Publications
Keeping the peace together? Joint Russian-Western peace operations in the Commonwealth of Independent States
The purpose of this report is to discuss the conditions for future multinational peace operations in the Commonwealth of Independent States, including both Russian and Western forces. The aim and scope of this study are based on a positive attitude to challenges in general, in other words, a will to see opportunities and solutions instead of obstacles and insolvable problems. Problem: What are the possible options for multinational peace operations including Russian and Western forces in the Commonwealth of Independent States? I will focus on investigating possibilities for CPOs in the CIS area. Content: The report will consist of an initial discussion focusing on various Russian approaches that influence thinking on combined peace operations. The focus on Russia is an inevitable consequence of my West/NATO origin, but in order to give a more balanced view of the problem it will also be necessary to look at some other factors influencing this potential co-operation. Further, I will discuss three generic options for combined peace operations in the Commonwealth of Independent States. The main goal of this study is a detailed discussion of various possible scenarios for future Russian-Western co-operation in the field of peace-keeping on the territory of the former Soviet Union. In order to place the topic in a proper context the author takes a closer look at various political, mental, historical and not least purely technical determinants limiting the potential scope of the joint peace-keeping. The study contains a detailed analysis of international (UN), Western (NATO, Canada) and Russian peace-keeping terminology. It also discusses the importance and relevance of various international frameworks determining the field, the scope and the geographical dimension of the potential Russian-Western co-operation, as well as the practical experience from the joint peace-keeping missions in the former Yugoslavia. The study gives a good insight in the history and practice of joint Russian-Western peacekeeping efforts. It also outlines and analyses various practical and political challenges linked with development of this relatively new and still challenging field of co-operation between Russia and the West. As such, it is relevant for both theoreticians of peace-keeping and for those who work with peace-keeping in the field.
Selvforståelse og rolleforventning under ulike regimer : en studie av den russiske intelligentsiaens før og etter kommunismens fall sett i lys av...
Denne studien undersøker rollemønstre og selvforståelse som intellektuelle utvikler under henholdsvis et totalitært og et demokratisk regime. Mer bestemt rettes søkelyset mot den intellektuelle forstått som en samfunnskritiker, en som bidrar til dannelsen av en kritisk og våken offentlig sfære. Sentralt for studien er videre hvordan en gradvis overgang fra et totalitært til et demokratisk regime stiller de intellektuelle overfor nye og ukjente problemer med hensyn til å bli hørt og kunne delta i den offentlige debatt. Dette forholdet har berørt mange av de intellektuelle som var underlagt et kommunistisk system i Sovjetunionen og Øst-Europa. Her drøftes og analyseres hvordan den russiske intelligentsiaen har blitt konfrontert med demokratiets inntreden etter over 70 år med en sterk undertrykking av det frie ord og det sivile samfunn. Studien av intelligentsiaens skjebne gjøres med utgangspunkt i Zygmunt Baumans og Pierre Bourdieus kultursosiologi. Baumans bidrag er konsentrert om hans forståelse av det han definerer som en moderne (Sovjetunionen) og postmoderne (Russland etter 1991) samfunnstilstand og på hvilken måte disse tilstandene definerer intellektuelles roller og selvforståelse. Fra Bourdieu anvendes hans innsikter om intellektuelle som besittere av kulturell kapital og deres posisjon innenfor det han definerer som det sosiale rom. En av studiens hovedkonklusjoner er at sovjetregimet formet en selvforståelse og rolleforventning hos intelligentsiaen som la grunnlag for dens identitetskrise etter 1991.
Supermaktens akilleshæl? Politisk polarisering og beslutningsproblemer ved amerikanske internasjonale militære engasjement
Bulwark, Bridge, or Periphery? Polish discourse on Poland and Europe
After the Communist regime started crumbling in 1989, the official foreign policy of Poland has been redefined. A central characteristic in this process has been Polish involvement in the process of European integration and an application for membership in the European Union. These policies have not been undisputed in Polish political debates. Analyses of Polish European policy tend to concentrate on the official foreign policy of Poland and the strategies of cooperation and integration proposed by EU member states. What they seem to forget is that debates on Europe and what shape the relations between Poland and Europe should take exist within Poland as well. This thesis is an attempt to fill in this gap. What kind of Europe do Poles promote? This thesis argues that foreign policies are conditioned by the ways in which certain concepts are represented in discourse. Its purpose is to present you with an overview of the existing Polish European policy positions, analyze the representations on which they rest and, on the basis of the analysis, draw some conclusions about the preconditions of Polish European policies and make some tentative predictions for they may develop in the future. The purpose of the analysis is thus both explanatory and predicative. Discourses are closely related to the discourses that precede them. I believe that a background study of Polish discourse during Communism is an important background study in order to explicate the foundations of today’s discourse. I will therefore devote a considerable part of the thesis to the discourse of this period.
From Apparatchik to President – From Businessman to Khan: Regime Transition and Consolidation in the Russian Republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia
Ways of improvement in the Russian labour market with emphasis on the shadow employment
The report discusses the main peculiarities of the Russian labour market, such as the relatively low unemployment, the prevailing shadow labour relationships and the overmanning in the public sector. The report is organised as follows. The first part aims to highlight the main aspects of the Russian labour market development and some peculiarities of the shadow employment in Russia. The second part presents the model, and applications of possible government policies for the labour market are discussed in the third part. The last part concludes.
Creating Security through Immigration Control: An analysis of European immigration discourse and the development towards a common EU asylum and imm...
The purpose of this report is to discuss the extent to which immigration has come to be perceived as a security threat by European Union (EU) policy makers. The manner in which immigration issues are presented by policy makers at the European level is assumed to have substantive implications for the choice of instruments in the area. A second purpose is therefore to discuss the extent to which the development towards a common EU asylum and immigration policy can be interpreted as security policy strategy. Increased immigration during the last few decades has coincided with increasing unemployment and economic restructuring in Western Europe. The issue of immigration became increasingly sensitive in the late 1980s after the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, when a tide of illegal immigrants was expected to inundate the West. Today, images of ships loaded with refugees off the shores of Italy, or of trucks filled with illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel, have become disturbing, but no longer rare features of European newspaper headlines. The impression is that of Europe being ‘swamped’, and unable to deal with the hordes of people standing outside its gates wanting in.Since the aim of this report is to examine the change that has taken place in European perspectives on immigration, a study of political discourse will enable us to deconstruct a number of justificatory domains, which are supported by the members of the European policy community. The main hypothesis is that security considerations are clearly reflected in the establishment and development of asylum and immigration instruments following the Amsterdam programme. Another hypothesis is that the framing of immigration as a security threat has legitimised the introduction of objectives and instruments that have their origin in security policy. This is notably to be seen in the accession agreements with the Central and Eastern European applicant countries, as well in the so-called ‘partnership-agreements’ with immigrant countries of origin and transit. Having established the broader aim of this report, I propose two main and inter linked questions as the framework for the analysis: First: To what extent has the issue of asylum and immigration come to be seen as a security threat, and thus as a security matter at the EU level? Second: To what extent is the above question reflected in the objectives and instruments of the common EU asylum and immigration policy? Can the development towards a common EU asylum and immigration policy be called a security policy strategy?
Partnership and Discord: Russia and the construction of a post Cold War security architecture in Europe 1991–2000
This study analyses Russia’s approach to the construction of a post-Cold War security architecture in Europe from 1991 to 2000. The author examines tensions, contradictions and ambiguities in Russia’s policy that contributed to making both partnership and discord ingredients to Russian–Western security relations. For instance, how can we understand Russia’s intense opposition to NATO enlargement and NATO’s out-of-area operations in light of Russia’s own formalised cooperation with the Western alliance? And how can we conceive of Moscow’s enduring position that the OSCE should be the ‘cornerstone’ of Europe’s security architecture, considering what many observers have interpreted as Russian obstruction of, and non-compliance with, OSCE decisions and norms? The author seeks to answer these questions by tracing the Russian debate on national identity and foreign policy that emerged in the wake of Soviet dissolution.