Researcher
Minda Holm
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Dr. Minda Holm is a Senior Research Fellow at NUPI. Her research spans three main areas: the theory of international ideology and ideological resistance in world politics; global liberalisms and liberal internationalism, liberal exceptionalism and ideological and conceptual changes in global order, international norms, state ideals, sovereignty and international law; and the international ideology and networks of far-right and reactionary movements. She also works on diplomacy and foreign and security policy, particularly Norwegian, US and Russian. Her work is both theoretical and empirical, and situated in interdisciplinary dialogue with International Relations, global historical sociology, social theory, critical international law and political philosophy.
She has researched liberal internationalism and liberal exceptionalism, including in Norwegian foreign policy, and changing notions of sovereignty and state ideals in international law and politics. Since 2017, she has also researched far-right, national-conservative and reactionary movements and their global ideas. Between 2018 and 2023, she led a research project at NUPI for the Norwegian Ministry of Defence on the international ideology and networks of the ‘New Right’ in Europe, Russia and the US, and she was part of the research project World of the Right at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS).
She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen (2023). Her doctoral thesis, a monograph, is titled Towards a Social Theory of International Ideology, Ideological Scripts, and Counter-Ideology: Rethinking “Liberal International Order” and the Far Right’s Critique. It develops a theory of how ideologies structure the international through the state as a legal and political subject, and of the distinct forms of resistance this generates. She is currently developing it into a book proposal, and its core empirical arguments are summarized in the NUPI report A Postliberal Global Order? Challenge(r)s to the Liberal West (2025).
Holm has published in journals such as Review of International Studies, International Studies Review, Cooperation and Conflict, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy and New Perspectives, on topics including sovereignty, (mis)recognition, securitization theory, the transatlantic community of values and international diaspora politics.
For eight years, she wrote a monthly column on global politics in Dagsavisen and Klassekampen, and she was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Internasjonal Politikk between 2018 and 2024. Holm holds a double master’s degree in International Relations from LSE and George Washington University, where she was a Fulbright scholar.
See her personal website for more, including publications.
Expertise
Education
2018 – 2023 PhD, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Submitted November 2022, defended after maternity leave September 2023.
2015 – 2016 MA George Washington University, USA (Fulbright scholar)
2013 – 2014 MSc London School of Economics and Political Science, England
2008 – 2013 BA (2, in parallel), Political Science and Russia studies, University of Oslo and American University in Cairo, Oslo/Egypt
Work Experience
2025– Board Member, Norwegian Polytechnic Society’s Geopolitics Network
2023– Senior Research Fellow, NUPI
2020–2025 Columnist (global politics), Klassekampen
2018–2024 Editor-in-Chief, Internasjonal Politikk – Scandinavian Journal of International Studies
2018– Board Member, Human Rights House Foundation
2018–2023 PhD Fellow/Researcher and Project Leader (Norwegian Ministry of Defence), NUPI
2018–2023 PhD Fellow, University of Copenhagen (supervisors Ole Wæver and Ole Jacob Sending; submitted November 2022, defended September 2023 following parental leave)
2018–2023 PhD Fellow, World of the Right research project, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS; based in both Oslo and Copenhagen)
2018–2021 Board Member, European International Studies Association (EISA) Early Career Development Group
2017–2020 Columnist (global politics), Dagsavisen (“Internasjonalen”)
2017–2018 Research Fellow, NUPI
2015–2019 Board Member, Fulbright Alumni Association of Norway
2012–2017 Research Assistant, NUPI (full-time from January 2016)
2012 Intern, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Tajikistan
2010–2011 Trainee, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kazakhstan (covering Central Asia)
2009–2010 Journalist, Radio Nova
Aktivitet
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Theory seminar: The Crisis of Liberal Memory
Vibeke Schou Tjalve presents the introduction chapter to a new book as part of the project “World of the Right”.
Ideologenes kamp
(Norwegian only): To innflytelsesrike ideologer – en russisk, en amerikansk – bygger høyreradikale nettverk i Europa. Selv om ideologien springer ut fra like kilder, har de ulike visjoner.
What, When, and Where, Then, is the Concept of Sovereignty?
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the concept sovereignty for international relations (IR). And yet, understanding the historical emergence of sovereignty in international relations has long been curtailed by the all-encompassing myth of the Peace of Westphalia. While criticism of this myth has opened space for further historical inquiry in recent years, it has also raised important questions of historical interpretation and methodology relevant to IR, as applying our current conceptual framework to distant historical cases is far from unproblematic. Central among these questions is the when, what, and how of sovereignty: from when can we use “sovereignty” to analyze international politics and for which polities? Can sovereignty be used when the actors themselves did not have recourse to the terminology? And what about polities that do not have recourse to the term at all? What are the theoretical implications of applying the concept of sovereignty to early polities? From different theoretical and methodological perspectives, the contributions in this forum shed light on these questions of sovereignty and how to treat the concept analytically when applied to a period or place when/where the term did not exist as such. In doing so, this forum makes the case for a sensitivity to the historical dimension of our arguments about sovereignty—and, by extension, international relations past and present—as this holds the key to the types of claims we can make about the polities of the world and their relations.
Kampen om suverenitet
(Norwegian only) Stadig flere stater vektlegger respekt for deres «indre anliggender». Hvor går grensene for staters suverenitet i dag?
Israel og moralsk balansegang
Kritikere av lsraels overgrep mot palestinere blir ofte urettmessig beskyldt for antisemittisme. Samtidig er antisemittisme et økende problem i deler av Europa og USA.
Forskning vs. synsing
Børge Brende burde vite bedre enn å avvise kunnskapsbasert kritikk som synsing.
Vår fiende Russland?
(Available in Norwegian only): De siste fire årene har fiendebildet av Russland i mange land vokst seg svært sterkt, tidvis på unyansert grunnlag. Parallelt har regimet blitt vanskeligere å forsvare.
Frykten for populismen
(Available in Norwegian only): Det snakkes mye og negativt om populistenes fremmarsj i Europa. Men det er ofte uklart hva som menes med populisme.
World of the Right: Alternative visions of global order (WoR)
The project looks deeper into the conservative New Right in Russia, the US, and Europe, examining in particular the alternative visions of Western civilisational order that these movem...
Empires, Privateering and the sea (EMPRISE)
EMPRISE studies the role of the importance of power at sea for the formation of empires and states from 1500-1856. ...