Morten Skumsrud Andersen

The family of nations. Kinship as an international ordering principle in the nineteenth century.

This chapter suggests that the phrase ‘the family of nations’ for a long time was more commonly deployed amongst international actors themselves to describe ‘the international’ than more common concepts in contemporary IR scholarship such as ‘international system’, ‘society’, and ‘community’. The authors argue that in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the concept of a family of nations was integral to legitimizing strategies for coercive measures and colonial rule.

The Balance of Power

The balance of power – the idea that states consciously or unconsciously strive towards an equal distribution of power to avoid dominance by one – is a core concept for the study of international politics. The discipline of international relations (IR) has long debated the standing of the balance of power as a theoretical concept. Some argue that the concept does not fit the historical empirics, whilst others have amended the concept by introducing ideas like “balance of threats,” “bandwagoning,” or “soft balancing.” However, diplomats throughout history have also frequently deployed the balance‐of‐power concept. From the Italian city‐states in the fifteenth century, through Great Power wars in Europe in the 1700s, the Concert of Europe, two world wars, and up until our day, practitioners have used the concept in various ways. The balance of power is therefore as central to the study of diplomatic practice as it is for the theoretical understanding of interstate relations.

Brende, Kina, og en skiftende verdensorden

(Norwegian only): Norges normalisering med Kina knytter an til sentrale, strukturelle utviklingstrekk i internasjonal politikk - en trend hvor den liberale verdensordenens vakuum blir fylt av Kina når USA trekker seg ut, men også at denne ordenen blir sakte undergravet ved at Kina sikrer seg «andeler» i lands politiske relasjoner. Det kan være klokt ta slike mer overordnede perspektiver med i beregningen når man skal vurdere betydningen og mulige konsekvenser av det som regnes som den største "suksesshistorien" fra Brendes periode som utenriksminister.

Engasjementspolitikk på autopilot: Fredsbygging, fredsbevaring og fredsmegling under Børge Brende