Researcher
Morten Skumsrud Andersen
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Summary
Morten S. Andersen is a Senior Research Fellow in the Research group on Global order and Diplomacy. In addition to a focus on theoretical and methodological aspects of International Relations, his research concerns how relations of power and dominance between states have evolved and been legitimated over time. In this, he focuses particularly on hierarchy and empires and on international conceptual history.
Selected publications:
(2026) “How Empires Emerge”, European Journal of International Relations.
(2025) “The Chinese are Coming! U.S. Think Tanks and the Belt and Road Initiative in the Middle East and North Africa”, with Neil Ketchley and Ole Jacob Sending, Review of International Political Economy.
(2025) “Anarchy is What the Balance of power Made of It: Two core concepts and the public/private distinction”, International Studies Quarterly, 69(3).
(2024) The Political Economy of National security, Critical Infrastructure and Securitization of Foreign Investments. Palgrave McMillan. Ed., with Jakub Godzimirski.
(2022) “The unsolicited rocket: a story of science, technology, and future wars”, Critical Military Studies. With Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud.
(2021) Undermining American Hegemony. The Logic of Goods Substitution in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ed., with Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon.
Expertise
Education
2016 PhD, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Title of PhD thesis: A genealogy of the balance of power.
2008 MSc International Relations; London School of Economics
2006 Bachelor in international politics, University of Oslo/Universidad Externado de Colombia
2003 Latin American studies, Universidad de Costa Rica
Work Experience
2022-2025 Head of the Research Group on Global Order and Diplomacy, NUPI
2008- Research fellow/Doctotal Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow, NUPI
Aktivitet
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Instruments of State Power: History and Theory (ISPO)
The ISPO Workshop Series will develop new and innovative analytical tools and vocabularies to help understand current developments in global politics. ...
En ny opprinnelse? Om 1800- tallet som startskuddet for dagens internasjonal politikk
Evaluating Power Political Repertoires (EPOS)
EPOS aims to bring about a systematic problem shift in how power politics are studied by moving analytical focus from states' power resources and systemic features of world politi...
Semi-cores in imperial relations: The cases of Scotland and Norway
Recently, the field of International Relations has seen increased interest in international hierarchy, and also an upswing in the analytical study of imperial logics of rule. Nonetheless, existing structural models of empire focus on core-periphery dynamics, and so cannot explain polities that display elements of both core and periphery. Therefore, I offer the new concept of ‘semi-cores’. Semi-cores are a specific form of historical political associations whereby certain imperial provinces are different from the others in terms of the close relationships it maintains with the imperial metropolis. Semi-cores are different by virtue of being relatively similar. The conceptualisation of semi-cores is followed by a section illustrating its logic, examining the relatively unfamiliar cases of Scotland and Norway and their position within the Danish and British empires, respectively. Although being separate imperial provinces, these were tightly connected to an imperial core. This concept helps us better understand imperial logics, and in the process shows how cultural factors can be formalised into accounts of structural logics of rule, impacting our understanding of both historical and contemporary hierarchical international affairs.
Undermining Hegemony. The US, China, Russia, and International Public Goods
Developments in the last fifteen years have driven renewed interest in hegemonic-stability and power-transition theory. The persistence of US-centered primacy during the 1990s produced...