Publications
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.
Standby security arrangements and deployment setbacks: The case of the African Standby Force
The African Standby Force (ASF) is a key mechanism for advancing African agency in addressing the continent’s peace and security threats. The African Union (AU), regional economic communities (RECs) and regional mechanisms (RMs) have previously deployed stabilisation missions and ad hoc security initiatives (ASIs). Yet these deployments don’t strictly reflect the principles envisaged in the original ASF make-up and authorisation processes. In this report, the authors argue that the future of the ASF future should be seen as an opportunity for the AU and RECs/RMs to standardise the quest for African agency and adopt an agile approach that aims for better partnerships between the RECs, ASIs and member states.
Europeanisation of Norwegian security and defence policy. Nordic cooperation as vehicle.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European security has been placed on high alert, highlighting the importance of both the EU and NATO as key, although different, regional security actors. As the election of a more isolationist president in the US again in 2024 or 2028 cannot be excluded, boosting European security and defence should be a key objective for both Norway and its European allies. Such a Europeanisation should be seen as an add-on to Norway’s NATO membership, but should imply a more serious investment in various initiatives taken by the EU and key EU-member states (France and Germany), in addition to those taken by the UK. Strengthening Nordic security and defence cooperation should also be seen as a vehicle for a much-needed Europeanisation of Norwegian security and defence policy. With Sweden and Finland now entering NATO and Denmark returning to the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), the potential for Nordic security cooperation as a means to this end has never been greater.
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Central African Republic
In this new Fact Sheet from the joint NUPI and SIPRI Climate-related Peace and Security Risks Project (CPSR). The research team explore the nexus between climate change, peace and security.
The Abe Legacy
With the terrible assassination of former Prime minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, an important, but not always uncontroversial, political era in Japan is over. As the longest serving Prime minster, he leaves an important legacy in Japanese politics, but also in relation to the role he wanted Japan to play on the global scene. Based on the 99th Stockholm Seminar on Japan, two invited experts, Dr. Wrenn Yennie Lindgren and Dr. Richard Nakamura, share their views on the international political, as well as economic implications of the passing of Abe in this policy brief.
Navigating ASEAN-Myanmar Relations: The Phnom Penh Summit as a Critical Juncture for (Dis)Engagement
This article considers recent internal developments in Myanmar and how they strain external relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It identifies ASEAN’s Phnom Penh Summit as a critical juncture for disengaging the military government, engaging non-political entities and upgrading the 2021 Five-Point Consensus.
The Amazon rainforest and the global–regional politics of ecosystem governance
This article examines the global–regional politics of ecosystem governance through the case of the Amazon rainforest. Despite the bourgeoning literature on global and regional environmental politics, the interplay of these dynamics in ecosystem governance has still received limited attention. I here propose that the politics of ecosystem governance are rooted in a dispute over the realization of alternative ecosystem services. When global actors become invested in promoting ecosystem preservation to secure the realization services with diffuse benefits, it can affect cooperation at the regional level. Ecosystem-adjacent states can perceive external interest as a threat, building regional cooperation as a tool to defend sovereignty, but also as an opportunity, using it to bargain the terms of their stewardship. I use this framework to trace the evolution of regional cooperation in the Amazon, demonstrating how it was developed in response to this ecosystem's growing global salience. Through defensive sovereignty and bargained stewardship, regional cooperation helped Amazon states to cap international commitment and limit external influence in the region but also allowed for building some form of coordinated ecosystem protection. The research sheds new light on both the potential and the limitations of global–regional engagements for the preservation of the Amazon and other analogous cross-border ecosystems.
The end of stability - how Burkina Faso fell apart
Not so long-ago Burkina Faso was considered an ‘island’ of stability in a conflict-prone part of Africa. This is not the case anymore as armed insurgencies have caused widespread insecurity. While spill-over effects from the conflict in Mali clearly play a role, we argue that the sudden demise of the rule and regime of Blaise Compaoré also is an important contributing factor. To decipher to what extent regime transition shaped the current state of affairs, we show that what kept Burkina Faso stable and out of the conflicts in the region was a ‘big man deep state’ of formal and informal networks of security provisions. When this ‘deep state’ vanished with the ousting of Compaoré and his allies, local security providers have sought new solutions, and this strengthened the role of self-defence militias but also led them to compete against each other, at times also violently. This provided fertile terrain for jihadi insurgents. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to provide a conceptual understanding of how weak rulers actually rule, how some succeed in preserving their rule for a lengthy period of time, and what can happen when they eventually fall.
The Sheikh versus the president: the making of Imam Dicko as a political Big Man in Mali
In the lead up to the military coup in Mali in August 2020, Imam Dicko Mahmoud Dicko solidified his status as one of the country’s most important power brokers. How did a religious leader achieve this is a country where politics is considered ‘dirty’, the social capital of religious leaders’ rests on being seen as honest and pious, and politics and religion are considered constitutionally separate? Drawing on recent work in African Studies that utilises the classical ‘Big Man’ concept of Marshall Sahlins, this article tracks the political engagement of religious leaders with a particular focus on the political career of Imam Dicko. We document both his failures and how he learned to play politics without tarnishing his image as a pious man of God. We argue that Dicko’s hybrid mix of theology and politics led his followers into new terrains that even the secular opposition could buy in to. In turn, this opens up space for Salafi actors to navigate the straits between resistance and collaboration with the state.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank: from institutional anchors of liberalism to geopolitical rivalry
The IMF and the World Bank are not only amongst the world's most powerful international institutions, but they also represent the most visible institutional anchors of the liberal post-Second World War order. This may be about to change because the IMF and the World Bank are economic institutions and, thereby, bound to reflect global economic realities. And, from an economic perspective, these realities have for quite some time indicated a world that increasingly moves in a multipolar direction. The turn to economic multipolarity has followed in the wake of increased Great Power rivalry between the United States and China. This chapter charts out these developments and how they have affected and IMF and the World Bank, and what consequences this may have for these institutions and the type of global leaderships that they seek to set.