Publications
The Geopolitics of Fish in the Arctic
Climate change and declining sea-ice in the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO) has brought concerns that fish stocks may expand into the high Arctic. While the sub-Arctic seas of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic have abundant fish resources subject to major commercial fisheries for generations, the CAO has little or none. Concerns that fish stocks could expand into the CAO provided the impetus for negotiating the 2018 Agreement to Prevent Unregulated Fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean. This policy brief discusses efforts to address challenges associated with climate change and fish in the Arctic, and makes recommendations for policy action.
Democracy and Human Rights in Contemporary Latin America (2015-2020): Trends, challenges, and prospects
Through a review of scholarly and other well-informed articles as well as media reports, this CMI Report aims to summarize discussions on challenges for democracy and human rights in Latin America during the last half-decade. The region faces a highly difficult economic outlook, consisting of low commodity prices and stagnant growth, threatening a historic backlash in the access to basic goods (including food) and services (not least health). The coronavirus pandemic may have a completely devastating effect on Latin American societies. After the end of the “pink tide”, the survey registers a regional democratic decline, breakdown of democratic systems in some countries and more widespread concerns of democratic erosion; electoral success for anti-incumbent candidates but also a rise of youth protest and fundamental political reform claims. While the human rights agenda has expanded tremendously, a current trend is that fundamental political rights may be endangered. There are serious threats to security and the right to life, and an increasing authoritarian trend (most visible in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil, and El Salvador). Cuba, here treated as a special case, finds itself at a critical juncture, right before the definitive end of the Castro era, leaving the fundamental challenge for younger generations to prepare for a soft landing or risking a full regime collapse. Geopolitical rivalry between the US, China, and Russia leaves a particular responsibility to Europe to facilitate conflict resolution and peacemaking as well as resolution.
FOKUS: 25 år med EØS
Special edition of Internasjonal Politikk with focus on the 25 year anniversary of the EEA agreement.
The Far Right Honeytrap: Georgian Media and the Mediagenic Far Right
The recent wave of far-right mobilization across the globe, including Georgia, naturally attracts wide media attention. Although the interrelation of the media and the far right, especially in the Georgian context, remains under-researched, evidence from other countries shows the potential impact of media coverage on both public opinion, i.e. the demand for the far right, and the consolidation of far-right actors, i.e. the supply of the far right. This policy paper examines the possible role the Georgian media can play in far-right mobilization and provides recommendations for both media and civil society organizations.
Norwegians adapting to a changing world
The world as we have come to know it is changing. Some of the core principles of the rules-based liberal international order are being challenged. The established truths and practices that we have based our foreign policies on are put into question. How do Norwegians respond to these changes? What are their views of Norwegian foreign policy? Just before the Corona crisis hit Norway, NUPI conducted an opinion poll in the Norwegian population asking about foreign and security policy. The answers we got tell the story of a people adapting reluctantly to international change.Read the full report here.
Multilateral Cooperation and Climate-related Security and Development Risks
On 3 and 4 March 2020, a sub-regional meeting was hosted by Senegal and Norway in Dakar. The meeting formed part of an ongoing special initiative by African and Nordic countries to strengthen multilateral cooperation and a rules-based international order. The topic of this meeting was “multilateral cooperation to address climate-related security and development risks in Africa with a focus on Sahel”. This report is the co-chair’s summary of the proceedings of the UN75 Africa-Nordic Sub-regional Meeting.
Er vi iboende gode?
(Available in Norwegian only): Mektige stater anklager hverandre for være dobbeltmoralske, og verden blir et dårligere sted, skriver Minda Holm i denne Klassekampen-kronikken.
On the Double Exceptionalism of Liberal States
This chapter deals with dilemmas of current European Security Politics in relation to freedom of speech and liberal values more broadly, in what I call the ‘double exceptionalism’ of liberal security policy. Empirically, I focus on the Norwegian balance after the terrorist attack on 22 July 2011. The political foundation of West European societies is based in part on a set of liberal political values, whereby freedom of speech is central. As a value, it is seen as foundational to who “we” as members of a nation are, exemplified through a speech the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg gave in response to the attack: “With the strongest of all of the weapons of the world, the free word and democracy, we will find the course for Norway after 22 July 2011”. At the time, the rhetorical response was applauded by commentators as an exemplary alternative to the typical security-centric response of governments to terrorist attacks. When faced with internal security dilemmas, the response from liberal-democratic states is typically to either enter into a “state of exception”, where some of the normal governing rules no longer apply, or where the laws are altered to enable non-liberal policies. The period after 9/11 and the increased focus on preventive security has been marked by a systematic role-back of liberal values in European societies, justified with the overarching need to protect lives first, values second. Since liberal values are seen as foundational attributes of the state, illiberal actions do not alter their liberal self-perception. This is the double exceptionalism of liberal states: the exceptionalism to transgress law and “normal politics”, and the exceptionalism to not let that transgression alter the identity one has construed as a liberal polity. This chapter discusses these dilemmas in the Norwegian, and how Norwegian governments dealt with the tension of differing logics between liberal identity and the politics of security.
What Liberalism? Russia’s Conservative Turn and the Liberal Order
Through a regime that increasingly promotes a conservative domestic agenda and at times portrays the West as decadent and lost, the Russian state has been cast as the front man in a new international conservative revolt. Yet, calling the Russian state ‘anti-liberal’ misses the complexity of its critique of liberal international politics. This essay argues that the ‘anti-liberalism’ of the current and in many ways radically conservative Russian state is one directed at the particular form of anti-pluralist and internationalist liberalism associated with the ‘benchmark date’ of 1989 and the period of liberal triumphalism that followed – not at the system of regulated state sovereignty laid down after 1945, known as ‘liberal order’. While the current Russian state clearly challenges central aspects of liberalism at home, and echoes Schmittian realism in several regards, the state also relies on a specific interpretation of concepts such as sovereignty and non-interference that historically were part of a more stability-oriented, conservative liberal international vision. Exploring exactly ‘what liberalism’ it is that Russia is increasingly defying, the essay opens up an important space to historicize and interrogate what post-1945 liberal memory is, how such memory is currently being re-negotiated by a New Western Right, and what Russia has got to do with it.
Slow Stagnation, Sudden Revolution? Post-Covid-19 Prospects for Political Change in Russia and Belarus
The Covid-19 pandemic and the impending economic crisis may exacerbate instability in Belarus and Russia. To reduce the risks of regional instability and help to prepare for a possible transition of power, the international community should continue its support for democratic initiatives in the region. To better understand and predict future political development, close and nuanced knowledge of Russian and Belarusian societies is necessary. Monitoring and academic research should therefore be encouraged. In the case of a transition, the international community should demand free and fair elections. It should also issue strong and clear statements against foreign interference and consistently react to any violations of sovereignty.