Forsvarssamarbeidet med Frankrike må styrkes
German-Norwegian Maritime Security Cooperation is strengthened
The Maritime Zeitenwende: Germany in the Northern Waters
In this report the authors study recent developments in German maritime defence policy and practice with a particular view on German-Norwegian relations. These relations are crucial, as the current security landscape challenges old geographical domains, particularly a stark division between operations in the Baltic Sea and North Sea. These areas are now being re-defined in and through military activity and technological advancements to address the security situation – including the increasing importance of protecting critical infrastructure – which will further contribute to policy development in the short and longer term.
Franske tilstander
Politisk drama har preget Frankrike i mange måneder, og fransk politikk er mer usikker enn vi har sett på mange tiår. Det kan kaste Europa ut i en...
Trailblazers in a Warming World? The Agency of African Actors in Climate, Peace, and Security
A growing body of evidence indicates how climate change can, combined with other factors, increase the risk of violent conflict. Such claims have particularly been made in African contexts. This article studies the agency exerted by African actors in shaping international agendas on climate, peace, and security in the cases of (1) the UN Security Council, (2) The African Union and (3) COP27. The analysis shows how this engagement has included diplomacy, discursive innovation, epistemic engagement, and policy coordination. We argue that the continent’s growing geopolitical centrality is enabling African actors to exert a nonaligned foreign policy on their own terms.
Is MINUSMA a canary in the coal mine for international cooperation?
Is MINUSMA a canary in the coal mine for international cooperation?
Is the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, and in larger sense UN Peacekeeping, a canary in the coal mine for international cooperation? What can i...
Differentiating Hybrid Threats against the High North and Baltic Sea regions
Russia’s grey-zone threats and actions are a major concern for bordering countries who are on the receiving end of such actions, both physical and cyber. This policy brief examines how such hybrid threats affect countries in the High North and Baltic Sea regions and evaluates the challenges related to response and countermeasures. NATO's policy is that the member nations are responsible for building resilience and responding to hybrid threats or attacks. To avoid invalid interpretations or paralysis in assessment and response to such complex and diverse threats, they should be differentiated and dealt with separately rather than boxed into a wide cognitive basket. This Policy Brief is part of the project ‘Norway as an in-between for Russia: Ambivalent space, hybrid measures’ financed by the Norwegian MoD.
The Construction of Status in Security Politics: Rules, Comparisons and Second-Guessing Collective Beliefs
Tapping into international relations status’ research’s extended lineage, this chapter makes the case for a thick constructivist account of international status dynamics that makes the construction of rules and comparisons central to analysis. Drawing upon the work of Robert Gilpin and Nicholas Onuf, the chapter’s approach enables the exploration of how the rules governing status competitions emerge, why some rules become agreed upon and others contested, and the consequences of these processes of rule formation. While this framework requires a gestalt switch for conventional status research, this chapter argues that it is possible to do so while remaining consistent with status research’s core definition of status. The value of the framework is illustrated via a case study of how the rules of the nuclear status competition emerged and solidified over the course of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the Soviet Union and United States (1969–79).
Review of Transnational Lawmaking Coalitions for Human Rights
A strong contribution to international studies’ scientific ontology of human rights processes, Transnational Lawmaking Coalitions in Human Rights illuminates and dissects a hitherto underappreciated but influential process through which non-state actors influence the interpretation and thus implementation of human rights law. Indeed, getting down among the weeds of human rights treaty bodies’ lawmaking processes, Reiners emerges with a compelling account of how an informal, important if transient, actor, she calls Transnational Lawmaking Coalitions (TLCs), clarifies human rights law and thereby structure states’ human rights obligations through drafting general comments. Operating across the boundaries of inter-governmental organizations, Reiners documents how TLCs emerge out of the “opportunity structure” generated by the recurring need to clarify human rights law and the chronic underfunding of human rights treaty expert bodies (p. 55). Composing of at least one of the treaty body’s appointed expert members, we have a case of TLC when members of the expert body then reach outside to utilize expertise within their professional networks for drafting a general comment. According to Reiners, working outside formal processes, these expert networks conduct their work on a shoestring budget lubricated primarily with the social capital, professional recognition, and moral conviction (p. 57). While lacking formalized processes for engaging with stakeholders, TLCs nonetheless render what can become authoritative new human rights interpretations, largely beyond the purvey or at least the direct influence of the state parties (pp. 22–4). As Reiners put it, TLCs “emerge from” and “operate through” the formal bodies but are not formal institutional entities themselves nor directly employed by state parties (p. 46). In this way, TLCs can be understood as exploiting a loophole in the human rights architecture through which non-state actors can bypass deadlocked formal treaty-making processes (p. 142–3).