The Ukraine War and Food Security: Consequences for Norway’s Partner Countries
The war in Ukraine is causing disruptions in global food supplies, with grave consequences for many developing countries. Both Ukraine and Russia are significant food exporters and major producers of fertiliser ingredients. However, the effects of the war will vary significantly between different countries. Some countries rely on supplies from Russia and Ukraine. Others are less dependent on food imports but depend on Russian and Ukrainian import of fertilisers. Yet others will mainly be affected by general global price increases, especially in the long-term perspective (within the next three years). However, most of Norway’s partner countries are largely self-reliant in food. For them, the main problems caused by the war are the following: - Increased prices for fertilizers - Higher energy prices and higher interest rates - Increased risk of political instability and conflict - Cuts in aid In this situation, Norway should do the following: - Avoid cuts in aid to partner countries to fund support to Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees - Increase food support to countries most affected by drought and conflict - Support partner countries’ supply of fertilisers - Consider debt relief to countries negatively affected by price increases on energy and higher interest rates. Research for this report was funded by NORAD.
Ungdom og ekstremisme i 2021 – En studie av ungdommers vurdering av ekstremisme og forebygging av ekstremisme i Norge.
23. august 2022 kl 14:00 presenterer Håvard Haugstvedt funn fra en kvantitativ studie om ekstremisme i Norge, fra perspektivene til norske ungdommer.
Global networks in national governance? Changes of professional expertise in Amazon environmental governance
In 2019, wildfires in the Amazon renewed international concern about Brazilian environmental policy, led by Jair Bolsonaro. As one of the biggest repositories of the world's biodiversity, the Amazon Rainforest has been a source of concern in global environmental governance. Given this salience, one would expect that domestic governance would be highly permeated by professionals with international circulation and that transnational ties would be a central target of Bolsonaro's populist nationalistic perspective. In this article, I seek to understand whether and how professionals involved in policymaking in the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment are connected to national and international organizations, by analyzing the networks of career paths of high-ranking staff in the Rousseff, Temer and Bolsonaro administrations. The data show a consistently low percentage of ties between professionals and international organizations. However, the types of international experience and knowledge that are deemed important shifted significantly under Bolsonaro. This publication is part of the Market for Anarchy project.
Norden og Nato – med Joakim Reigstad og Kristin Haugevik
Podcast (in Norwegian) about the war in Ukraine, Nordic security cooperation and Sweden and Finland paths to NATO membership.
Krig i Europa – Hva skjer med Nordens forsvars- og sikkerhetspolitikk?
Podcast (in Norwegian) about Nordic security cooperation in the past and present, and how the war in Ukraine is affecting the Nordic states’ security and defence policies.
How Important Are Traditional Values for Putin’s Support?
May Putin in fact be losing more support than he is winning when he “talks conservative”?
Krig i en verden av fremmed intelligens
This chapter investigates a number of issues related to the ongoing debates around artificial intelligence and its impact on the future of geopolitics and warfare. Through insights from science and technology studies (STS), the chapter seeks to question common assumptions in political science about the relationship between technology, war and politics. It will be argued that political science's treatment of these as independent elements and the subsequent simplified notions of technological and socio-political change must be altered in favor of a more inclusive way of thinking about socio-technical practices. This will improve our understanding of the war-technology relationship while providing a more fertile ground for discussing changes in the wake of the development of artificial intelligence.
The unsolicited rocket: a story of science, technology, and future wars
This article investigates the puzzling case of the unsolicited rocket: a Norwegian research establishment successfully developed a weapon system that no one wanted or had asked for that was later widely adopted. We argue that the ‘Terne’ weapon existed not because it was needed based on rational calculations about efficiency, but because of the narratives, coalitions, and competitive dynamics that surrounded it and made it useful. Conventionally, war and technology are often considered distinct ‘things’ with immutable essences, used as variables to explain other phenomena, rather than being examined on their own terms. In this case, we focus empirically on the configuration of sociotechnical imaginaries, and the capacities for action that arise out of it. In foregrounding sociotechnical systems, this is not a case of the ‘militarization’ of civilian society and research in peacetime. Rather, agency lay in competitive networks of narratives and coalitions between technologies, individuals, professions, technological communities, military organizations, and funding bodies, together shaping how ideas and technologies become authoritative and dominant.
Europeisk helsesamarbeid etter covid-19 pandemien
Covid-19 pandemien er en av de største krisene i verden etter 1945. I Europa ble nasjonale myndigheter og EU-systemet utfordret med tanke på hvordan krisen skulle håndteres. Særlig i de første fasene av pandemien var det stor variasjon i valgene av virkemidler. Landene innførte en rekke inngripende tiltak som fikk negative konsekvenser på tvers av landegrensene, blant annet for familiebesøk mellom land, arbeidsmobilitet, vareflyt, og forsyningssikkerhet. EU responderte i 2020 på krisen med å foreslå en styrking av helsesamarbeidet generelt, og beredskaps- og krisehåndteringskapasiteten spesielt. I dette notatet ser vi nærmere på EUs helsesamarbeid og mulige implikasjoner for Norge av arbeidet med å styrke dette samarbeidet i kjølvannet av pandemien.
NUPI seminar about NATO and nordic security