Researcher
Niels Nagelhus Schia
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Niels Nagelhus Schia is a research professor, head of NUPI's Research group on security and defense, and co-chair of NUPI's Center on digitalization and cyber security studies.
He is a former fellow of the NSSR (New School for Social Research) and holds a PhD degree in social anthropology from the University of Oslo.
With a focus on the role of cybersecurity and cybersecurity governance in international relations Schia tracks new developments in policy and research, and provide academic studies, expert analysis and strategic policy recommendations. His research focus combines anthropology and international relations theory with theories of cyber security. His current projects are concerned with norms and state behavior in cyber space, development assistance and capacity building, societal vulnerabilities, sovereignty and cyberspace, global governance and cyberspace. In the research project GAIA (funded by the Research Council of Norway's IKTPLUSS initiative) Schia explores links between digital value chains, national autonomy and international politics. This is a four-year cooperation between SimulaMet, NUPI and several other institutions and universities. Read his most recent article The Cyber Frontier and Digital Pitfalls in the Global South published in Third World Quarterly (2018).
Schia has worked on numerous topics within international organizations, global governance, peacebuilding and statebuilding over the previous years. He has acted as an adviser to governments and international organizations on issues pertaining to capacity building, institution building and global governance. He has participated in international discussions and working groups in the United Nations and regularly participates at international conferences. He has long experience with developing and finalizing research projects financed by governments and research councils. A cross cutting concern in these research projects has been the exploration of global connections to more localized and national contexts. This is also a concern in his book Franchised States and the Bureaucracy of Peace (Palgrave Macmillian, 2018) and in his chapter Horseshoe and Catwalk: Power, Complexity and Consensus-Making in the United Nations Security Council in the book Palaces of Hope: The Anthropology of Global Organizations (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Schia has published in scientific journals such as Third World Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, International Peacekeeping, Journal of International Relations and Development, and Political and Legal Anthropology.
His current research focuses on cyber security, cyber capacity building in developing countries and emerging economies, internet governance and collaboration between states and non-state actors.
He is a former Fulbright Scholar and from January 2017 he is a co-editor of the leading Scandinavian-language International Relations-journal Internasjonal Politikk.
Expertise
Education
2015 PhD, Social Antropology, University of Oslo
2004 Cand.polit., Social anthropology, University of Oslo
Work Experience
2022- Head of NUPI's Research group on security and defence
2017- Co-editor of the leading Scandinavian-language International Relations-journal Internasjonal Politikk
2015- Head, NUPI's Cyber Security Centre. 2010 Advisor, Civil Affairs, Policy Best Practices Services (PBPS), UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, New York HQ
2009 Visiting scholar at The New School for Social Research, New York, Leiv Eiriksson mobility programme (The Research Council of Norway) and Fulbright Scholar
2003- Research Assistant / Research Fellow / Senior Research Fellow/Research Professor, NUPI
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2012-2016 Board member Fulbright Alumni Association of Norway
2013-2016 Head of Scientific Committee for Fulbright annual research award
Aktivitet
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Status and sovereign equality: Small states in multilateral settings
In this chapter, we explore Norwegian UN policy, arguing that it is a central arena for Norwegian efforts to be recognized by others. Our focus on Norwegian UN policy is not an end in itself, but a means to develop a more general argument about status seeking behaviour in a multilateral setting. We argue that status seeking in multilateral settings is distinct from status seeking in other settings, and that this stems from the norms of reciprocity and rulebased cooperation in such settings. Multilateral settings put a premium on behaviour that is in keeping with a commitment to the furtherance and expansion of the rules established by multilateral cooperation and organizations. Certain types of behaviour or role, rather than certain types of resources, can accord status. Norway has specialized in one distinct ‘role’: that of being a team-player, a facilitator – an actor that can be relied upon to take on the burden of doing things in which it has no identifiable direct stake or interest. A case in point is the UN request as to whether Norway could shoulder the responsibility for destroying Syria’s chemical weapons. We conclude the chapter by suggesting that the role developed in multilateral settings has so pervaded Norwegian diplomatic tradition that it is present in bilateral settings as well. We proceed as follows. We first elaborate briefly on the editors’ introduction and highlight how status seeking is reflected in the skills and diplomatic forms that are valued in different settings. We then briefly describe overall Norway’s UN policy, with a few examples of what a status-based reading of this policy can tell us about Norwegian foreign policy, and about multilateralism as a distinct arena for status seeking. Next, we present the specific manifestations of their distinctiveness of multilateral settings, and link this to Norwegian diplomats’ self-understandings and conceptions of what characterizes a good diplomat: the ability to be tapped into what is going on in an effort to present oneself with resources that can be put to good use on issues in which Norway may often not have any distinct or direct stakes. This tendency to stress the role as ‘helper’ is most pronounced in relation to issue-areas where the USA has vital interests, and is less so where less powerful states are concerned. Thus, power differentials play a central role also in multilateral settings, where it matters who is the demandeur for the tasks to be undertaken.
Connections and Disconnections: Understanding and Integrating Local Perceptions in United Nations Peacekeeping
Being Part of the Parade - "Going Native" in the United Nations Security Council
"Where the Rubber Meets the Road": Friction Sites and Local-level Peacebuilding in Haiti, Liberia and South Sudan