Benjamin de Carvalho
Senior Research FellowBenjamin de Carvalho is a senior research fellow at NUPI, working in the Research group on Global Order and Diplomacy (GOaD). His research interests have, broadly speaking, been between three areas: (i) historical international relations, (ii) UN peacekeeping, and (iii) status in international relations.
Within these fields, he has published on issues of broader historical change such as the formation of the nation-state in Europe, sovereignty, and the role played by confessionalization and religion. He has also been involved in a number of projects on UN peacekeeping, and has worked on the protection of civilians and sexual and gender-based violence in Liberia, Chad, and the Sudans. He is also involved in projects addressing status as a key driver of foreign policy, focusing on Norway and Brazil. Central issues here are the role played by small states in international politics, emerging powers and great power responsibility. Other research interests include hegemony, popular culture and international relations theory.
De Carvalho is currently involved in work of more historical character. He is currently the Principal Investigator of Empires, Privateering and the Sea (EMPRISE), a project funded by the Research Council of Norway addressing the importance of privateering for the formation of overseas empires in the Atlantic (1556-1856). He is also the main collaborator in Conceptual History of International Relations (CHOIR), led by Halvard Leira.
In addition, de Carvalho has played an important role in the institutionalization of Historical International Relations as a subfield of the discipline of International Relations. Together with Leira, he was instrumental in setting up the Historical International Relations Section of the ISA, of which he has served as section program chair (2015-2017) and section chair (2017-2019). Leira and de Carvalho are also co-editors of the four-volume set Historical International Relations.
He is formerly a co-editor of the leading Scandinavian-language International Relations-journal Internasjonal Politikk.
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Publication
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Stubbornly Stumbling into Making History: Constructivism and Historical International Relations
The aim of this chapter is threefold; first we try to recollect through the hazy dim of personal history and histories how we eventually became the researchers we are today. Second, we focus on what to us at the time – and, to some extent, still – appeared as contingent, random and haphazard experiences... -
Mon 3 Jun 2019Event
Theory seminar: Sonic IR
Time: 13:15 Location: NUPIWhat role does sound have in the field of IR studies?
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Research project
A Conceptual History of International Relations (CHOIR)
2019 - 2023 (Ongoing)The purpose of CHOIR is to investigate taken-for-granted concepts of international relations.
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Publication
: ARTIKKEL
Forum: In the beginning there was no word (For It): Terms, concepts, and early sovereignty
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the concept sovereignty for international relations (IR). And yet, understanding the historical emergence of sovereignty in international relations has long been curtailed by the all-encompassing myth of the Peace of Westphalia. While criticism of this myth... -
Fri 25 Jan 2019Event
Theory Seminar: Political Memory and State Power – Holocaust Remembrance after Communism
Time: 13:15 Location: NUPIJelena Subotic will talk about her project that investigates the strength and limits of state power in regulating contested political memory.
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News
What does foreign policy really mean?
07.12.2018This, with other widely used IR concepts, is what Halvard Leira and his project CHOIR team have received funding to explore. -
Publication
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Cromwellian Diplomacy
2018Cromwell's diplomatic efforts aimed at reorienting England towards an alliance with Protestant powers after the English Reformation of the 1530s and the subsequent break from Rome and the ensuing break from its traditional Catholic orientation in European affairs. Through a series of diplomatic... -
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The Emergence of Sovereignty in the Wake of the Reformations
2018The elusiveness of the emergence of sovereignty represents a challenge to IR, as it leaves us with many possible beginnings. And as any new beginning marks an end, settling the question of sovereignty begs the question of how the world was without it. Did sovereignty mark the end of an era that would... -
Publication
: ARTIKKEL
Introduction: The Emergence of Sovereignty: More Than a Question of Time
2018It is difficult to overstate the importance of the concept sovereignty for international relations (IR). And yet, understanding the historical emergence of sovereignty in international relations has long been curtailed by the all-encompassing myth of the Peace of Westphalia. While criticism of this myth... -
Publication
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The family of nations. Kinship as an international ordering principle in the nineteenth century.
This chapter suggests that the phrase ‘the family of nations’ for a long time was more commonly deployed amongst international actors themselves to describe ‘the international’ than more common concepts in contemporary IR scholarship such as ‘international system’, ‘society’, and ‘community’. The authors... -
Publication
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The Function of Myths in International Relations: Discipline and Identity
Myths, understood as forms of narrative, providing meaning and significance, are an inescapable part of the life of human collectives. Thus, myths are central to any academic discipline. They tell us who we are and what we should be concerned with, and provide blueprints for arguments about policy choices.... -
Publication
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Everyday sovereignty: International experts, brokers and local ownership in peacebuilding Liberia
The present article investigates how sovereignty is performed, enacted and constructed in an everyday setting. Based on fieldwork and interviews with international embedded experts about the elusive meaning of ‘local ownership’, we argue that while sovereignty may, indeed, be a model according to which... -
News
Today’s Status Seekers
20.02.2018Hanging out with the cool guys is just as important as ever. -
Tue 30 Jan 2018Event
Theory Seminar: “War in International Thought”
Time: 13:15 Location: NUPIProfessor Jens Bartelson will talk about his latest book on how we have perceived war throughout centuries.
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Publication
: ARTIKKEL
Moral authority and status in International Relations: Good states and the social dimension of status seeking
We develop scholarship on status in international politics by focusing on the social dimension of small and middle power status politics. This vantage opens a new window on the widely-discussed strategies social actors may use to maintain and enhance their status, showing how social creativity, mobility,... -
Fri 17 Nov 2017Event
Networks of Practice at the Margins of Empire
Time: 13:15 Location: NUPIDr Jeppe Mulich visits NUPI to present his ongoing research on empires and privateering in the Greater Caribbean.
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Research project
Empires, Privateering and the sea (EMPRISE)
2017 - 2021 (Ongoing)EMPRISE studies the role of the importance of power at sea for the formation of empires and states from 1500-1856.
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Wed 1 Nov 2017Event
“Haiti is here; Haiti is not here”: pacification as (Brazilian) ‘foreign policy’?
Time: 13:15 Location: NUPIMaíra Siman visits NUPI to present parts of her new research on pacification as foreign policy practice in reproduction of the state self.
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News
New article: Construction time again: History in Constructivist IR Scholarship
17.03.2017NUPI-researchers has looked at different ways the history has been used in constructivism. -
Fri 17 Mar 2017Event
Theory seminar: Radical Feminism and Human Trafficking
Time: 13:15 Location: NUPI“If you’re looking at a frightened woman in a brothel…”: Jennifer Lobasz, is visiting NUPI on 17 March to talk about her current book project ‘Strange Bedfellows: Evangelicals, Feminists, and the Fight against Human Trafficking’.