Defending and renewing multilateralism: Estonia and Norway in the UN Security Council

Digitale trusler blir kinkig for Norge i Sikkerhetsrådet

(Op-ed in Norwegian): De fleste land rangerer trusler via det digitale rom som en av de største utfordringene for det 21. århundret. På tross av dette har tematikken knapt vært nevnt i FNs sikkerhetsråd. Hva kommer det av? Og kan Norge gjøre noe med det? spør Niels Nagelhus Schia og Erik Kursetgjerde i denne DN-kronikken.

The role of the UN Security Council in cybersecurity: international peace and security in the digital age

At the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the UN Security Council is faced with difficult questions about its efficacy, relevance and legitimacy. The leading powers and the permanent members (P5) of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – are drawn into a heavy contest over the world order. Power lines are (to be) drawn in an increasingly digital, interconnected and multi-stakeholder society. So far, despite the language from heads of states, global media houses and from leaders of international organizations including NATO and the UN, none of the P5 countries have brought cyber to the UNSC. Other countries – for instance, Lithuania and the Netherlands – have considered introducing cybersecurity issues in the Council, but no action has followed. One of the most recent members-elect, Estonia, has pledged to take the issue up. To stay relevant and act up on its responsibility for international peace and security, the Security Council will have to establish itself vis-à-vis cyber issues. The goal of this chapter is to examine why and how. To what extent do questions pertaining to digital threats and cybersecurity fall within the mandate of the Council and what could it address given the politically tense times among the P5.

Common Fears, Common Opportunities? Czechia and Norway in the changing international context

With long-dominant structures in flux, European states – and perhaps smaller ones in particular – are now forced to rethink their foreign policy approaches and practices. This policy briefs outlines how one small Northern European state, Norway, and one Central European state, Czechia, assess and respond to a changing international political context. While located in different geopolitical settings, and with different histories, political systems and resources at their disposal, Norway and Czechia operate under many of the same international framework conditions. How are Norwegian and Czech officials and policy makers evaluating contemporary developments? What do they identify as the key fears to which they must respond? Which partners and institutional structures have they traditionally relied on – and what indications of change (if any) can we now observe? We find that Norway and Czechia face many common fears – from concerns about the international order and their global sense of place, to challenges to key institutions such as NATO and the EU, and concerning specific issues such as climate change, energy security, territorial security, and how to best respond to migration. We argue that these common fears could provide a springboard to greater cooperation that can diversify Czechia and Norway’s support networks and entrench a greater sense of international belonging for both countries.

Op-ed article: Turning fear into opportunity: A chance for small states

Even before the spread of COVID-19, smaller states had much to fear in international affairs. The shifting global order, instability in regional institutions and the resurgence of great power politics do not bode well for countries such as Czechia and Norway. However, it’s not these fears themselves, so much as what smaller states make of them, that determine how they can adapt and survive – or even thrive – under changing and challenging global conditions. To make the best of the scary global situation and influence the ‘post-Coronial’ international order, smaller states should use their common fears as the basis for deepening their friendships with each other and, together, contribute to a less fearful world.

Tre grunner til at Norge bør med i FNs sikkerhetsråd

Norge har meldt seg på i kampen om en plass i FNs Sikkerhetsråd i 2021-2022. Kronikken presenterer 3 grunner til at Norge bør med i Sikkerhetsrådet.

Autonomy or integration? Small-state responses to a changing European security landscape

Is there a pattern in how small European states, inside and outside of the EU, adapt and adjust to EU foreign and security policy? This article introduces a Forum in Global Affairs, discussing how small states are responding to a changing European security landscape. We assess selected European small states’ room for manoeuvre within various fields under the EU external action, and within EU institutional structures more broadly – as part of everyday diplomatic interactions in Brussels and in the context of the rotating EU presidency. As the European integration process enters a new phase, possibly marked by a trend of more differentiated integration and flexibility of individual attachments, small states will continue to face the choice between formal autonomy and integration, and between de facto hesitance and adaptability. With Brexit, the remaining large member states may become more influential, but small states will collectively have a majority of the votes and total population. Perhaps the coming era of European integration will become the era of small states?

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.

Franchised States and the Bureaucracy of Peace

This book examines a new type of state formation evoked by the rise of transnational rule, what Schia calls franchised states. Turning the UN into a field site and drawing on an anthropological fieldwork of the UN organization, he demonstrates how peacebuilding activities turned Liberia into an object of governing, whereby the UN, in seeking to build the state, also became the state. The sovereign state of Liberia here emerges as a franchise rather than a self-contained entity. Two implications follow: First, that international peacebuilding turns post-conflict countries into clients of the international community. Second, that “sovereignty” is no longer exclusively associated with the state: it is organized in and through specific practices of governing where a state actor is only one among a range of actors. With these findings, the book moves beyond previous work on peacebuilding by focusing on the unbundling of sovereignty. It contributes to the literature on the changing forms of sovereignty by showing the specific ways in which sovereignty is organized, packaged and enacted, often by actors working under international auspices. Others about the book: Thomas Hylland Eriksen (Professor of Social Anthropology University of Oslo, Norway): "This is a challenging and creative contribution to the anthropology of the state. By necessity basing his analysis on multisided fieldwork, Schia shows how the Liberian state is entangled in multiscalar transnational institutions, encounters, ambitions and misunderstandings. Of particular value are the concepts of "ownershipping" and "franchised state", which shed light on the vulnerability of the postcolonial state and the power exerted by non-state, supranational actors. By using these concepts Schia offers a fresh perspective on the African state and forces us to rethink the concept of sovereignty." Anette Nyqvist (Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, Sweden): "With its unique insight of the bureaucratic processes at UN and in Liberia, this monograph is not just a study of peacebuilding in practice, but an innovative contribution to the anthropology of policy and to organisational anthropology. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in political anthropology and global processes of peace building." Séverine Autesserre, (Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA): "A very interesting ethnography of international intervention and state building in Liberia, with many useful insights for scholars and policymakers." Palgrave Macmillan: - Examines how peacebuilding has been turned into a series of management processes and the implications this has for the state. - Offers a fresh approach through looking at policy processes from the perspectives of both UN HQ and the case study country, Liberia. - Addresses an important gap in the literature – the gap between the operational and policymaking levels of statebuilding and peacebuilding.

Skyggemekanismer i FNs Sikkerhetsråd: Relevans, legitimitet og effektivitet

Status and sovereign equality: Small states in multilateral settings

In this chapter, we explore Norwegian UN policy, arguing that it is a central arena for Norwegian efforts to be recognized by others. Our focus on Norwegian UN policy is not an end in itself, but a means to develop a more general argument about status seeking behaviour in a multilateral setting. We argue that status seeking in multilateral settings is distinct from status seeking in other settings, and that this stems from the norms of reciprocity and rulebased cooperation in such settings. Multilateral settings put a premium on behaviour that is in keeping with a commitment to the furtherance and expansion of the rules established by multilateral cooperation and organizations. Certain types of behaviour or role, rather than certain types of resources, can accord status. Norway has specialized in one distinct ‘role’: that of being a team-player, a facilitator – an actor that can be relied upon to take on the burden of doing things in which it has no identifiable direct stake or interest. A case in point is the UN request as to whether Norway could shoulder the responsibility for destroying Syria’s chemical weapons. We conclude the chapter by suggesting that the role developed in multilateral settings has so pervaded Norwegian diplomatic tradition that it is present in bilateral settings as well. We proceed as follows. We first elaborate briefly on the editors’ introduction and highlight how status seeking is reflected in the skills and diplomatic forms that are valued in different settings. We then briefly describe overall Norway’s UN policy, with a few examples of what a status-based reading of this policy can tell us about Norwegian foreign policy, and about multilateralism as a distinct arena for status seeking. Next, we present the specific manifestations of their distinctiveness of multilateral settings, and link this to Norwegian diplomats’ self-understandings and conceptions of what characterizes a good diplomat: the ability to be tapped into what is going on in an effort to present oneself with resources that can be put to good use on issues in which Norway may often not have any distinct or direct stakes. This tendency to stress the role as ‘helper’ is most pronounced in relation to issue-areas where the USA has vital interests, and is less so where less powerful states are concerned. Thus, power differentials play a central role also in multilateral settings, where it matters who is the demandeur for the tasks to be undertaken.