John Karlsrud
Senior Research Fellow, head of the Reserach group on peace, conflict and developmentDr John Karlsrud is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Research Group on Peace, Conflict and development.
Karlsrud earned his PhD at the University of Warwick. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Internasjonal Politikk and Contemporary Security Policy. Karlsrud has been a Visiting Fulbright Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Peace Institute.
Topics of particular interests are norm change, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and humanitarian issues. He previously served as Special Assistant to the United Nations Special Representative in Chad and as part of the UN Development Programme’s leadership programme LEAD. His latest article is Towards UN counter-terrorism operations?(Third World Quarterly, 2017) and he will soon publish UN peace operations in the 21st century: The UN at war (Palgrave, 2017) and UN Peacekeeping Doctrine in a New Era (Routledge 2017, co-edited with Cedric de Coning and Chiyuki Aoi). He has recently published Norm Change in International Relations (Routledge, 2016) and The Future of African Peace Operations: From the Janjaweed to Boko Haram (Zed Books, 2016, co-edited with Cedric de Coning and Linnéa Gelot). His article "The UN at War: Examining the Consequences of Peace Enforcement Mandates for the UN Peacekeeping Operations in the CAR, the DRC and Mali" from 2015 is the second most downloaded article in the journal Third World Quarterly.
He has worked in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Chad, Palestine (West Bank), Norway and USA, and conducted field research and shorter missions to Haiti, Liberia, Mozambique, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Ukraine.
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Publication
: Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
United Nations peace operations and International Relations theory: An introduction
2020International Relations (IR) theories may seem abstract and arcane. With this book, we want to dispel this stereotype. The contributors to this volume demonstrate how IR theories can be applied to a very practical problem: UN peace operations, 1 one of the main instruments of international conflict management.... -
Publication
: Report
Doing Less With More? The Difficult ‘Return’ of Western Troop Contributing Countries to United Nations Peacekeeping
2020Among others, the deployment of the UN stabilization mission to Mali (MINUSMA) in 2013 has been characterized by a number of researchers as a ‘return’ of Western troop contributors to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping in Africa. The aim of this report is to look at the reality of that ‘return,’ and whether... -
Publication
: Report
Assessing the Effectiveness of the United Nations Mission in Mali
Until 2016 MINUSMA managed to strengthen stability in northern Mali, decreasing the number of civilians killed in the conflict, and allowing large numbers of displaced persons to return home. MINUSMA also assisted the peace process, culminating in the 2015 Algiers Agreement. Many of these achievements... -
Publication
: ARTIKKEL
United Nations Stabilization Operations: Chapter Seven and a Half
2019The UN Security Council has in recent years included the term ‘stabilization’ in the name of the operations deployed to Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Central African Republic. But, are they stabilization operations? Although the concept has become increasingly popular in the UN context,... -
Publication
: Rapport/avhandling
Assessing the Effectiveness of the United Nations Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)
This report assesses the extent to which the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is achieving its current strategic objectives, and the impact the Mission has had on the political and security situation in Mali. Until 2016 MINUSMA managed to strengthen stability in... -
Publication
: ARTIKKEL
Norms and Practices in UN Peacekeeping: Evolution and Contestation
2019The 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... -
Publication
: ARTIKKEL
For the greater good?: “Good states” turning UN peacekeeping towards counterterrorism
2019The usual suspects of middle power internationalism—small and middle powers such as Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Sweden—have all contributed to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA). This article argues that while these and other Western countries’ contributions to MINUSMA may... -
Publication
: ARTIKKEL
Predictive Peacekeeping: Strengthening Predictive Analysis in UN Peace Operations
2019The UN is becoming increasingly data-driven. Until recently, data-driven initiatives have mainly been led by individual UN field missions, but with António Guterres, the new Secretary-General, a more centralized approach is being embarked on. With a trend towards the use of data to support the work of... -
Publication
: Del av bok/rapport
Conclusion: Military rapid response—from institutional investment to ad hoc solutions
2019The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times... -
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: Del av bok/rapport
Tangled up in glue: Multilateral crisis responses in Mali
The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times... -
Publication
: Del av bok/rapport
Introduction: Rapid response mechanisms—strengthening defense cooperation and saving strangers?
2019The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times... -
Publication
: ANTOLOGI
Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: From Institutional Proliferation to Institutional Exploitation
2019The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times... -
Publication
: Del av bok/rapport
WPS and Female Peacekeepers
The chapter provides an overview of the participation of female peacekeeping personnel in UN missions, tracing key target and agenda- setting policy events, as well as examining causes for the slow progress in female participation. The chapter considers female participation in the military, police, and... -
Publication
: Del av bok/rapport
UN Peace Operations, Terrorism, and Violent Extremism
2019There are practical and financial reasons to give UN peace operations more robust mandates and mitigate and respond to violent extremism and terrorism. But the idea of UN peacekeepers conducting counter-terrorism operations is not without its challenges. Karlsrud argues that UN peace operations neither... -
Research project
Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON)
2018 - 2021 (Ongoing)NUPI together with 40 partners from across the globe have established an international network to undertake research into the effectiveness of peace operations.
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News
New book: UN Peace Operations in a Changing Global Order
23.10.2018In this book launch interview, editors Mateja Peter and Cedric de Coning reflect upon findings from their most recent book, identifying four global transformations and their implications for UN peace operations. -
News
Four global transformations are changing UN peace operations
23.10.2018The global order is changing – how will that uncertainty impact UN peace operations? -
Publication
: ARTIKKEL
Implementation in practice: The use of force to protect civilians in United Nations peacekeeping
2018Since the failures of the United Nations of the early 1990s, the protection of civilians has evolved as a new norm for United Nations peacekeeping operations. However, a 2014 United Nations report found that while peacekeeping mandates often include the use of force to protect civilians, this has routinely... -
Publication
: NUPI Policy Brief
Predictive peacekeeping: opportunities and challenges
2018The time is ripe for the development of a UN early warning tool that estimates the likelihood of instability, intercommunity clashes and armed violence in areas in which UN peacekeepers operate. However, this development would require at least some initial collaboration between the UN and the scientific... -
Publication
: ARTIKKEL
From Liberal Peacebuilding to Stabilization and Counterterrorism
2018Since the end of the Cold War, international interventions have increasingly been deployed to deal with internal conflict. Liberal peacebuilding has been a guiding concept for many of these interventions, in particular those deployed by the UN. This article argues that liberal peacebuilding is waning...