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Researcher

Halvard Leira

Research Director, Research Professor
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Contactinfo and files

hl@nupi.no
(+47) 928 03 854
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Summary

Halvard Leira is Research Professor and Research Director at NUPI.

Halvard Leira’s main areas of research is foreign policy and diplomacy, with a special emphasis on the Norwegian varieties. He also has a long-standing research interest in historical international relations, and international thought. Leira completed his PhD thesis in May 2011, titled «The Emergence of Foreign Policy: Knowledge, Discourse, History».

Expertise

  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • The Nordic countries
  • Nationalism
  • Oceans
  • Historical IR

Education

2011 PhD, Political Science, University of Oslo  

2002 Cand. Polit., Political Science, Department of political Science, University of Oslo

Work Experience

2024 - Research Director, NUPI

2003- Research Fellow/Phd-candidate/Senior Research Fellow/Research Professor, NUPI

Aktivitet

Publications
Publications
Chapter

The formative years: Norway as an obsessive status-seeker

This chapter shows how status concerns were central to how Norway related to the wider world during the formative nineteenth century: status and identity were inextricably intertwined. It argues that Norwegian politics throughout the nineteenth century were deeply concerned with status and status seeking. When Norwegians started discussing foreign politics and foreign policy, it was in terms of peace, prosperity and status, with the people closely linked to all these phenomena. The many active NGOs as well as the constant references to duties and a Norwegian mission indicate that this explanation must be taken seriously. Even though the resources spent internally in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been modest, the sheer mass of public attention paid to peace issues has probably made it harder to discuss other matters in Norwegian foreign policy. Various Norwegian politicians have noted that peace activism has given them better access to great-power decision-makers.

  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • Historical IR
  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • Historical IR
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

International Relations Pluralism and History—Embracing Amateurism to Strengthen the Profession

This article approaches the possibility of achieving pluralist International Relations research through engagements with history/History. There are serious sociological and disciplinary challenges to achieving pluralism, most importantly related to the need to make a mark and a career in one specific discipline and the constant diversification of disciplines. Even so, drawing on the literature of amateurism, understood as engaging in an activity for the love of it, it is argued here that a spirit of engaged amateurism in dealing with history offers an important opportunity for exploring commonalities and fostering pluralism both within the discipline and across disciplinary boundaries.

  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Historical IR
  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Historical IR
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Omverdenen som utfordring – imperieoppløsning og folkestyrets begrensning

(Available in Norwegian only): Hvordan skal man som ny stat forholde seg til omverdenen? Dette var et av de spørsmålene som kom opp til tidlig og heftig debatt på Eidsvoll i 1814, og som delte forsamlingen på midten. Unionspartiet ville ha bred drøfting av forholdet til andre stater, mens selvstendighetspartiet foretrakk å overlate dem til Christian Frederik. I denne artikkelen settes argumentene fra debatten i 1814 inn i en bredere idéhistorisk kontekst. Fremveksten av det vi i dag kaller «utenrikspolitikk» forstås her i tett sammenheng med gradvis differensiering av politikkbegrepet og grensedragning mellom stat og samfunn. Utenrikspolitikk forstås dermed som det som skiller ikke bare mellom statens utside og dens innside, men også mellom stat og samfunn. Debatten i 1814 gir et øyeblikksbilde av denne utviklingen, med arven fra eneveldet så vel som nye ideer om folkelig deltagelse.

  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • Governance
  • Historical IR
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • Governance
  • Historical IR
Publications
  • Foreign policy
Publications
  • Foreign policy
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Innledning: Arven etter Støre

  • Foreign policy
  • Foreign policy
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Leder

Publications
Publications
Scientific article

'Our entire people are natural born friends of peace': the Norwegian foreign policy of peace

What makes a peace nation? In this article it is argued that the Norwegian foreign policy of peace is rooted in an historical self‐understanding of Norway and Norwegians as particularly peaceful, an identity which was first articulated around 1890. Norwegians hold a strong liberal/meliorist belief that the world can become a better place, and that Norway has an important role to play in this process. However, this general belief in peace and a Norwegian peaceful exceptionalism has been expressed in different ways over the last 120 years. Around 1900, the ideal was a passive state and an active people working for peace, while from around 1920 it was accepted that the state needed to take more active part. Where international peace activism was associated in particular with UN peacekeeping during the Cold War, and peace mediation during the 1990's, increasingly a broader panoply of ‘good’ issues have been tied to an ever expanding notion of peace. The last two decades have also seen increased Norwegian participation in offensive military actions, couched at least partly in terms of peace. That the Norwegian attachment to peace remains strong while still allowing for support to military action suggests both that the Norwegian self‐understanding as a peace nation is deeply rooted and that it allows for a self‐righteous understanding of ‘peace through war’.

  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Historical IR
  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Historical IR
Publications
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