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Bildet viser medlemmer av Free Syrian Army på patrulje.

WHAT DETERMINES HOW STATES ACT? Conflict is one of the many types of risks states are faced with. In the field of security, states increasingly rely on private enterprises to assess and manage the threats and risks. How may this influence the result? A new NUPI project will examine this.

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Research Project

The Market for Anarchy

The Market for Anarchy project seeks to better understand how state behaviour is shaped by assessments of and responses to different types of risks.

Themes

  • Security policy
  • International economics
  • Conflict
  • Climate
  • Governance
  • International organizations

States typically rely on a broad array of actors - firms, non-governmental organisations and international organisations - to produce assessments of how to prevent and mitigate financial, climate, cyber, and security risks. While some topics - like international security - are firmly in the hands of state intelligence agencies, other issue areas - like climate, financial, and cyber security - are dominated by non-state actors.

We want to know what types of actors states rely on to provide risk assessments, how these actors operate, and whether these actors´risk assessments systematically shape state behaviour in particular directions. We want to know whether the sum-total of these non-state actors make up a global "market" for the production of risk assessments and attendant policy responses. And we want to know whether there are systematic differences between types of states - great power/small powers, democratic/authoritarian, open/closed - in how risks are assessed and acted upon.

Project Manager

Ole Jacob Sending
Research Professor, Head of Center for Geopolitics

Participants

Elana Wilson Rowe
Research Professor
Johann Ole Willers
Former employee
Cristiana Maglia
Senior Research Fellow

Articles

News
News

FRIPRO funding for risk-research project

Who influences how states manage risks, such as conflicts?

  • Governance
  • International organizations
Bildet viser medlemmer av Free Syrian Army på patrulje.

Themes

  • Security policy
  • International economics
  • Conflict
  • Climate
  • Governance
  • International organizations

Project Manager

Ole Jacob Sending
Research Professor, Head of Center for Geopolitics

Participants

Elana Wilson Rowe
Research Professor
Johann Ole Willers
Former employee
Cristiana Maglia
Senior Research Fellow