Editorial: The New Right’s internationalism
The editorial team welcomes you to the final issue of 2021. For this issue, convened by Minda Holm, one of New Perspectives’ Associate Editors, we have brought together a group of invited essays on the Internationalism of the New Right. As an object of analysis for political science and International Relations, the New Right refers to intellectual movements that have emerged since the 1980s, including Reaganite economic conservatives, theorists and philosophers like Alexandr Dugin and Alain de Benoist, and political movements that have swept to power across the globe, but with particular successes in Central and Eastern Europe. Globally these movement include actors as diverse as Bolsonaro in Brasil, Modi in India, and Putin in Russia, and in Central and Eastern Europe are exemplified by Fidesz in Hungary and Prawo I Sprawiedliwosc in Poland. So far, academic conversations have happened mostly in parallel, rather than with each other, drawing seemingly different conclusions as to both who we are speaking of, and what their global ideas entail – both for world politics, and IR as a field (see Abrahamsen et al., 2020; Azmanova and Dakwar, 2019; De Orellana and Michelsen, 2019; Drolet and Williams, 2018). In this special issue, we bring together some leading voices to reflect on the transnational and international relations between these movements.
Rolf Tamnes
Professor Rolf Tamnes is a member of NUPI’s Research Group on Security and Defence. Tamnes holds a dr.philos (PhD) from 1991 and a cand.philol. (M...
Sudan’s top general says army ousted government to avoid civil war
Sudan’s top general, Abdel Fattah al Burhan, says the decision to oust the government of Abdalla Hamdok was taken in order to avoid civil war. Andrew Yaw Tchie from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs weighs in.
Al menos tres muertos y 80 heridos en las protestas en golpe de Estado en Sudán
Andrew E. Yaw Tchie comments on current developments in Sudan on W Radio.
Psykisk helse, terrorisme, ekstremisme og radikalisering
The possible connection between mental health, radicalisation, extremism, and involvement of terror has received a lot of attention as of late. But what do we really know about this connection? What are we unaware of, and how can challenges related to this be handled? This policy brief goes through these questions and gives the knowledge status in this domain a clean-up.
Ad Hoc Crisis Response and International Organisations (ADHOCISM)
International organisations (IOs) are created with the aim of solving collective action problems when a crisis arises. Yet, member states have repeatedly established ad hoc crisis responses in situations where IOs might be expected to play a central role. ADHOCISM asks what is the impact of ad hoc crisis responses on international organisations? In this way, ADHOCISM wants to contribute to filling this knowledge gap through a systematic study of ad hoc crisis responses in two policy domains: security and health. With this paired comparison, ADHOCISM wants to tap into a broader empirical governance phenomenon. Ad hoc crisis responses are here understood as loose groups of actors that agree to solve a particular crisis at a given time and location outside of an existing international organisation in the same policy domain. Ad hoc crisis reponses can, in the short-term, lead to more rapid and effective crisis responses among like-minded states, but if international organisations are no longer seen as the principal instruments to confront global challenges, the risk is also that the relevance of these international organisations will diminish, and similar trends may unfold in other domains.
Anne Funnemark
Anne Funnemark was a Junior Research Fellow at NUPI. She was a part of the Climate-related Peace and Security Risks (CPSR) project and the MCDC Cl...
The Georgian far right and the post-election crisis
This article examines the role of the far right in political polarisation in Georgia. Polarisation has been a constant feature of Georgian politics, reaching new levels after the 2020 parliamentary elections. On the one hand, polarisation leaves little (if any) room in the political space for newcomers and small actors, including the far right. Carving out a niche in an extremely polarised political space requires a strong, consolidated, alternative force. To date, the fragmented nature of the Georgian far-right movement has hindered its mobilisation as a viable alternative to either the ruling party, Georgian Dream, or the opposition. On the other hand, the far right has also played a role in polarisation: Critics have argued that far-right groups have been used as an instrument to fuel polarisation further. Even though the activities of the far right seem to play into the interests of one end of the polarised political space more than the other, this article asserts that the far-right movement should not be reduced to a mere instrument in the hands of political powers.
Huawei, 5G and Security: Technological Limitations and Political Responses
How did Chinese 5G providers, such as Huawei, become a security concern in the USA and Europe? Were the security concerns related to 5G and Chinese suppliers based upon technological features of the systems, or were they a product of geopolitical rivalry? How did European approaches to 5G distinguish themselves from those of the USA? This article addresses these questions using an interdisciplinary approach via the framework of securitization theory. The authors argue that the technological features of 5G made securitization more likely compared to 4G, and that screening and control of software was unlikely to defuse securitization concerns. They also show how Europe chose its own path for the securitization of 5G. In short, the article argues that the American macrosecuritization of China largely failed in Europe, whereas the niche securitization of 5G was more successful.
Nye våpen, gamle vrangforestillinger: Hvordan forstå Boris Johnsons atomvåpen-politikk
If you want to make Britain’s nuclear weapon policy make sense, you need to look inwards not outwards. Just as go-faster stripes please the owner, Britain’s new nuclear policy is better understood as a symbolic gesture performed mainly for its domestic audience. It is crucial here to understand the political function that publicly established force-limits have played British nuclear politics