Publications
Adaptive Peace Operations: Navigating the Complexity of Influencing Societal Change Without Causing Harm
Peace operations are deployed to contain violence and to facilitate this process, but if they interfere too much, they will cause harm by inadvertently disrupting the very feedback loops critical for self-organization to emerge and to be sustained. To navigate this dilemma, this paper by Research Professor Cedric de Coning proposes employing an adaptive approach, where peace operations, together with the communities and people affected by the conflict, actively engage in an iterative process of inductive learning and adaptation. Adaptive Peace Operations is a normative and functional approach to peace operations that is aimed at navigating the complexity inherent in trying to nudge societal change processes towards sustaining peace, without causing harm.
Global handel og medisinsk beredskap i lys av Covid-19
The study analyzes world trade and value chains for medical goods before and during Covid-19, and on this basis discusses lessons learned for medical preparedness in Norway. Since Norway imports much of what we need, emergency preparedness is an international issue, while it has largely been treated as a national matter. Report to the Corona Commission 2.2.2021.
Analyzing Security Subregions: Forces of Push, Pull, and Resistance in Nordic Defense Cooperation
How can we best analyze security subregions? The most commonly used theory of regional security in the discipline of international relations, the regional security complex theory, focuses on large regions, such as Europe, Asia, or the Middle East. It pays less attention to smaller regions within these. This is unfortunate, because the security dynamics of these subregions often are a result of more than their place in the larger region. At the same time, the security of subregions cannot be reduced to a function of the policies of the states comprising them either. In short, security subregions are a level of analysis in their own right, with their own material, ideational, economic, and political dynamics. To capture and understand this, we need an analytical framework that can be applied to security regions irrespective of where and when in time they occur. The aim of this article is to offer such an analytical framework that helps us theorize the forces forging regional security cooperation, by combining external push and pull forces with internal forces of pull and resistance. The utility of the framework is illustrated through the case of Nordic security cooperation. It allows for a systematic mapping of the driving forces behind it and the negative forces resisting it. The Nordic region thus becomes a meeting point between global and national forces, pushing and pulling in different directions, with Nordic Defense Cooperation being formed in the squeeze between them.
Hybridity, Adaptive Peacebuilding and Complexity
This chapter introduces Complexity and Adaptive Peacebuilding and considers how it contributes to the contemporary hybridity debate. Following a brief introduction to Complexity theory, this chapter explores the utility of a complex systems perspective to expand our understanding of hybrid peacebuilding. Adaptive peacebuilding is then introduced as an approach that can help hybrid peacebuilding cope with the uncer- tainty dilemma that is a characteristic of complex social systems, as well as manage the relational dimension of hybrid peacebuilding through a collaborative approach.
Central African Republic: What's behind the crisis?
The situation in the Central African Republic's capital of Bangui is "apocalyptic" - that's how a former prime minister this week described the situation there. The UN says more than 200,000 people have fled their homes since the conflict erupted last month. Rebel forces now control two-thirds of the country. Dr Andrew Yaw Tchie, Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, gives the background to this crisis.
Utenlandsk eierskap i eiendom i Norge: informasjonskilder og mulige oversikter
The report reviews central sources to information about foreign ownership in real estate in Norway. It describes possible steps for improving the overview of such ownership interests.
South Sudan’s battle for Democracy
South Sudan’s peace process is still largely up for negotiation. A new South Sudan must emerge through a civilian technocratic government. This will require transforming the way security forces control the state. It also means being serious about addressing the root causes of conflict, implementing a transitional parliament, drafting a new constitution, deciding what type of federalism best suits the country and strengthening the electoral commission, writes Andrew E. Yaw Tchie in this analysis.
Red Arctic? Affective Geopolitics and the 2007 Russian Flag-planting Incident in the Central Arctic Ocean
This chapter discusses visual representation and Arctic geopolitics, exploring how the image of the flag planted on the Arctic seabed by Russia has persisted as a core visual image of Arctic politics. Using Google Image Search, we compare the pervasiveness of this image with a small selectin of potential image-events of the Arctic, representing different storylines of Arctic politics, and find that they remain comparatively marginal. The chapter considers why the flag-planting image remains so central to Arctic geopolitics by briefly discussion reception and re-use of the flag-planting image in Canada, Russia and the United States.
A Governance and Risk Inventory for a Changing Arctic
In this chapter, Elana Wilson Rowe, Ulf Sverdrup, Karsten Friis, Geir Hønneland, and Mike Sfraga caution against viewing trends of conflict and cooperation in the Arctic in binary terms. While the US and Europe are determined to confront malign activity in the region, all sides continue to “demonstrate a commitment to cooperation and joint solutions to common challenges.” After reviewing the key factors and drivers supporting and challenging stability in the Arctic, the authors remind us that “cooperation in conflict” has long been the norm in the region, allowing cooperative governance to progress despite the enduring NATO-Russia military rivalry. Ongoing dialogue in the region – essential for addressing the regional and global implications of climate change – is poorly served by focussing on “narratives or practices of strategic competition alone.” To avoid “political tipping points” beyond which cooperation will become too difficult, the authors call on policymakers to be more proactive in how they address emerging governance challenges related to security and economic development.
Veier til informasjon om utenlandsk eierskap i Norge: kilder og metoder
The report reviews central sources to information about foreign ownership in Norway, mainly ownership control and ownership shares in enterprises. The report also provides assessments of some international sources and information tools, and discusses possible steps for improving the overview of ownership interests in Norway.