Publikasjoner

Parental Child Abduction and the State: Identity, Diplomacy and the Duty of Care

States alternate between the roles of ‘caretaker’ and ‘rescuer’ when providing care to citizens abroad. This article suggests that they are more likely to assume the ‘rescuer’ role when core values underpinning their self-identity are at stake. This dynamic is explored by examining a case where a Norwegian mother re-abducted her two children from Morocco. In the process, Norway’s foreign minister authorized shielding the children at the Norwegian Embassy in Rabat, citing ‘Norway’s duty to protect two Norwegian minors in fear of their lives’. A diplomatic conflict between Norway and Morocco followed. The Norwegian response must be seen in light of Norway’s self-identity as a frontrunner for children’s rights. Ultimately, helping the children ‘had’ to trump concerns about diplomatic costs. The broader dilemmas that this case exemplifies should be relevant also to other cases where a state’s concern for a child citizen is pitted against its obligation to diplomatic conventions.

Afghanistan: A Political Economy Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the current state of Afghanistan, arguing that the Afghan state is fragile, and sustained through constant negotiations over power, resources and ideology. What began as a radical state-building and democratization project in 2001 was soon captured by elites. Some of which engages in semi-formal and informal governance structures to further their influence. Distribution of state revenue, largely from external donors, has been used to secure loyalty and maintain control. This has contributed to extreme state centralization, hampered development of state institutions, failed justice sector reforms, high levels of corruption and reduced government legitimacy, and lately an increase in poverty. On the positive side, access to education and health services has improved, partly due to the strong emphasis placed on the rights of women. The security situation has deteriorated since 2014. At present the government control less than 60 percent of the country and civilian causalities are steadily increasing. Conflicts in Afghanistan are exacerbated by the involvement of its neighbors. To improve security, as well as economic and social development, a negotiated peace settlement is needed. If the conflict is left unresolved (in fear of regional and international security concerns), a slow and steady deterioration of security, and economic and social development, is to be expected.

The Making of a Classic: On Diplomacy 30 Years On.

In this article, Halvard Leira makes the case for On Diplomacy (published in 1987) being a classic in the making of International Relations, and engages the central notion of diplomacy understood as "the mediation of estrangement".

Russiske nasjonalister vs vestvendte siden Den kalde krigens slutt

Poststructuralists Also Have a Duty of Methodological Care

On Diplomacy (Der Derian, 1987) wasthe first attempt at bringing theory to the study of diplomacy, and it was a solid piece of empirical research. However, I will leave the celebration of these qualities to others, and concentrate on the question of methodology, where the book also has importance for the discipline as such. Methodology, Patrick Jackson (2011) tells us, is the way in which we get our data (the production of which may be by way of many different methods) to tell us something about what lies beyond that data. The area of validity, that is, the domain that the data are supposed to tell us something about, is in this case known Western history; not pre-history, traditionally defined as the period before writing, and not the future.

Customs-brokers as facilitators in international trade

Recent studies suggest that firms can reduce fixed trade costs by hiring intermediaries like trading companies. I argue that customs brokers – a type of intermediary rarely studied in economics before – can play a similar role. Using panel data of Norwegian trade transactions, I show that such brokers are commonly used to clear goods through customs. I find indications of lower sunk costs as well as fixed trade costs for firms that hire such services. However, engaging brokers can be risky, and traders in high-risk products like food are more likely to self-declare. Results are similar for importing and exporting, indicating that customs brokers facilitate both modes of trade.

The ABCs of Financial Education: Experimental Evidence on Attitudes, Behavior, and Cognitive Biases

This paper employs a large-scale field experiment in India to study the attitudinal, behavioral, and cognitive constraints that may stymie the link between financial education and financial outcomes. Our research design combines financial education with (1) monetary incentives for correct answers to a financial knowledge test; (2) financial goal setting; and (3) personalized financial counseling. We find no effects of cash incentives on participants’ financial knowledge, but significant effects of both goal setting and counseling on real financial outcomes. In particular, combining goal setting with financial education encouraged relatively simple follow-up actions such as writing a budget or starting informal savings. Counseling, in turn, enabled the poor to undertake costlier or more difficult financial activities, including opening a formal bank savings account. Together, these findings identify important complements to financial education that may successfully bridge the gap between financial knowledge and behavior change.

The Role of the Civilian Component in African Union Peace Operations

The role of civilians in African Union (AU) peace support operations (PSOs) is still not fully understood. As a result, civilian capacity development has not been well resourced in comparison with the military and police dimensions of the African Standby Force (ASF) and has only modestly developed since 2006. As at the end of 2016 the AU has deployed approximately 400 civilians across its PSOs in Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Somalia and Sudan. The average size of the actual civilian component in each mission totalled approximately fifty people. The civilian components most commonly found in AU PSOs are Political Affairs, Human Rights and Protection, Public Information, Humanitarian Liaison, Safety and Security, Civil Affairs, Gender and Mission Support. Despite AU policies and PSO doctrine, the value of a multidimensional approach to PSOs, and the role that civilians perform in this larger context, is not widely recognised in the AU Commission, AU PSOs or among the AU’s key PSO partners. The AU has struggled to articulate clearly why it needs a multidimensional approach, what the function and contribution of the civilian components are, and how the civilians staff contribute to achieving the mandate of a particular mission. This will have to change if the AU is serious about undertaking comprehensive stabilisation operations.

Une volonté partagée de façonner un nouvel ordre mondial

(Kun tilgjengelig på fransk): In the West, the rise of nationalist populism reached a tipping point in 2016 when it generated both the UK vote for Brexit and the election of President Trump in the US. In contrast, over the same period, the BRICS have invested in strengthening inter-BRICS cooperation and the group’s commitment to the United Nations, global governance and economic globalisation. Their primary focus has been on financial, trade and economic cooperation. However, their ability to develop a shared analysis of the political and security dimensions of the global order seems to have come to a turning point in 2017, when they opted to focus their annual Summit on developing strategies to defend global governance, economic globalisation, free trade, and joint action on climate. How did we get to the point where it seems to be up to the BRICS to rescue globalisation ?

Burden-sharing in NATO. The Trump effect won’t last

The Trump Administration has adopted a more confrontational and transactional approach to burden-sharing in NATO. It has threatened to “moderate” its commitment to the Alliance unless the European members increase their defence spending (US Mission to NATO 2017), and contribute more to out-of-area operations. Since President Trump entered the office, European defence spending has risen at a quicker pace, and the nature of the defence debate in Europe has changed. The Europeans are no longer debating whether they need to increase their spending; the questions discussed are how fast and how much. Is this evidence of a “Trump effect”, and will it last? This is the question addressed in this policy brief. Because it is hard to predict the future, we adopt an historical perspective.