Sheltering, security and small states: Nordic responses to a changing geopolitical context
How do Nordic states respond to current geopolitical changes in their neighborhood, and what are their options?
Predictive Peacekeeping: Strengthening Predictive Analysis in UN Peace Operations
The UN is becoming increasingly data-driven. Until recently, data-driven initiatives have mainly been led by individual UN field missions, but with António Guterres, the new Secretary-General, a more centralized approach is being embarked on. With a trend towards the use of data to support the work of UN staff, the UN is likely to soon rely on systematic data analysis to draw patterns from the information that is gathered in and across UN field missions. This paper is based on UN peacekeeping data from the Joint Mission Analysis Centre (JMAC) in Darfur, and draws on interviews conducted in New York, Mali and Sudan. It will explore the practical and ethical implications of systematic data analysis in UN field missions. Systematic data analysis can help the leadership of field missions to decide where to deploy troops to protect civilians, guide conflict prevention efforts and help preempt threats to the mission itself. However, predictive analysis in UN peace operations will only be beneficial if it also leads to early action. Finally, predictive peacekeeping will not only be demanding of resources, it will also include ethical challenges on issues such as data privacy and the risk of reidentification of informants or other potentially vulnerable people.
Jenny Nortvedt
Jenny Nortvedt was a Junior Research Fellow in the Research Group on Peace, Conflict and Development at NUPI.
Varsel om opprustning
Urovekkende nye missilforsvarsplaner fra USA, skriver Henrik Hiim i en kronikk i Klassekampen.
Å gjøre ingenting er uansvarlig
Regjeringen la i høst frem et forslag til ny lov for Etterretningstjenesten ut på høring. Det viktigste i lovforslaget er det som tidligere har vært omtalt som et «digitalt grenseforsvar», men som i lovforslaget har fått den langt mer presise beskrivelsen «tilrettelagt tilgang til grenseoverskridende elektronisk kommunikasjon». Det handler kort fortalt om at Etterretningstjenesten skal få større tilgang til det digitale rom. Primært vil dette handle om å gjøre forhåndsgodkjente søk i datatrafikken som krysser landets grenser – for å kunne fange opp avanserte dataangrep eller terrorplanlegging. Nupi har nylig sendt inn en høringsuttalelse basert på vår forskning på cybersikkerhet og internasjonal sikkerhetspolitikk.
The Lorax Project: Understanding Ecosystemic Politics (LORAX)
Do regional politics around border-crossing ecosystems share important resemblances and differ in significant ways from global politics?...
Breakfast seminar: Can blockchain save journalism?
Professional journalism is under pressure worldwide. Walid Al-Saqaf argues that the underlying technology for Bitcoin could be a solution to the problem.
Podcast: Giving Chinese tech giants access to Europe - what are the consequences?
Are we ready for the implications of giving Chinese tech giant access to European markets?
Plugging the capability-expectations gap: towards effective, comprehensive and conflict-sensitive EU crisis response?
Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the European Union (EU) has spent considerable time and energy on defining and refining its comprehensive approach to external conflicts. The knock-on effects of new and protracted crises, from the war in Ukraine to the multi-faceted armed conflicts in the Sahel and the wider Middle East, have made the improvement of external crisis-response capacities a top priority. But has the EU has managed to plug the capability–expectations gap, and develop an effective, comprehensive and conflict sensitive crisis-response capability? Drawing on institutional theory and an approach developed by March and Olsen, this article analyses whether the EU has the administrative capacities needed in order to be an effective actor in this area and implement a policy in line with the established goals and objectives identified in its comprehensive approach.
Gender-Discriminatory Laws and Women’s Economic Agency
Recent years have seen widespread advances in women’s legal rights in many countries. In other places, restrictions on women’s autonomy remain entrenched. This study explores cross-country patterns in the association between gender-discriminatory legislation and various indicators of women’s economic agency. We find that restrictions on legal capacity predict women’s asset ownership and labor force participation, while discrimination in wage work and parental leave are associated with the size and direction of wage gaps. These findings highlight the importance of conceptualizing and measuring legal rights and their potential effects as multidimensional.