Publications
Technologies of Peace
This chapter examines the effects of the digital revolution and new information and communication technologies on peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The chapter is concerned with how digital and web-based information and communication technologies can be used to prevent and manage armed violence, foster inclusive societies, and ensure a durable and high-quality peace. The UN is increasingly adopting new technologies, particularly within the field of peacekeeping. To increase situational awareness, UN peacekeeping staff have crowdsourced information and used drones and satellite imagery. In addition, the analysis of peacekeeping data holds great potential for early warning. New technological tools can help foster collaboration, transform attitudes, and give a stronger voice to local communities. Online platforms have been used to monitor elections, document human rights abuses, and facilitate communication between members of different sides in a conflict. However, since one cannot simply assume that technology will change everything for the better, it is crucial to be aware of the ethical implications of the use of new peace technologies. The UN needs to be careful that early warning is translated into early action. Peacekeepers and peacebuilders should also be vigilant when it comes to mitigating the possible abuse and negative side effects of the use of peace technologies. The chapter concludes that peace technologies significantly influence the prospects for peacekeeping and peacebuilding, particularly when the use of technology helps peacekeepers and peacebuilders be more people-centric.
Afterword: Gendering the Brand
One potentially productive way of framing the debates about nation-branding and public diplomacy is to consider them both subsumed under the broader motivations of status, prestige and reputation. On the one hand, it emphasizes how domestic politics can shape status-seeking and how the domestic resonance of status-seeking matters to its likelihood of success. On the other hand, it leads our attention to the external recognition of status, how it can be associated with circles of recognition, club membership and relative ranking, and also how there is a marked difference between formally equal-status relationships and relationships more in the teacher-pupil mould. As small states, the Nordics wanted to be recognized; gender equality was just not one of the fields that they considered to offer such recognition. While gender equality is certainly part of the self-image of the Nordic states, it is expressed in different ways and also 'usable' for diplomats in different ways.
Inter-governmentality: A framework for analysis
This chapter explores the analytical purchase of the governmentality-framework when applied to interactions between polities before the early modern period, what I refer to as inter-governmentality. Starting from the assumptions that: (1) governmentality (historically understood) was always entangled with globality and (2) that governmentality (heuristically understood) can be studied in polities other than the modern state, the chapter establishes a heuristic analytical apparatus for the study of the relation between non-state governmental apparatuses. By being explicitly analytical, the conceptual vocabulary of governmentality allows us to make sense of logics and practices of government across time and space, without assuming sameness. The conceptual apparatus of inter-governmentality (or the analytics of government) provides three clear and interrelated benefits. First, and most importantly, it provides an explicitly analytical framework to the academic subfield of Historical International Relations where the distinction between analytical and practical concepts is central, but often hard to get around. Second, it can direct attention at overlooked issues, such as gift-giving and marriage practices, and help bring meaning to practices which do not make sense to the modern eye. Third, it offers potential coherence to already ongoing research, by suggesting an overarching and integrative analytical framework.
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet Sahel
The Sahel region is highly exposed to climate change, but national and local factors mean that climate change will have differentiated impacts across the region. The region will gradually become hotter, with some areas experiencing increased, but erratic, rainfall. The immediate effects of these trends may include irregular seasons, droughts and floods. Interacting with social, economic and political factors, these could exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and increase the risk of violent conflict: • Changing rainfall and seasonal patterns can sometimes fuel and compound violent conflict over limited or unevenly distributed resources. Women and girls are especially vulnerable. Across the Sahel, climate change may increase the risk of clashes between herders and farmers over access water and pastures. • Rapid-onset disasters and long-term climate change may force people to temporarily or permanently move, sometimes joining people displaced by armed conflicts. Migration is an important adaptation strategy, but it can lead to conflict between host and migrant communities. • Disasters and climate change erode resilience, increasing the vulnerability of communities to predation by armed groups and manipulation by elites. Some armed groups recruit from communities whose livelihoods are affected by factors including climate change; and local militias can escalate farmer–herder conflicts.
Female Participation in Peacebuilding Efforts in Africa: A Review of Recent Academic Contributions
The year 2020 marked the 20th anniversary of the unanimous adoption of the United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Since the adoption of Resolution 1325 and the resolutions that followed, which now constitute the WPS normative framework, a substantial body of literature has emerged. This review explores (1) recent academic and policy contributions to the WPS agenda on the African continent from 2017 onwards, with a special emphasis on participation; and (2) relevant new contributions regarding emerging challenges to female participation in peacebuilding efforts.
Fiche technique sur le climat, la paix et la sécurité au Sahel
La région du Sahel est fortement exposée au changement climatique. Toutefois, en raison de facteurs relevant des contextes national et local, ce dernier ura des impacts différenciés dans la région. Les températures deviendront progressivement plus élevées dans la région et certaines zones connaîtront es niveaux de précipitations accrus, mais irréguliers. Dans l’immédiat, ces tendances pourraient se traduire par des saisons irrégulières, des périodes de écheresse et des inondations. L’interaction avec des facteurs d’ordre social, économique et politique pourrait exacerber les vulnérabilités existantes et accroître les risques de conflits violents: • Les changements dans les régimes pluviométriques et les tendances saisonnières peuvent parfois attiser et exacerber des conflits violents dont l’enjeu st l’accès à des ressources limitées ou inégalement réparties. Les femmes et les filles sont particulièrement vulnérables. Partout au Sahel, le changement climatique peut accentuer le risque d’affrontements entre éleveurs et agriculteurs autour de l’accès à l’eau et aux pâturages. • Les catastrophes d’apparition soudaine et le changement climatique à long terme peuvent forcer des populations à se déplacer de manière temporaire ou permanente et parfois à rejoindre des personnes déplacées par des conflits armés. La migration est une importante stratégie d’adaptation qui peut toutefois entraîner des conflits entre communautés d’accueil et communautés de migrants. • Les catastrophes et le changement climatique entraînent une érosion de la résilience, aggravant ainsi la vulnérabilité des communautés aux prédations de groupes armés et aux manipulations opérées par les élites. Certains groupes armés recrutent dans des communautés dont les moyens de subsistance sont affectés par des facteurs comme le changement climatique. Par ailleurs, les milices locales peuvent aggraver les conflits entre agriculteurs et éleveurs.
Russian Grand Strategy and Energy Resources: The Asian Dimension
This chapter addresses a set of strategically important questions about the relationship between Russian strategy and the country’s energy resources. It is divided into three sections. The first presents a brief discussion of the concept of a ‘grand strategy’ and its application in the Russian context. The second examines the role of energy resources in a grand strategy in general, and in the current Russian context in particular. The final section considers the importance of Asia in the realisation of Russian energy and grand strategy. The chapter seeks to answer the following questions: • What is a grand strategy? • Does Russia have a grand strategy? • What is the connection between grand strategy and energy? • What is the role of energy resources in Russia’s grand strategy? • What is the role of Asia in Russia’s grand and energy strategy designs?
Strengthening the resilience and adaptive capacity of societies at risk from hybrid threats
How would the civilian population of a specific country respond to significant disruptions caused by hybrid threats? This paper explores different response scenarios and considers what can be done to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacities of a civilian population, and its social institutions, when such threats are likely. One of the main challenges in increasing civilian resilience is the uncertainty and unpredictability of both the threat and how people will respond to it. The paper recommends utilizing an adaptive approach that is designed to cope with the complexity, uncertainty and unpredictability.
Assessing the Effectiveness of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and The Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary- Ge...
This report assesses the extent to which the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) along with the Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary- General on Cyprus (OSASG) – also called the mission of the Good Offices – is achieving its mandate enshrined in Resolution 164 of March 1964. In 2024, the UN Missions in Cyprus will celebrate the 60th anniversary of their presence in the country, and it seems timely to analyse their impact and effectiveness over the years. The EPON report looks for the first time at what the peacekeeping research community has called “legacy operations”, those born during the Cold War and still in place today. UNFICYP is the eighth peacekeeping mission created since 1948. The report looks also at the interaction between peacekeeping and peacemaking in the context of a frozen conflict, often referred to by researchers and scholars as the “Cyprus problem”. Cyprus is a unique case in international relations and peace operations. Its capital city is the only remaining divided capital in Europe and in the world. Cyprus is the only country in the world to have “Guarantors” with a right to intervene and station troops on a permanent basis. The report acknowledges the role of prevention of UNFICYP to the extent that the people in Cyprus tend to forget that no cease-fire agreement exists between the parties. Peacekeeping has been successful at creating a comfortable status quo that peacemaking has yet been unable to break down. In this context, the lack of will from the parties to engage in a meaningful political process has limited the UN’s effectiveness.
Premien for utenlandske eierskap i Norge: Opprinnelseslandskarakteristika og Kina-effffekten.
Many studies from a number of different countries show that there is a premium for foreign ownership; Foreign-controlled enterprises (UKFs) are larger and more productive than domestic-controlled enterprises. In the article, I use register data to show that this also applies to Norway. UKF has particularly high values of a number of enterprise characteristics that are often associated with productivity, such as number of employees, turnover per employee, value creation per employee, salary and trade in goods and services per employee. Using regression analyzes, I estimate, for example, that UKF has more than 80 per cent more employees than domestically controlled companies and almost 40 per cent higher turnover per employee (after taking into account that UKF may be overrepresented in some industries and / or year). Among the enterprise characteristics that are studied, only research and development activity for which there is no UKF prize. Furthermore, I find that the characteristics of the country of origin of UKF affect the size of the prize. In general, the premium is higher the larger and more developed the country of origin is and the further away from Norway it is. For the number of employees, turnover per employee and retail trade per employee, there is also a separate China effect; The estimates show that Chinese UKF, compared to other UKFs, has almost 60 per cent more employees, more than twice as much turnover per employee and even greater exports and imports per employee.