Quotas – what to expect?
At one level, the effects of quotas may prove to be less impressive than many have hoped – or even feared. But at another, the consequences may be greater than we have been realized.
The UK withdrawal from the EU - Legal implications for Norway as party to the EEA Agreement
By leaving the European Union, the United Kingdom withdraws from all EU international commitments. The disentanglement of the UK from the EU, Brexit, will thus affect third states and organisations with which the EU entertains relations. Norway will be no exception, particularly in view of the many agreements the country has concluded with the EU, covering a wide range of areas and entailing a high degree of integration with the Union’s legal order, the EEA being the most important of these agreements.
The G20: Inclusivity and Legitimacy - a Nordic Perspective
At a time of geopolitical uncertainty and strong interdependencies there is a need for more effective global governance. The G20 provides a positive force but there are well founded concerns with regard to its legitimacy and the risk of securing “club goods” at the expense of international institutions such as the UN. In particular, many countries from the southern hemisphere feel excluded from this elite group and continue to expresses their worries but they are not the only ones. The Nordic countries, among them Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, constitute an economically powerful group of states that has been denied any membership so far. So what is the Nordic perspective towards the G20, and how can the Nordics contribute best to this forum of the largest industrial and emerging states?
Consequences of integrating foreign policy and development policy
There has in recent years been a clear trend among OECD countries to integrate their development and foreign policies. This paper has two parts. Part one reviews how some key donor countries have approached such integration, and examines what we know about their effects on the overall coherence and effectiveness of development and foreign policy. The working paper finds that there is a clear knowledge gap on the consequences of integrating development and foreign policy.
How to stop illicit financial flows
Tax evasion and terror financing are among the issues that make up illicit financial flows.
What you need to know about the elections in Iran
Iranian presidential and local elections will be held on 19 May. Senior Advisor Joachim Nahem (NUPI) clarifies some important questions.
Commentary: Neighbors in a changed terrain
The Norwegian Government released a new strategy document for the High North at the end of April 2017. This short opinion piece examines some of the key areas of consistency and change in the international aspects of the strategy.
Political change and historical analogies
This article deals with how scholars, policy analysts and activists, striving to make sense of current political change, have turned to history for analogies and ideas for action. While it is encouraging to see the Trump presidency and other instances of upheaval leading to a strengthened interest in history, in academe and public life more generally, there nevertheless is a need to caution against facile appropriations of the historical record and the use of superficial similarity to legitimize political action. I discuss ways of historicizing the present, through some examples of historical analogies applied to the first months of the Trump presidency and other relatively current instances of change. I start with a discussion of historical analogies and concepts, stressing how they can be understood as both first order and second order constructs. Then I discuss the current usage of historical analogies and concepts as both first order and second order constructs, before I conclude.
Learning from Experience - International Policing
In the Norwegian MFA-funded project ‘Learning from Experience – International Policing’ the researchers examined several aspects of police participation in international deployments in order to extract best practices and lessons learned. The project consisted of four main parts: 1) looking at how Norway and like-minded countries manage knowledge in connection to the recruitment and deployment of police officers in international missions; 2) analysing training experiences for peace operations; 3) gathering, systematizing and analysing experiences and insights of individual Norwegian police officers who had served in international operations (1989–2016); and 4) analysing the Specialized Police Team model that Norway deployed to MINUSTAH to build Haitian police capacity to investigate sexual violence. This Policy Brief sums up the main findings of the project, and offers policy recommendations on the basis of other research.