Publications
Russia's Neighborhood Policy and Its Eurasian Client States: No Autocracy Export
Do authoritarian regimes engage in active export of their political systems? Or are they primarily concerned about their geopolitical interests? This article explores these questions by examining Russia's policy towards Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. In all three de facto states, Moscow is fully able to dictate election outcomes should it desire to, but, we argue, has increasingly refrained from doing so. These client states are unlikely to attempt to escape from Russia’s tutelage; and with its geopolitical interests fully ensured, Russia appears willing to grant them latitude. We then ask whether these findings can be extrapolated to serve as a template for understanding Russia's policy towards its client states more generally, discussing Moscow's reactions to attempted regime change in Armenia and Belarus.
Bennich-Björkman, Li & Sergiy Kurbatov, eds. When the Future Came: The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of National Memory in Post-Soviet His...
Perestroika, the fateful years when Mikhail Gorbachev's plans for reforming the Soviet structure ended with the Union’s full collapse, is for many of us still a lived memory. But how is perestroika remembered today in the states that arose from the ashes of the USSR? And what can this tell us about national self-understanding in the Soviet successor states? This is the starting point for Li Bennich-Björkman and Sergiy Kurbatov’s edited volume When the Future Came: The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of National Memory in Post-Soviet History Textbooks. The volume consists of four case studies of history textbooks currently in use in secondary schools and universities in four of the former union republics – Russia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine – and a close reading of how these cover perestroika as part of the new "national" history.
Climate change and violent conflict in Mali
Since May 2020, violent conflict has killed 2,070 people in Mali. Insecurity has forcibly displaced more than 300,000 people, of whom 56 per cent are women. The drivers of Mali’s multiple conflicts are not arcane. Meaningful dialogues around poverty, marginalisation, limited livelihood opportunities, weak governance, political instability and more, can open doors to engaging with the community militias and armed groups that operate in the country. More reason, then, to ensure that the turbulent winds of climate change do not blow those doors shut.
Geir Flikke: Russlands rebeller: Protest og reaksjon i Putins Russland (2011–2020)
Based on a review of extensive source material, Geir Flikke describes how Alexei Navalny has gradually evolved into becoming one of the Russian opposition’s top profiles, a process that culminated in Navalny's (failed) campaign to be registered as a candidate in the 2018 presidential election. Flikke provides an in-depth and detailed review of strategies, slogans and protest repertoire. Both "rebels" and the regime are increasingly using creative methods – the opposition to reach their target audience, the authorities to stifle all attempts at what is often referred to as a potential "color revolution".
Future of UN Peace Operations: UN Support Offices to Regional Counterterrorism Operations?
United Nations peace operations and the prevention of violent extremism and counterterrorism agendas (PVE/CT) have been on converging paths since the launch of the UN Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism in 2014. During this time, the UN Security Council has discussed various ways to strengthen operational assistance (which currently includes fuel, rations, medical evacuation, and engineering support) to the Group of Five Sahel Force (G5S Force), a cooperative counterterrorism operation between Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. These discussions continued last month during the renewal mandate of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
International support for the effectiveness of the G5 Sahel Force
At the UN Security Council and in other forums in Africa and Europe, diplomats are debating different options for increasing international support to the G5 Sahel Force. The aim is to enhance its operational capacity and effectiveness to restore stability in the Sahel. Despite the presence of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the Group of Five Sahel (G5 Sahel) Force, as well as French and European Union missions, the security situation in the Sahel has significantly deteriorated over the last few years.
EUs grønne giv – implikasjoner for norsk europapolitikk
EU lanserte mot slutten av 2019 European Green Deal. Dette er en klimastrategi for å nå målene i Parisavtalen, men også en økonomisk vekststrategi, og forventes å definere EUs sentrale prioriteringer i årene fremover. Hvordan vil dette påvirke Norge, og norsk europapolitikk? En ny NUPI-rapport, forsøker å gi svar. Norge er tett koblet til EU via EØS avtalen og en lang rekke andre avtaler, herunder Klimaavtalen som definerer rammene for norsk klimapolitikk frem mot 2030. Når EU endrer sine mål og sin virkemåte, så vil dette også påvirke Norge i stor grad. Noen sentrale observasjoner i rapporten er at: • Det er en spenning i Norge mellom energipolitikken i form av fortsatt olje- og gassproduksjon, på den ene siden, og ambisiøse klimamål, på den andre. EUs grønne giv løfter klimapolitikken til politikkens elitedivisjon og kan gjøre det mer krevende å håndtere denne spenningen. Tradisjonelle allierte i EU - som Sverige og Danmark - har f.eks et annet syn på gass som del av løsningen enn det Norge har. • Grønn Giv innebærer at EU utvikler nye regler med potensielt stor betydning for Norge, men det forvaltningsmessige oppsettet for vurdering og håndtering av nye EU regler i Norge er ikke tilpasset en slik økning i volumet på nye regler. • Grønn giv er "sektorovergripende" og trekker EU Kommisjonen i retning av større integrasjon på tvers av ulike saksfelt. Norsk forvaltning er imidlertid definert av et sektor-prinsipp. Dette innebærer en betydelig økning av behovet for koordinering på tvers av ulike departementer og etater i Norge. • Fordi Norge står utenfor EU, har Norge størst mulighet til å påvirke innretting på nye regler og tiltak tidlig i prosessen, gjennom deltakelse i ekspertgrupper i en forberedende fase. Tempoet og omfanget av nye regler som nå utarbeides gjør dette arbeidet krevende. • Grønn giv innebærer en serie med endringer som potensielt griper inn i eksisterende konfliktlinjer i norsk politikk knyttet til EØS og suverenitetsavståelse. • Det er behov for økt kunnskap og dialog mellom forvaltningen, næringslivet, akademia og sivilt samfunn om hvilke muligheter og utfordringer EUs grønne giv innebærer. Et "grønn giv forum" kan være nyttig for å sikre at ulike norske aktører utnytter de muligheter som ligger i EUs grønne giv. • Grønn giv viser at EØS avtalen har sine begrensninger som det sentrale tilkoblingspunktet til EU. En mer institusjonalisert dialog på øverste politiske nivå mellom Norge og EU vil kunne bidra til å bøte på disse utfordringene. Rapporten er finansiert av Utenriksdepartementet.
Why the Nordic states maintain differentiated foreign policies
Nordic governments frequently broadcast their ambition to do more together on the international stage. In this blog post, Kristin Haugevik and Ole Jacob Sending explain why we still shouldn’t expect to see any profound increase in joint Nordic foreign policy positions and actions – and especially not when it comes to relations with greater powers.
Performing Statehood through Crises: Citizens, Strangers, Territory
This article applies the growing International Relations literature on state performance and performativity to the question of how practitioners categorize different kinds of crises. The aim is to add value to the crisis literature by paying more attention to how performances are staged for multiple audiences, how statehood is produced as a collective (as opposed to an individual) body, and how and why one and the same state actor performs statehood in different ways. Drawing on interviews and participant observation, we discuss how one state apparatus, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), performs statehood during different types of crisis. The MFA has institutionalized crisis management in three very different ways, depending on whether it defines the crisis as a security crisis, a humanitarian crisis, or a civilian crisis. Different crises have different audiences, are performed in different repertoires, and produce three different aspects of the state that we name, respectively, caretaking, do-gooding, and sovereignty. Bringing the performativity literature to the study of crises gives us a better understanding of the statecraft that goes into using crises as opportunities to make visible and strengthen the state as a presence in national and global social life. Conversely, our focus on the specificity of various state performances highlights how the performance literature stands to gain from differentiating more clearly between the straightforward performing of practices, on the one hand, and the performing of state identity by means of the same practices, on the other.