Researcher
Claudia Emilie Aanonsen
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Summary
Claudia Emilie Aanonsen is a Senior Research Fellow at NUPI and part of the research group on security and defence. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam and an MSc in International Politics from SOAS, University of London.
Her research explores cybersecurity, digital politics and governance, contemporary warfare, and technology within international politics as well as the European Union. She employs critical approaches within International Relations (IR) theory and Science and Technology Studies (STS) to examine how technologies shape security practices, political authority, and power dynamics in global and regional contexts.
Expertise
Education
2022-2025 PhD in Political Science, University of Amsterdam
2018-2019 Master of Science, International Politics. Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS, University of London, England
2016 Visiting Student, Political Science. Department of Arts and Sciences, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
2014-2017 Bachelor of Arts, Religious Studies. Department of Cross Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Work Experience
2025- Senior Research Fellow, NUPI
2022-2025: Doctoral Fellow, NUPI
2021-2022 Junior Research Fellow, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
2020-2021 Project Manager, Cappelen Damm Undervisning
2018 Assistant Programme Manager, Turning Tables Jordan
2017 Trainee, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Arab States
2017 Trainee, The Royal Embassy of Denmark in Beirut
Aktivitet
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Operationalising uncertainty: The automation of threat knowledge and situational awareness
This article examines how automated technologies produce threat knowledge in pursuit of “situational awareness”. Focusing on intrusion detection systems (IDS), it argues that searching for “anomalies” represents not only a technical shift but a sociotechnical reconfiguration. Drawing on interviews with technical operators, engineers, and institutional actors involved in Norway's national IDS, the article shows that anomaly detection does not deliver the seamless oversight or predictive control often promised by automation and Machine Learning. Instead, it produces new forms of uncertainty and interpretive labour warranted by military doctrines of “total security”. By exploring the conditions under which threats become known—a situated awareness—“omniboxing” is conceptualised as a lens to unpack the production of threat knowledge where uncertainty is not eradicated but operationalised. In contrast to Latour's black box, omniboxing acknowledges that while technical operators preserve an unyielding commitment to realising “total security”, technologies are not experienced as settled or self-evident. By foregrounding the ongoing and open-ended interpretive labour of human operators, the article demonstrates how IDS are not neutral tools of detection but are active in constituting what is seen, known, and acted upon as a threat. Situational awareness, often imagined as a means of achieving omniscient oversight, is rather a reflexive and situated process, revealing cybersecurity technologies as sociotechnical configurations rather than technical objects.
Theory Seminar: We are as Gods: On Silicon Valley, Longtermism and Eschatology
Professor Elke Schwarz visits NUPI on 20 March for this Theory Seminar
From Lessons to Strategic Choices: Implications for long-term defence planning (StratLess)
This project looks at how militaries identify and draw so-called strategic lessons, and how this influences and shapes military planning. ...
INFRAPOLITICS: Strengthening Critical Infrastructure Governance for Resilience and Security (INFRAPOL)
How does the geopoliticization of infrastructures interact with critical infrastructure (CI) protection and governance at the national level? ...
The power of standards in European Union digital governance
• This policy brief situates standardisation projects in the EU within global regulatory power, highlighting implications for markets, innovation, and global governance. • Standards for the production and distribution of digital products in the EU are technopolitical instruments that shape authority, legitimacy, and power, rather than neutral administrative tools for ensuring security and quality. • The EU’s regulatory power extends beyond European borders, intensifying debates about regulatory overreach, where public-interest regulation is often framed as protectionist and consequently rejected or simply ignored by major tech companies. • Standards should remain contestable, certification regimes subject to robust oversight, and expertise broadened beyond narrow technocratic communities.
When space policy becomes security policy: Norway’s participation in the EU’s space activities (EU Rom)
This report was commissioned by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries to inform decisions about Norway’s continued participation in EU space activities for 2028–2034. ...
Når rompolitikk blir sikkerhetspolitikk: Norsk deltakelse i EUs romaktiviteter
The report is in Norwegian but it has an English summary. This report was commissioned by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries to inform decisions about Norway’s continued participation in EU space activities for 2028–2034. It does so by evaluating the benefits for both Norway and the EU of continued Norwegian participation. The report situates the discussion within a broader context, considering not only direct economic gains but also how political, technological and security developments have transformed the conditions for space activities, space policy, and Norway’s role in Europe’s evolving space landscape. Norway is deeply dependent on well-functioning space capacities, both for societal and defence-related purposes. Space-based services have become critical infrastructures with few substitutes, underpinning key sectors of the Norwegian economy, everyday services, public administration, and military systems. The increasing criticality of space is not unique to Norway but reflects the deep embeddedness of satellite-based services in modern societies. At the same time, the politics of space have grown more tense and contested. Space is increasingly embedded in power politics, strategic competition and concerns about resilience. For small states like Norway, the high costs and complexity of space activities mean self-sufficiency is unfeasible, and cooperation necessary. On the civilian side, this cooperation has mainly been oriented towards European cooperation, in the European Union's Space Programme (2021-2027) and in the European Space Agency (ESA). In a changing geopolitical context, the EU has assumed a stronger and clearer role as a security policy actor. Resultingly, its space policies are changing and are now closely tied to the EU’s ambitions for strategic autonomy and a stronger role in security and defence. This shift blurs the distinction between the EU and ESA, and between civilian and military aims and capacities. Closer and more integrated European cooperation on space ties EU member states more closely together but it also sharpens boundaries between the EU and other countries. At the same time, there is a major restructuring under way in how the EU finances and organizes its efforts in the space sector. This backdrop places Norwegian space policy in a new and demanding context. This report examines the consequences of these developments for Norway, and how they change the framework conditions for Norwegian space policy and participation in the EU’s space activities. The report is structured around the following overarching research questions: Where is Europe’s space policy heading? What is Norway’s role in this development? What are the benefits of Norwegian participation in the EU’s space activities? And what are the alternatives to continued Norwegian participation in the EU’s space activities for the period 2028–2034? The report finds that participation in EU space activities (2021-2027) has been highly beneficial to Norway, providing essential services and integration into a broader European ecosystem for technology development, exports and learning. At the same time, the EU also benefits from Norwegian participation: Norway offers niche expertise, unique Arctic capabilities, and northern ground infrastructure that are costly or difficult for other European states to replicate, thereby strengthening European competitiveness and resilience. Looking ahead to 2028–2034, non-participation would weaken Norway’s access to key data, services and information, undermine the position and competitiveness of Norwegian space industry, make an ambitious national space policy harder to pursue, and risk an erosion of space competence. For the EU, it would mean having to replace or go without Norwegian capabilities and resources. For both parties this is a suboptimal outcome.