Publications
Å varsle om hybride trusler
Hybrid Warfare Early Warning and Detection. It discusses history of warnning intelligence and why and how hybrid warfare creates new challenges for warning intelligence. It also briefly reviews four concise case studies on real-world expermentation on detecting hybrid threats.
Local Drivers of Violent Extremism in Central Mali
This policy brief examines the processes of violent extremist mobilisation and radicalisation in Mopti, Central Mali. Specifically, it looks at the strategies employed by one of the most salient radical jihadist groups in the region, the Katiba Macina. It seeks to answer the following questions: 1) Given that violent extremist mobilisation has not taken root uniformly across regions in Mali, and because it is often endogenous to local dynamics, how has Mopti as a region become an enabling environment for jihadist actors like the Katiba Macina? 2) How do groups like the Katiba Macina mobilise local support and integrate themselves among communities? 3) Why do individuals join, adhere to or accept the Katiba Macina?
Introduction
This is the introductory chapter of a book that investigates the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on development and well-being (beyond economic benefits). The book highlights key issues relating to the realities, constraints and digital divides with particular reference to India. It collects a series of novel contributions, studying the Indian experience in an international cross-country perspective. The book also discusses economic, social, and behavioural aspects of well-being as well as access to ICTs across regions, states and individuals to account for the digital divide. The book establishes an aggregate relationship between ICT exposure and well-being at the country level and addresses a number of fundamental issues, such as whether ICT raises the level of transparency and governance. Based on case studies and anecdotal evidence, it then further assesses the effective implementation of service delivery through ICT innovations. The introductory chapter surveys the literature and presents background information on the Indian case; introduces the main themes on the relationships between ICT, socio-economic development and digital divides; and provides a summary and roadmap to the chapters of the book. While the book has a main focus on India, various contributions take an international cross-country comparative perspective, and the results have general relevance for digitalisation and development. On the whole, the main message of this book is that the impact of ICTs is contingent upon other assets, capabilities and institutional conditions. National policies should, therefore, not only promote digitalization as such but also ensure its co-evolution and complementarity with a variety of other country-specific factors.
Digitalisation and Development: Issues for India and Beyond
This book investigates the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on development and well-being (beyond economic benefits) and highlights some emerging issues relating to the realities, constraints and digital divides with particular reference to India. It collects a series of novel contributions, studying the Indian experience in an international cross-country perspective. The book also discusses economic, social, and behavioural aspects of well-being as well as access to ICTs across regions, states and individuals to account for the digital divide. The book establishes an aggregate relationship between ICT exposure and well-being at the country level and addresses a number of fundamental issues, such as whether ICT raises the level of transparency and governance. Based on case studies and anecdotal evidence, it then further assesses the effective implementation of service delivery through ICT innovations. The book is divided into four parts: The introductory part surveys the literature and presents background information on the Indian case; introduces the main themes on the relationships between ICT, socio-economic development and digital divides; and provides a summary and roadmap to the chapters of the book. Part II focuses on the impact of ICT on economic performance, including economic growth, productivity and trade. Part III examines the extent of the digital divides in India, including international, regional as well as inter-personal inequality. Finally, Part IV investigates the impact of ICT on governance, users’ well-being and social outcomes. Combining insights from analyses of a variety of socio-economic dimensions related to digitalisation, this book is relevant for a wide range of scholars and researchers across disciplines, as well as practitioners and policy-makers. While the book has a main focus on India, various contributions take an international cross-country comparative perspective, and the results have general relevance for digitalisation and development. On the whole, the main message of this book is that the impact of ICTs is contingent upon other assets, capabilities and institutional conditions. National policies should, therefore, not only promote digitalization as such but also ensure its co-evolution and complementarity with a variety of other country-specific factors.
Voting for development? Ruling coalitions and literacy in India
Across the world, governments skew the distribution of state resources for political gain. But does such politicisation of resource allocation affect development trajectories in the long run? We focus on the long-term effects of voting for the ruling coalition on primary education in India. Using a close-election instrumental variable design and drawing on a new socio-economic dataset of India's state assembly constituencies in 1971 and 2001, we examine whether areas represented by members of ruling coalitions experienced greater increases in literacy over 30 years. We find no evidence of this being the case, in the overall data or in relevant sub-samples. The null results are precisely estimated, and are consistent across OLS and 2SLS specifications and several robustness checks. These findings suggest the politicised distribution of some funds in the short run does not affect long-term development trajectories.
Cybersikkerhet
(In Norwegian only) Den teknologiske utviklingen og framveksten av digitale nettverk har ført til noen av de mest dramatiske endringene vi har sett på flere generasjoner. Dette gjelder både endringer i sosial samhandling, men også endringer i den mer generelle samfunnsmessige utviklingen. Disse framskrittene har også hatt viktige implikasjoner for sikkerhetspolitikk, internasjonal politikk og forhold mellom stormakter. I fokusspalten i dette nummeret av Internasjonal Politikk har vi invitert samfunnsvitere til å belyse hvordan cybersikkerhet bidrar til å endre forhold mellom stater og internasjonale organisasjoner samt internasjonal politikk.
Addressing Butterfly Questions: The Planet, Plastic Pollution and Policy Pathways at Japan's G20
In its fifth year, the 2019 G20 Interfaith Forumgathered outside of Tokyo to discuss an ambitious agenda organized under the triple-P thematic of Peace, People and Planet: Pathways Forward. While each of these broad themes guided discussions both in panels and plenaries, from the Forum’s outset it became clear that a reoccurring focus would be the importance of protecting the planet in order to support its people and to promote peace. The data presented at the Forum’s inception plenary was too compelling to ignore: according to multiple speakers, planet degradation has costed approximately $US11 trillion to date. But beyond the financial aspect, the environmental and ethical considerations that go into evaluating why this is a reality were at the core of the discussions among the Forum’s interfaithleaders. This focus instigated a number of compelling “butterfly questions” where participants probed and reflected on the implicit human aspect of environmental degradation. In their discussion, speakers often referenced the postwar tale of former Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s lamentation of no longer seeing butterflies in his imperial garden due to environmental degradation. Taking this issue up with Japan’s political leadership at the time, Hirohito instigated the establishment of an environmental program to address pollution in Tokyo, leading to great results and the return of butterflies to his city garden. But in today’s multipolar system, responding to the magnitude and pace of the transnational issues of pollution and climate change on a global scale at a time when the multilateral system is perceived to be eroding seems simultaneously dire, daunting and difficult. And the likelihood of creating an environment where butterflies would like to return seems increasingly fleeting.
Critical communication infrastructures and Huawei
Recently, there have been growing cyber-safety concerns over telecom equipment made by the Chinese vendor Huawei. This has led many countries to ban Huawei from supplying equipment for building the next generation of mobile networks, 5G. Responses from mobile operators and the telecom community in general have been mixed. For instance, many European mobile operators have stated that these concerns are overblown and that such a ban would delay 5G rollout by two to three years in the best case. Moreover, some operators have directly questioned the ability of the other vendors to timely deliver a complete 5G network. However, these claims have mostly not been grounded in empirical data. This paper takes a multi-perspective approach to investigating this problem empirically. We start by categorizing responses from different countries to using Huawei equipment in 5G. We then analyze the importance and readiness of Huawei for supplying 5G equipment. This analysis is based on contributions to standards and patents. We also present a conceptual risk analysis framework to qualitatively evaluate the ability of a single vendor to cause considerable damage to critical communication infrastructures. This model aims at exploring a set of relevant axis. More specifically, we look at potential for harm in different political climates that is peace, crisis and war. Another axis is whether banning a particular vendor from supplying equipment for the upcoming mobile networks generation is useful without having a backward compatible ban. A third axis is the ability of a vendor to cause harm as a function of the type of supplied equipment, for example radio towers vs network management systems. Combining the analysis of readiness for supplying 5G and potential for causing harm allows us to roughly estimate the likely impact that a complete ban would have on 5G rollout in different parts of the world. We find that such a ban can possibly delay 5G by two years or more for operators with high dependence on Huawei. Consequently, we explore potential approaches that would both reduce vendor-related risk and do not significantly delay the rollout of 5G. These include heterogeneous multi-vendor deployments, equipment verification and testing, international collaboration as well as signing non-aggression treaties. Unfortunately, there is no technological solution that fully remedy this problem. Combining technical solutions with efforts to build trust between countries, enforce existing alignments or create new ones seems a promising way forward.
Neumann, NUPI og utenriksdebatten
(In Norwegian only) Iver B. Neumann begynte på NUPI i 1988. Etter tre tiår som NUPI-forsker (riktignok med en periode som Montague Burton-Professor i International Relations på LSE i London) meldte han i 2018 overgang til OsloMet. Med NUPI som plattform har Neumann satt et solid fotavtrykk i norsk offentlighet, og han er i dag en av Norges mest profilerte og internasjonalt anerkjente forskere på utenriks- og internasjonal politikk. Han er hyppig sitert, og er blant de 20 norske forskerne som publiserer mest ifølge CRISTIN-registeret.1 Han er særlig opptatt av norsk utenrikspolitisk historie, identitet, diplomati og Russland.
Knowledge Networks, Scientific Communities, and Evidence-Informed Policy
Global policy making is unfurling in distinctive ways above traditional nation-state policy processes. New practices of transnational administration are emerging inside international organizations but also alongside the trans-governmental networks of regulators and inside global public—private partnerships. Mainstream policy and public administration studies have tended to analyse the capacity of public sector hierarchies to globalize national policies. By contrast, this Handbook investigates new public spaces of transnational policy making, the design and delivery of global public goods and services, and the interdependent roles of transnational administrators who move between business bodies, government agencies, international organizations, and professional associations. This Handbook is novel in taking the concepts and theories of public administration and policy studies to get inside the black box of global governance. Transnational administration is a multi-actor and multi-scalar endeavour having manifestations at the local, urban, sub-regional, subnational, regional, national, supranational, supra-regional, transnational, international, and global scales. These scales of ‘local’ and ‘global’ are not neatly bounded and nested spaces but are articulated together in complex patterns of policy activity. These transnational patterns represent an opportunity and a challenge for the study of both public administration and policy studies. The contributors to this Handbook advance their analysis beyond the methodological nationalism of mainstream approaches to re-invigorate policy studies and public administration by considering policy processes that are transnational and the many new global spaces of administrative practice.