Researcher
Claudia Emilie Aanonsen
Contactinfo and files
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
Filter
Clear all filtersInfrastructures in Cyber Conflict and Warfare
Infrastructure has played a foundational yet often underexplored role in cyber conflict and warfare. While typically treated as a backdrop to more prominent analytical concerns, infrastructure is in fact central to the very existence and functioning of the cyber domain, shaping both civilian and military operations. This chapter in De Gruyter Handbook of Cyber Conflict and Warfare surveys the diverse bodies of scholarship that engage with infrastructure in cyber warfare, revealing how different studies conceptualize what infrastructure is and what it does. Aanonsen and Gjesvik identify three overlapping approaches: infrastructure as a target and object of protection; infrastructure as a capability and source of power; and infrastructure as a force that shapes the practices and nature of warfare itself. Despite increasing attention, significant gaps remain in understanding how infrastructures influence cyber conflict. As scholarship moves from theoretical to empirical studies of cyber warfare, investigating the evolving role of infrastructures offers a promising path for future research.
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. ...