“Haiti is here; Haiti is not here”: pacification as (Brazilian) ‘foreign policy’?
Maíra Siman visits NUPI to present parts of her new research on pacification as foreign policy practice in reproduction of the state self.
Hybrid paths to resistance in the Muslim world: Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Mali (HYRES)
HYRES studies the interaction between Islamist movements and the state in the cases of Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Mali, and is designed to answer the following question: Why do some Islamist groups purs...
Malawi: A Political Economy Analysis
This report provides a comprehensive political economy analysis of contemporary Malawi. The country epitomises the primacy of patrimonial politics – including endemic corruption – with a powerful presidency at the helm and a weak legislature, although with a largely independent judiciary. Political parties, barely distinguishable in terms of policies and ideology, are dominated by strong personalities whose regional and ethnic provenance influence voter preferences. Political clientelism, characterised by informal decision-making, trumps sound economic policy formulation and implementation, despite purported efforts to reform and build institutions based on legal-rational Weberian principles. This inhibits long-term transformation of the ailing agrarian economy vulnerable to climate change. The report recounts salient features of social sectors such as education and health, and highlights the burden posed by high population growth rates on resources and social services. Improvements have been noted in civil and political rights but less in economic and social rights owing largely to the fact that half the population live in poverty. Apart from social and electoral cleavages, Malawi exhibits no serious domestic conflicts. A dispute with Tanzania over the northern part of Lake Malawi remains unresolved
The challenge of taxation in African countries
Tax is the key to development, but African countries are facing several domestic as well as international challenges. What may be the solutions? This was the main question discussed among leading researchers at the plenary session in Bergen in August.
Political economy analyses
This project provides political economy analyses of eleven countries deemed important to Norwegian development cooperation....
Diplomacy through the back door: Norway and the bilateral route to EU decision-making
This article examines how Norway, a veteran EU outsider by choice, works on a day-to-day basis to compensate for its lack of formal voice in EU institutions. After Norwegian voters' second rejection of EU membership in a national referendum in 1994, Prime Minister Brundtland observed that Norway now must be prepared to use “the back door” to reach EU policy-makers. I suggest that for Norway, a key alternative route to the EU decision-making table has gone through bilateral partnerships. I identify two chief variants of this bilateral trajectory, what I term long-term and rotating bilateralism. Firstly, Norway has pursued long-term ties with selected bilateral partners within the EU system. Secondly, it has systematically strengthened its diplomatic presence in the member state holding or about to take over the rotating presidency of the EU Council. I conclude with some reflections on the relevance of Norway's “bilateral experience” for Britain, as a future EU outsider.
Lebanon: Political leadership confronted by Salafist ideology
Force est de constater que les débordements de la crise syrienne au Liban sur le plan sécuritaire sont restés relativement limités, comparé à la violence massive de l’autre côté de la frontière. Cette note de recherche fait l’hypothèse que si le calme au Liban est tout relatif, il est aussi le résultat de mécanismes de contrôle politique et social bien établis, et notamment les liens entretenus par les notables et leaders communautaires avec la population. Comme nous le savons, le modèle consociatif libanais fait de ces élites des « champions communautaires » et des médiateurs entre leurs communautés et l’État libanais : porte-paroles, responsables de négociations intercommunautaires et régulateurs de conflits intercommunautaires. Les leaders doivent en effet composer avec les radicaux de leurs communautés et « contrôler » leurs « rues politiques ». A travers le cas de la communauté sunnite libanaise, cette note de recherche analyse dans une première partie l’essor de l’extrémisme sunnite, le salafisme djihadiste. Dans une seconde partie, nous nous pencherons sur les mécanismes de contrôle et d’interaction entre la jeunesse urbaine pauvre et les notables sunnites, et plus particulièrement la question des mécanismes communautaires. Il s’agit là de comprendre dans quelle(s) mesure(s) ces mécanismes existant de manière similaire dans les communautés chiite, maronite et druze, expliquent l’adaptation de l’État libanais face à la crise syrienne. Nous démontrerons que contrairement aux études décrivant les islamistes comme constituant une menace à la stabilité libanaise et à la cohésion nationale, ces derniers s’adaptent et s’intègrent à la réalité locale. Les islamistes sont aussi pragmatiques : les intérêts privés, communautaires, politiques et familiaux peuvent aussi aisément prendre le pas sur l’élément religieux. Cela rend possible une position consensuelle vis-à-vis des élites politiques sunnites, et du phénomène de libanisation du salafisme, par leur entrée dans des réseaux clientélistes. Les militants de Daech ont quant à eux un ancrage international, ce qui les rendrait plus dangereux, car moins facilement contrôlables par les notables salafistes ou par les élites politiques. Ils sont jeunes et en rupture avec leurs parents et leur communauté. Toutefois, puisque les jeunes de Daech se réclament du salafisme, les notables salafistes jouissent encore d’un certain respect parmi eux. L’inclusion des cheikhs salafistes libanais dans des processus de négociation avec Daech continue donc d’être d’une grande importance. Finalement, le courant du Futur et Hariri sont de plus en plus contestés en interne par les électeurs sunnites. Le plus grand rival de Hariri n’est pas représenté par les salafistes mais par d’autres leaders sunnites plus en phase avec les positions de la communauté, tels qu’Achraf Rifi.
Mozambique: A Political Economy Analysis
This report uses a political economy analysis to shed light on some of the paradoxes that characterize Mozambique mid 2017: Entrenched poverty, the resuscitated armed conflict/war, the trust crisis between the Mozambican (Frelimo) government and its development partners, the spiralling debt and the party-state. Since 2017, Mozambique is arguably at one of its most critical moments since the end of the civil war, in a crisis-like cocktail of political, economic and social problems. By the time of writing, the Mozambican authorities only released the content of the Kroll report (an independent forensic audit of the ‘secret’ loans taken up in 2013) in summary form. Mozambique defaulted on its foreign debt in 2016, which has become unsustainable for the immediate future. The ‘secret’ loans explain a smaller part of the new debt, while heavy international and domestic borrowing and public spending after the discovery of large new mineral resources drove up the debt levels. The economy unhinged not by a full-blown resource curse, but rather by the mere prospect of large future income from the offshore LNG gas and coal, which we dubbed the “presource curse”.
The Russia Conference 2017 - Competing realities
The use of hybrid warfare in Ukraine and the leaking of hacked documents during the US presidential election campaign have led to a renewed discussion about Russian propaganda and influence operations.
Autonomy or integration? Small-state responses to a changing European security landscape
Is there a pattern in how small European states, inside and outside of the EU, adapt and adjust to EU foreign and security policy? This article introduces a Forum in Global Affairs, discussing how small states are responding to a changing European security landscape. We assess selected European small states’ room for manoeuvre within various fields under the EU external action, and within EU institutional structures more broadly – as part of everyday diplomatic interactions in Brussels and in the context of the rotating EU presidency. As the European integration process enters a new phase, possibly marked by a trend of more differentiated integration and flexibility of individual attachments, small states will continue to face the choice between formal autonomy and integration, and between de facto hesitance and adaptability. With Brexit, the remaining large member states may become more influential, but small states will collectively have a majority of the votes and total population. Perhaps the coming era of European integration will become the era of small states?