Norms and Practices in UN Peacekeeping: Evolution and Contestation
The four articles in this special section focus on norms in UN peacekeeping (gender, impartiality, human rights, and environmentalism) and how they are implemented in practice. They look at the evolution of these norms over time; take an explicit theoretical perspective (feminist institutionalism, norm contestation, and securitization); and report the results of original field research in Rwanda, South Sudan, and New York UN headquarters. The articles present a coherent narrative because they all look at practices either explicitly or implicitly, often at the mundane everyday level among troops or UN staff. But the focus on everyday experiences should not betray their theoretical importance: each of the articles uses this empirical material to better understand and theorize international relations. Georgina Holmes provides us with micro-study of norm implementation on the individual level with her bottom-up study of training of female military peacekeepers. Marion Laurence reveals how legitimating practices are changing in tandem with the changing understanding of the impartiality norm. Emily Paddon Rhoads analyzes impartiality as a composite norm and unpacks its procedural and substantive dimensions to reveal how human rights and protection are being privileged to the detriment of a more political understanding of impartiality. Lucile Maertens is forcing us to examine the causal chain of securitization theory by showing how security is shaped by environmentalization.
Tre trender som utfordrer norsk utenrikspolitikk
Denne policy briefen tar utgangspunkt i tre globale trender, og gir en analyse og vurderinger av hva trendene innebærer av utfordringer og muligheter for norsk utenrikspolitikk i tiden fremover: 1. Nye stormakter vokser frem. 2. Migrasjon brer om seg. 3. Utenrikspolitikk blir innenrikspolitikk.
AVLYST - Korleis kan EU bli betre på kriserespons?
Det NUPI-leidde og Horizon 2020-finansierte forskingsprosjektet EUNPACK blei nyleg avslutta. Kva følgjer har funna frå tre år med omfattande forsking og feltarbeid for EUs engasjement i ekstern kriserespons?
Kor godt har FNs fredsoperasjonar i Mali og Sør-Sudan fungert?
I samband med den internasjonale dagen for fredsbevaring har NUPI gleda av å invitere til eit seminar om effektiviteten av FNs fredsoperasjonar i Mali og Sør-Sudan.
Report on significant distortions in the economy of the Russian Federation for the purpose of trade defence investigations (EU-Russia trade)
Dette prosjektet vil lede ut i en omfattende studie av russisk økonomi, med fokus på regulering, lover, subsidier eller andre forhold som kan påvirke konkurransen i markedene....
Local Ownership as Global Governance
The ownership discourse has profoundly altered the management of development aid. Nominally, it seeks to instil greater freedom as well as responsibilities among aid recipients. Revisiting two ethnographic studies (the World Bank–Uganda partnership and NGO relations in Ethiopia), this article shows how ‘ownership’ practices also involve new forms of tacit governance mechanisms that enable the donor to retain control. By using ‘freedom’ as a formula underpinning governance at a distance, developmentality is made contingent on the donor’s ability to frame the partnership and the conditions under which the recipient exercises the freedom that has been granted.
Forebygging av krig og konflikt i cyberdomenet
Cyberdomenet representerer kanskje en av vår tids største trusler mot internasjonal fred og sikkerhet men er viet lite oppmerksomhet hva gjelder forebygging av krig og konflikt. Det er behov for internasjonale forpliktende kjøreregler som hever blikket over IKT-forvaltning, digitalisering og cybersikkerhetstiltak og fokuserer på fredelige relasjoner mellom stater i cyberdomenet. Skal en slik diskusjon ha effekt må den tas i FNs Sikkerhetsråd.
There are very few BJP strongholds or Congress bastions in India. Data shows why
An important ongoing discussion in some political circles in India is whether the Election Commission should limit public access to the so-called Form 20 data, which reports the exact number of votes that each candidate receives in each polling booth in an election. The Form 20 data has been made available for the 2009 and the 2014 general elections, and also for the state elections held in recent years. The main reason offered by those who want to limit access to this data is that it is an important democratic principle that the vote is kept secret, and if the data reveals that most voters in a polling booth vote for the same party, it is no longer so secret how someone votes. This knowledge is important because it might allow powerful people to control the vote in a polling booth, undermining the freedom of the vote. Francesca R. Jensenius and colleagues discuss this in an op-ed published by The Print.
It’s a myth that 2014 election was exceptional in the vote share of winning candidates
Elections to the Lok Sabha are highly competitive. Indian politicians win with smaller margins than their counterparts in other countries with a similar electoral system, such as Canada and the United Kingdom. In a first-past-the-post electoral system, a candidate needs 50 per cent plus one vote to win the election if only two candidates compete for a seat. If there are three candidates who are equally strong, a winning candidate will need only one-third of the votes plus one additional vote. In India, usually a large number of candidates compete for each Lok Sabha seat, many of whom are non-serious. This makes it possible for several Indian politicians to get elected with a very low vote share. And, this may have important implications for their legitimacy and accountability as people’s representatives.