Publications

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Are renewable energy sources more evenly distributed than fossil fuels?

The energy transition literature assumes that renewable energy sources are more evenly distributed globally than fossil fuels. This assumption implies that the shift from fossil fuels to renewables will enable more countries to pursue energy self-sufficiency and end their dependence on imported energy. However, if the assumption is wrong, the energy transition will depend on transboundary electricity or hydrogen trade, creating new international relationships and opportunities for both cooperation and conflict. The contribution of this study is to test the assumption of the even distribution of renewable energy resources on a quantitative empirical basis. Lorenz curves are compared and Gini coefficients calculated for three types of fossil fuels and three types of renewable energy in 161 countries. The study concludes that renewable energy is indeed more evenly distributed than fossil fuels. This finding lends support to claims that energy transition will bring about a more decentralized global energy system centered on prosumer countries with few long-distance energy relationships. However, the difference between the evenness of the distribution of renewable energy resources and that of fossil fuel reserves is not as great as the literature assumes. International trade in energy, and by extension international energy politics, will not disappear entirely.

Coping with Complexity: Toward Epistemological Pluralism in Climate–Conflict Scholarship

Over the last two decades, climate security has become an increasingly salient policy agenda in international fora. Yet, despite a large body of research, the empirical links between climate-change and conflict remain highly uncertain. This paper contends that uncertainty around climate–conflict links should be understood as characteristic of complex social–ecological systems rather than a problem that can be fully resolved. Rather than striving to eliminate uncertainty, we suggest that researchers need to learn to cope with it. To this end, this article advances a set of principles for guiding scholarly practice when investigating a complex phenomenon: recognizing epistemological uncertainty, embracing epistemological diversity, and practicing humility and dialogue across difference. Taken together the authors call this ethos epistemological pluralism, whereby scholars self-consciously recognize the limits of their chosen epistemology for understanding the climate–conflict nexus and engage with other approaches without attempting to usurp them. Reviewing the last decade of climate–conflict scholarship, Beumont and de Coning show that climate–conflict research already manifests many of these ideals; however, they also identify problematic patterns of engagement across epistemological divides and thus plenty of scope for improvement. To illustrate why a diversity of methods (e.g., qualitative and quantitative) will not suffice, the article critically discusses prior research to illustrate why at least two epistemological approaches—constructivism and positivism—cannot be synthesized or integrated without significant analytical cost, and elaborates why excluding insights from any one would lead to an impoverished understanding of the climate–conflict nexus. The authors conclude with five practical recommendations of how scholars can help realize the ideal of epistemological pluralism in practice.

Islamist Social Movements and Hybrid Regime Types in the Muslim World

Since the Arab Uprisings in 2010–2011 and subsequent counterrevolutions, socio-economic and political crises have occurred with rapid frequency in the Arab Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel. The aim of our special issue is to investigate how and why social movements that use references to Islam or an explicit Islamist framework have adapted their ideology and their toolbox in order to negotiate and navigate the social and political terrain created by the upheavals in the recent period? Using recent field data to enrich our knowledge of Islamist movements in countries where the Islamist phenomenon has been understudied, this collection provides a framework to understand the growing political volatility and hybridity in Islamist repertoires of contention. The authors of the volume each analyse cases of Islamist social movements shifting, or attempting to shift, from one repertoire to another – from transnational to national, from non-violent to violent or vice versa. The collection shows that social movements adapt in different ways and make use of resources available to them, at times moving far beyond their established ideology and traditional theological references.

Sverige, Finland og NATO.

Våre naboland Sverige og Finland har alltid stått utenfor forsvarsalliansen NATO, men da Russland angrep Ukraina endret svensk og finsk politikk seg på kort tid. "Dette er en god dag i en kritisk tid for vår sikkerhet", sa NATO-sjef Jens Stoltenberg da han mottok søknadene om medlemskap fra Sverige og Finland i mai. Hvordan vil dette påvirke sikkerhetspolitikken i Norden?

Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Somalia

Somalia is experiencing its worst drought in over four decades. More frequent and intense floods and droughts fuel competition over natural resources, exacerbating community tensions and vulnerabilities. In combination with decades of conflict and instability, climate change poses a serious challenge to peace and security.

A nuclear future and the evolution of the military dynamic on the Korean peninsula

North Korea’s nuclear program continues unabated and there is little prospect of a resolution to this seemingly intractable issue. The Kim regime, contrary to international law, is developing and testing a series of new missile and nuclear capabilities including more survivable missiles and tactical nuclear weapons that are increasingly difficult to defend against. At the same time, South Korea is investing in a series of conventional capabilities aimed at deterring and defending a North Korean nuclear attack. Consequently, there is increasing concern in the policy and academic discourse about strategic stability on the Korean Peninsula.

The war in Ukraine and multilateralism as we know it

Multilateralism was in trouble long before Russia invaded Ukraine: Increased rivalry between China and Russia, on the one hand, and the US and its allies, on the other, has made the most important international decision making body – the UN Security Council –less capable than before of addressing core issues on its agenda. For sure, the Council has renewed mandates for existing peace operations, but have not been able to establish new ones to address on-going conflicts. With the war in Ukraine and the seeming solidification of closer ties between Russia and China, there is reason to expect that multilateral decision making will deteriorate further.

No clear exit for SAMIM in Mozambique

The SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) has been extended multiple times, and violence continues to affect the northern regions of the country in spite of the presence of thousands of troops, with no clear exit for SAMIM in sight. These were some of the findings of a recent seminar entitled Examining the Effectiveness of a New Generation of African Peace Operations, hosted by the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa (SIGLA), the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON) and the Training for Peace (TfP) Programme.

Ad-hoc Security Initiatives, an African response to insecurity

This article contends that Ad-hoc Security Initiatives (ASI) have developed over the last decade in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin and represents a new form of African collective security mechanism. The G5 Sahel Force and the Multi-National Joint Task Force emerged from a context-specific need for small clusters of African states to respond collectively to a shared cross-border security threat(s). The existing African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) mechanisms were not specific and responsive enough to meet this emerging need. Despite substantial investments over the last twenty years by the African Union, Regional Economic Community/ Regional Mechanisms and international partners to establish the African Standby Force, this instrument was not agile enough to respond to the type of threats experienced in the greater Sahel region. In this article, we trace the emergence of a new type of ASI, examine how they fill an essential gap and analyse why the African Standby Force was not able to meet this need. We then consider the implications of these developments for the future of the APSA and how closer collaboration between ASIs and APSA can be developed.