even if you receive an error notification. However, if in doubt, please send an e-mail to: seminar@nupi.no stating your name and e-mail address, and we will double check your registration.

See the conference here:

Programme 9 - 16:

NB: Starts 9.00 sharp, please be seated by 08.50. Registration opens at 08.15 and closes 08.55.

Opening remarks

• Ulf Sverdrup, NUPI

 Keynote speakers

• Tore Hattrem, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway
• Clifford Gaddy, Brookings Institution

Panel 1: Russia and the World (10.00 - 11.30)

Chair: Julie Wilhelmsen, NUPI

• Lilia Shevtsova, Chatham House and Brookings Institution, Russia’s doctrine of the hybrid world order: to be with the West and to be against the West
• Roy Allison, Oxford University, Russia’s new interventions: Ukraine, Syria and global order
• Iver B. Neumann, LSE and NUPI, Russia and the idea of Europe
• Natasha Kuhrt, King’s College London, The threat that dare not speak its name: Russia’s  China policy

Panel 2: Domestic Russian politics (12.15 – 13.45)

Chair: Pål Kolstø, University of Oslo

• Natalia Zubarevich, Moscow State University, Russia’s regions: crisis, trends and prospects
• Helge Blakkisrud, NUPI, Blurring the boundary: the Kremlin’s new approach to national identity
• Regina Smyth, Indiana University, The unexpected strength of weak oppositions
• Geir Flikke, University of Oslo, Resurgent authoritarianism: power and societal resistance in Putin’s third period

Panel 3: Russia and Norway (14.00 – 15.30)

Chair: Alyson Bailes, University of Iceland

• Arild Moe, Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Russia’s economic aspirations in the Arctic – implications for Norway
• Aileen Espiritu, University of Tromsø, Between a rock and a hard place: Russian-Norwegian relations in the High North
• Tormod Heier, Norwegian Defence University College, Security challenges in the High North
• Kristian Åtland, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Norwegian-Russian security relations after the conflict in Ukraine: continuity or change?

Closing remarks

• Rainer-Elk Anders, Staffordshire University/NORRUSS Program Board