Researcher
Julie Wilhelmsen
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Summary
Julie Wilhelmsen is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. She holds a PhD in political science and conducts research in the fields of critical security studies, Russian foreign and security policies and the radicalization of Islam in Eurasia.
The two post-soviet Chechen wars have been a constant focus in her research and she is also heads projects related to conflict resolution in the North Caucasus. From 2012 to 2016 she was the editor of the Scandinavian-language journal Internasjonal Politikk, and has a wide outreach to the Norwegian public on issues related to Russia and Eurasia through frequent public talks and media comments. In 2019 – 2021 Wilhelmsen is an expert in the Cooperative Security Initiative (CSI), an initiative which is designed to generate ideas and shift momentum in favor of cooperative security and multilateralism through the OSCE in order to build a safer Europe.
Expertise
Education
2014 Ph.D in Political Science, University of Oslo. Areas of specialisation: Russian Politics, Critical Security Studies, Discourse Analysis
1999 Cand.Polit. (Political Science), University of Oslo
1996 Master of Science in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, London School of Economics and Political Science
1995 Mellomfag in Political Science, University of Oslo
1994 Mellomfag in Russian, University of Oslo
Work Experience
2022- Head of the Research group on Russia, Asia and International Trade
2022- Research professor
2014-2022 Senior Researcher, NUPI
2003-2014 Researcher, Centre for Russian Studies, NUPI
2001-2003 Researcher and Project manager, Norwegian Defence Reseach Establishment
1999-2001 Higher executive officer, Norwegian Directorate of Immigration
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersPutin's Power Revisited: How identity positions and great power interaction condition strategic cooperation in Syria
This article investigates how Russian foreign policies are shaped in a two-level interactive social game. Russian foreign policies take their cue from ingrained identity positions articulated by the state leadership and negotiated in domestic debates, but they are also informed by interaction with other states. The article explains the shift in Russian policies away from pragmatic cooperation with the West in Syria from autumn 2015 onwards. While the Russian leadership initially sought such cooperation, the prominence of anti-Western discourse in Russia following the crisis in Ukraine as well as the West's rejection of Russia in this period spurred Russia to act independently in Syria.
Breakfast seminar: The global war on journalism
Journalist Peter Greste was in 2014 arrested in Egypt and charged with terrorism. It ended with 400 days behind bars. Greste argues that this is an extreme example of a much wider global assault on the media, and he emphasizes why it is important that we fight back.
The International Criminal Court and the 2008 Russo-Georgian War
What is the impact of the International Criminal Court's investigation of Russia and Georgia?
Competency through Cooperation: Advancing knowledge on Georgia's strategic path (GEOPATH)
GEOPATH is a collaborative research project which aims to build competency in the Georgian research sector as well as producing new insights into the crucial question of Georgia's future strategi...
Russian Governance of the North Caucasus: Dilemmas of force and inclusion
While Vladimir Putin’s Russia struggles to strike a balance between security and freedom within the Russian polity, nowhere is the problem as acute as in the eastern parts of the North Caucasus. This chapter reviews Russia’s approach to the republics in that region since Putin came to power, and asks what the potential for mobilisation against Russian rule in the North Caucasus amounts to. The current decrease in violence in the region is often taken as a sign of ‘success’ in curbing the insurgency. I argue that the heavy focus on repression and exclusion in Russian policies may well backfire and create conditions for a new mobilisation against Russian dominance.
Colonized Children: Chechnya in Russia
This chapter explores how kinship relations have functioned as a source of social power in Chechnya and, since the end of the second post-soviet Chechen war, constituted a bond between Moscow and Grozny that allowed Russian governance over Chechnya.
Inside Russia’s Imperial Relations: The Social Constitution of Putin-Kadyrov Patronage
This article analyses how Moscow has extended its rule over Chechnia since the beginning of this century. Within the larger understanding of this rule as imperial in form, the current distinct contractual relation between the Russian center and Chechnia is substantiated as one based on kinship. I argue that the Putin-Kadyrov relationship is a generic case of patronage but highlight the local imprint that such relations acquire by tracing how Chechen kinship practices inform this case.
Norway and Russia in the Arctic: New Cold War Contamination?
The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine has already obstructed cooperation across a range of issues. Could it also affect state interaction between Norway and Russia in the Arctic—an area and a relationship long characterized by a culture of compromise and/or cooperation? Here we start from the theoretical premise that states are not pre-constituted political entities, but are constantly in the making. How Russia views its own role and how it views other actors in the Arctic changes over time, calling for differing approaches. That holds true for Norway as well. To clarify the premises for interaction between Russia and Norway in the Arctic, we scrutinize changes in official discourse on Self and Other in the Arctic on both sides in the period 2012 to 2016, to establish what kind of policy mode—“realist,” “institutionalist,” or “diplomatic management”—has underlain the two countries’ official discourse in that period. Has Norway continued to pursue “balancing” policies undertaken in the realist mode with those in the diplomatic management mode? Which modes have characterized Russia’s approach toward Norway? Finding that realist-mode policies increasingly dominate on both sides, in the conclusion we discuss how the changing mode of the one state affects that of the other, and why a New Cold War is now spreading to the Arctic.
How the New Cold War travelled North (Part II) Interaction between Norway and Russia
This policy brief examines changing Russian and Norwegian approaches to each other in the period 2012–2016, and discusses how the “New Cold War” spread to the North. This is an intriguing question, since both parties had initially stated that, despite the overall worsening of Russia–West relations following the crises in Ukraine, the North should be protected as a space for peaceful interaction. To address this question, watching and tracking the changing patterns of Russian exercises and military modernization is not enough; understanding the rise in tensions requires studying the effects of the interactions underway between the parties in this region. Three interaction effects need to be taken into consideration in explaining why the tense relations following the conflict in Ukraine spread to the low-tension Northern theatre. In this, we stress the interactive dynamics that ensues when two parties start to view each other as threats, interpreting new moves by the other as expressions of hostile intent. Further, we explain the observed New Cold War “contamination” with reference to domestic policy agendas and practices of decision-making. On both the Norwegian and the Russian sides, the new military posturing in the North, now interpreted as part of a growing conflict, has emerged partly as a side-effect of implementing what actually were longstanding national goals.
How the New Cold War travelled North (Part I) Norwegian and Russian narratives
The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine has already obstructed cooperation across a range of issues. Could it also affect state interaction between Norway and Russia in the Arctic—an area and a relationship long characterized by a culture of compromise and cooperation? In two policy briefs we examine changes in how Russia and Norway have approached each other in the Arctic in the period 2012–2016. This first brief presents the development of official Norwegian and Russian narratives on the relations between the two countries in the Arctic. Such narratives stipulate logical paths for action. Showing how Norwegian and Russian policies have changed in line with these narratives, we conclude that what some refer to as “the New Cold War” is indeed spreading to the Arctic.