Publications
Doing fieldwork in areas of Interntional intervention: a guide to research in violent and closed contexts
Using detailed insights from those with first-hand experience of conducting research in areas of international intervention and conflict, this antology provides essensial practical guidance for researchers and students embarking on fieldwork in violent, repressive and closed contexts. Coverning issues of control and confusion, security and risk, distance and closeness, and sex and sensitivity, the chapters discuss how to negotiate complex grey areas and raise important questions that researchers need to consider before, during and after their time on the ground.
EU migration management in the Sahel: unintended consequneces on the ground in Niger?
The policies implemented in the Sahel by the EU and individual member states have reduced the number of migrants transiting through the region towards Europe. However, the sustainability of this approach should be questioned as it may also increase domestic tensions in politically fragile and administratively weak states, leading to increased pressure on political and social systems that already are struggling to stay afloat. Thus, whereas making a country like Niger an integral partof European migration management may seem successful, the approach of the EU may also have several unintended consequences. This paper will critically examine the EU’s crisis response towards the Sahel with a particular focus on Niger and the city of Agadez, arguing that while EU’s approach may have reduced the number of migrants passing through Agadez, it could also come to undermine a number of local compromises that so far have helped Niger display higher resilience towards the crises that are quickly destabilising neighbouring Burkina Faso and Mali.
Arjun Chowdhury, The myth of international order: why weak states persist and alternatives to the state fade away
A book review of Arjun Chowdhury's 'The Myth of International Order'.
China’s EU policy in the pandemic era: A new normal?
During the pandemic era, media reports and leaks indicate a growing assertiveness from China towards the EU. Is this a sign of a new normal in China's EU policy of something else entirely? To devise an appropriate response, the EU should contrast this perceived assertiveness with China's long-term interests. In all, assertive behavior undermines Chinese policy goals, which hints that there may be other considerations guiding these Chinese representatives.
Il flusso migratorio sul continente africano
An overview of migratory issues on the African continent
The “Faceless Evildoers” of Cabo Delgado: an Islamist Insurgency in Mozambique?
A brief assessment about the emergence of a jihadi group in Mozambique
Chad’s Pivotal Role in the Regional Crisis
An analysis of Chad's regime role in the context of the military and humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad Basin
Jihad globale o insurgency locale? L'ISIS in Africa, da Boko Haram allo Stato Islamico nel Grande Sahara
This chapter sums up the evolution of jihadi activity in Mali and around Lake Chad, connecing local events to the concurrent emergence and evolution of the Islamic State.
The Origins of Boko Haram, and Why the War on Terror Matters
This article, prompted as a response to a recent contribution penned by Audu Bulama Bukarti,returns to the history of an incident occurred in 2003 between the Nigerian security and a group of militants popularly known as the “Nigerian Taliban” and considered as a precursor to Boko Haram. While the historiography around this incident has been almost saturated by debates around the size of the links between the “Nigerian Taliban” and al-Qaeda, that period of Nigerian history continues to be read in isolation from the broader counter-terrorism strategies conceived at the time by the Nigerian State in the context of what, for us, is a fundamental structural factor, i.e. the then mounting Global War on Terror. Drawing on a different set of data than Bukarti, our contribution will argue that, far from having been a “local” incident, the “Nigerian Taliban crisis” shows clear signs of how, at the time, the Nigerian space was being penetrated by the War on Terror’s strategic logic, discursive structures and political imperatives. The successive explosion, over the following years, of the “Boko Haram phenomenon”, is in our opinion the result of the latter as much as of the former.
Presidentvalget i Hviterussland: Kan vi se begynnelsen på slutten for Europas siste diktatur?
This article that is published in the Norwegian Atlantic Committee series Ukens analyse examines the political situation in the Belarus in the aftermath of the presidential elections in the country and the wave of protests against the rule of A Lukashenko who has been the country's president since 1994