Researcher
Erik Skare
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Summary
Erik Skare (PhD) is a senior researcher and historian based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). He specializes on Palestinian history with a particular focus on Palestinian Islamism, insurgency, and state building, in addition to the role of religion and secularism in Palestinian politics. Skare is also interested in the advancement of the digital humanities and combines qualitative analysis with programmatic methods to gather, analyze, and visualize data. His work has been cited in The Washington Post, Le Monde Diplomatique, and other international news outlets.
Expertise
Education
2020 Doctoral research fellow, University of Oslo
2015 Master's degree in Arabic, University of Oslo
2013 Bachelor's degree in Arabic, University of Bergen
2012/2013 Palestine and Arab Studies, Birzeit University
Work Experience
2025- Senior researcher, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
2024-2025 Postdoctoral researcher, University of Oslo
2022-2024 Senior associate researcher, Sciences Po
2020-2022 Researcher, University of Oslo (2022-2024) Postdoctoral researcher, Sciences Po
Aktivitet
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Where and what is Hamas today?
In this episode of The World Stage, NUPI Senior Researcher Erik Skare explores the complex history and internal dynamics of Hamas with Jeroen Gunn...
Book launch: America’s Middle East
NUPI invites you to a book launch with Marc Lynch and his new book America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region.
Working Paper on ´enabling environments´, drivers and occurrence/nonoccurrence of violent extremism in the region
There are a number of grievances attributed as drivers of violent extremism. Poverty, autocratic governance, human rights violations, precarious masculinities, or the lack of education, mentioning just some, all create what we may term “enabling environments”. Still, the majority living in such enabling environments and who experience such grievances do not engage in any acts of violence or join any violent extremist organizations. This begs the question, why do some communities display far greater resilience to violent extremist ideologies than others? Based on in-depth fieldwork in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, we study and analyze four cases of the non-occurrence of violent extremism in the Middle East to further our understanding of enabling environments, community resilience, and the decisive moments pushing people to, or away from, violence.
Policy brief summarizing lessons learnt on the EU’s measures to prevent violent extremism in the region
There are a number of grievances attributed as drivers of violent extremism. Poverty, autocratic governance and human rights violations, precarious masculinities, or the lack of education, mentioning just some, all create what we may term “enabling environments” – areas in which various factors create a conducive situation where segments of its population become prone to violent extremism. Still, the majority living in such enabling environments and experiencing these grievances do not engage in any acts of violence or join any extremist organizations. This begs the question, why do some communities display far greater resilience to violent extremist ideologies than others? In our newly released PREVEX working paper analyzing the drivers, occurrence, and non-occurrence of violent extremism in the MENA region, we study four cases of the nonoccurrence of violent extremism in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.1 Specifically, we analyze why segments among disenfranchised Islamist Egyptian youth, the majority of Jordanian jihadists, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), and the Syrian village Swedan in the Deir Ez-Zor province have displayed a far greater resilience to carrying out violent extremism than others. We assess the role and importance of local community and religious leaders, the role of tribal affiliation, ideological exposure, good governance and political inclusion, poverty and marginalization, and state repression. We address both a scholarly puzzle and a policy problem. If the aforementioned grievances create enabling environments conducive to violent extremism, why is it that the majority in these situations actually abstain from violence and reject extremist ideologies? What does that tell us about the role and dynamics of enabling environments? The policy problem relates to how one evaluates, weighs, and approaches populations in enabling environments and who are thus perceived to be prone to violent extremism. Put bluntly, should a population residing in an enabling environment be treated as future extremists or terrorists, to wit, a problem in need of securitization? Necessarily, these findings have consequences for how we perceive the feasibility of past and current EU funding programs intended to prevent violent extremism in the Middle East.