Publications
Navigation, circumvention and brokerage: the tricks of the trade of developing NGOs in China
Chinese NGOs face strong coercive pressures and limitations yet have still emerged as notable actors in several issue areas. This article studies why and explains how a group of NGOs working on AIDS-related issues have been able to progress into relatively large and vibrant operations. It documents how NGO leaders have learned to navigate opportunities and risks, circumvent formal restrictions and broker pragmatic and largely informal arrangements that have enabled their organizations to grow and advance within China's authoritarian settings. The article contributes to the literature on Chinese NGO development and new institutionalism theory, and introduces a framework for studying NGOs based on their organizational forms and activities.
Norge, USA og det liberale verdifellesskapet
Trumps delvis anti-liberale politikk setter flere av USAs europeiske allierte, inkludert Norge, i en kinkig posisjon. Én mulig respons er å opptre varsomt, og la de amerikanske institusjonene selv «gjøre jobben» i møte med mer illiberale initiativer fra den nye administrasjonen. Samtidig kan det tenkes at flere av Trumps posisjoner vil modereres i møte med både byråkrati og allierte. Problemet med en slik tilnærming – der Norge står på sidelinjen, og eventuelt tar ad hoc beslutninger om å kritisere - er at det ikke tar utfordringene som de liberale verdiene og institusjonene står overfor seriøst nok. Problemet for verdifellesskapet er tross alt ikke bare Trump, men en internasjonal dreining mot det illiberale i både innenriks- og utenrikspolitikken til land som vi har antatt har vært en del av det samme fellesskapet. Hvor langt er Norge villig til å gå for å forsvare de verdiene som vi definerer oss gjennom utad?
State effects and the effects of state building: institution building and the formation of state-centred societies
This article discusses the assumptions underlying state-building efforts and the effects of these efforts. It addresses two main questions: why has state building not led to the establishment of effective states? And what are the effects of statebuilding? It is argued that these efforts have been based on an institutionalist model of the state derived from a Weberian framework, and that the basic reason why state building has failed is that the creation of effective states requires the creation of state-centred societies, where both material and symbolic resources are concentrated in the state. This is very difficult to achieve for external actors. But, although state building has not achieved the kinds of effects associated with effective states, it has nevertheless had significant effects. These include, first, accentuating the patrimonialism which has led to state weakness in the first place; second, reductions in national sovereignty as external actors’ substantial influence on policy agendas renders the state itself subject to control and regulation by actors external to it; and, third, perpetuating the idea of the state, while undermining the possibility of creating actual states which conform to this idea.
The Chinese story: Historical narratives as a tool in China’s Africa policy
The rise of China as a key actor on the African continent not only challenges the Western dominance in economic and political terms, Beijing is increasingly also offering a challenge on a different level, by contesting the Eurocentric history that has underpinned the West’s policies towards African countries throughout the modern era. In order to bolster the Sino-African relationship, this article argues that Beijing is propagating towards African publics a range of historical narratives about African history and the Sino-African relationship. Developing and testing a theoretical framework for analysing these historical narratives, the research finds that this Chinese history of Africa represents China’s recent actions on the African continent as incarnations of a long historical tradition of friendship and anti-colonial support, thus serving the role of legitimizing Chinese policies as well as delegitimizing Western powers’ economic and political strategies.
The bear and the EU-China-US triangle: Transatlantic and Russian influences on EU’s “pivot to Asia”
This article argues that in the case of the EU’s efforts to undertake a “Pivot to Asia”, added explanatory salience can be achieved by recognising firstly the importance of the transatlantic factor and the US’ own rebalance policies. Secondly, based on a model where the USA is regarded as a significant variable in the EU-China relationship, one may more saliently discern the influence of Russia by assessing its impact on the triangular EU-China-US relationship, both directly and indirectly. Addressing these issues in European policymaking, the article will be constituted of two main parts. In the first section, the triangular nature of European foreign policies towards China is introduced, addressing the transatlantic factor in EU-China relations. Based on research on the European policy debates on EU’s Asia policies and the American Pivot to Asia, the section will illustrate the degree to which EU policy initiatives are conceived as playing out on a range from cooperation to competition with the US’ rebalance initiatives. In the second section, the chapter will proceed to investigate a factor that is affecting, although to different degrees, all three corners of the triangular political context in which European China policies are being shaped, namely the effects of recent Russian actions in the Eurasian theatre. The analysis demonstrates how European policymakers struggle to define their place in the EU-China-US triangle. The dynamics of the ongoing Asian power shift highlights the dilemmas for the European continent, as it seeks to balance its relations in a shifting geopolitical landscape.
AGENCY, ORDER, AND HETERONOMY
Constructivist theories have produced a wealth of insights about the dynamics by which social facts shape actors’ identities and how distinct logics of action are at work in upholding and producing particular orders. Reviewing this literature, I argue that the normsoriented scholarship has failed also on its own terms in that it has tailored different logics of action to the task of explaining particular political orders rather than agency proper. These norm-centred accounts present themselves as agent-oriented, but subsume the exploration of agency within an account of the micro-level foundation for a norm-anchored order. In lieu of such a perspective, I unearth one key insight from Richard Ashley and treat agency as an achievement. It is an effort to balance external forces in such a way as to achieve a semblance of agency or control. This view of agency is, I think, implicit in Kratochwil and Onuf’s work on rules. I explicate this view and demonstrate how it offers better tools with which to explore the historically changing conditions within which actors seek to present themselves as proper agents and to shape any given order, which cannot be reduced to, or subsumed within, any particular logic of action.
Norway: Small State in Big Energy Play: Room for National Political Maneuvering in European Energy Markets.
This article discusses the scale and scope of the room for political maneuvering in the energy sector available to Norway as member of the Single Market (SM) in the European Union (EU). Norway has deliberately developed its energy resources under strong political control, in order to benefit the “whole Norwegian nation.” The European Economic Area (EEA) agreement, which entered into effect in 1994, made Norway a participant in a liberal economic restructuring processes. As EU policy aims at benefiting purchasers in the whole EEA area, and not individual member states only (outside exporters even less), it clashed with Norwegian energy policy as regards for whom policy should work, and how. The article discusses how small-state Norway managed to achieve nationally defined goals for its energy sector within the rule-based SM, versus EU as the big political player. The main empirical focus is on natural gas. The article argues that the room for national political maneuvering within liberal EU regulations appears to depend as much on national vision and situation, and on comparative advantages in policymaking and choice, as on EU policy itself. In the Norway–EU energy case, nationally defined policy goals were largely retained, with active regulatory and legal interpretation, innovative adaptation and, when necessary, the introduction of new policies and greater direct state participation to compensate for lost opportunities.
Being Peacekept? The Implicit Assumptions that Hamper the Protection of Civilians
Protection of Civilians (PoC) has during the last decade evolved to become an important guideline for international actors in post-conflict and conflict affected societies. While much policy literature has been written on how to better implement the PoC framework, less has been written on the conceptual framework of the protection of civilians and how this fits with local contexts, networks and relationships. Drawing on recent research and empirical material from Afghanistan, Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda and Colombia this policy brief identifies five implicit assumptions underpinning the Protection of Civilians as conceptualized in the Aide Memoire and UN Security Council resolutions. Through these assumptions we analyze how a skewed conceptual platform for protection implementers paradoxically disconnects protection needs.