Regions

Norden og Kina: «Smått er godt» Islands økonomiske diplomati med Kina.

Although Iceland has a shorter diplomatic history with China in comparison with the other Nordic states, the island nation has built a strong relationship with Beijing which has been dominated by economics, especially the bilateral free trade agreement struck in 2013. Although Iceland is not a major factor in Chinese trade, the Sino-Icelandic relationship has demonstrated China’s commitment to small state diplomacy and Arctic relations.

Ties that Bind: The Emerging Regional Security Complex in the Arctic

The security situation in the Arctic has begun to produce a 'regional security complex' (RSC) based on shared regional strategic concerns. However, the geography and politics of the region will prevent this RSC from taking on a military aspect in the near future.

European Integration Reset: Lessons from Brexit, Norway, and Eastern Europe

Given the severity and length of the Great Recession, whether or not Europe needs more or less integration is a much less consequential discussion than that Europe needs better and more effective integration. In this policy brief, we argue that taking stock of the integration experience may be the key to support the search for novel and more effective policy initiatives, resume growth and leave the current crisis behind. The brief presents three historical examples that illustrate the power deep integration has had in propelling the European project. The first demonstrates how deep integration contributed significantly to stop the relative economic decline of the United Kingdom (UK) vis-à-vis the EU founding members. We suggest EU membership played a greater role in this respect than Thatcher’s reforms. The second example displays how deep integration drove increases in labor productivity in Sweden, Austria and Finland (which gained unrestricted access to the Single Market by joining the European Economic Area, EEA, in 1994 and later the EU in 1995) compared to similar developments in Norway (which joined only the EEA in 1994). The third example draws from the experience of the Central European new member members to illustrate that a crucial (yet less appreciated than trade openness, foreign investment and migration) mechanism to these advancements has been the ability of deep integration to increase State capacity and hence to shore up positive institutional change.

Strategic cooperation against terrorism 2.0? Russia's initial positions on Syria. 1:2

This project examines the prospects for Russia-Western practical cooperation against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and, more broadly, for a rapprochement between Russia, NATO and key NATO member states post-Crimea. The analytical point of departure is two-fold: Firstly, the project will examine how Russia’s longstanding rejection of a ‘Western’ world-order, along with various Western leaders’ increasing depiction of Russia as an ‘adversary’, shape the two parties’ room for manoeuvre with respect to practical collaboration on the ground in Syria. Secondly, and operationalizing ‘the West’ as two key ‘Atlanticist’ member states in NATO, the United States and Britain, it will examine how Russian and Western domestic debates constrain governments and political leaders’ scope for action, and their ability to adjust their commenced policy paths in Syria. When adversarial statements about ‘the other’ are voiced by state leaders in an international setting, they are often portrayed in the media as being reflective of that particular leader or government’s position alone. In this project, we suggest that the dynamics of Russia-Western relations cannot be properly understood without alsoconsidering how states’ security policies are empowered and limited by domestic security policy debates. The project will provide an up-to-date, in-depth analysis of how contemporary Russian, American and British security policies are being constituted and constrained by domestic debates. Furthermore, it will trace how domestically negotiated security policies materialize in actions on the ground in Syria. Against the backdrop of the empirical analysis, publications from this project will discuss the likelihood of these states finding common ground against IS in Syria, and the prospects for Russia-Western rapprochement more generally.

Towards a new innovation policy in Cuba: Proposal for the introduction of a R&D fiscal incentive program