Researcher
Pernille Rieker
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Pernille Rieker's research interests are European integration and European foreign and security policy, including French and Nordic foreign and security policies. She holds a PhD (Dr.polit) from the University of Oslo, earned in 2004. At NUPI, Rieker is part of the Research Group on Security and Defence (SecDef).
Recent publications:
Books:
- Franske tilstander: Forstå det moderne Frankrike? (Universitetsforlaget 2024)
- European Actorness in a Shifting Geopolitical Order. European Strategic Autonomy Through Differentiated Integration (Palgrave 2024)
- French Foreign Policy in a Changing World. Practising Grandeur (Palgrave 2017)
Articles:
- Krig i Europa og franske bidrag til europeisk sikkerhet, Internasjonal Politikk (2024)
- Finally coming of age? EU foreign and security policy after Ukraine, European Security (2024)
- Ad hoc coalitions in European Security and Defence: Symptoms of short-term pragmatism, Journal of European Integration, 2024
- Making Sense of the European Side of the Transatlantic Security Relations in Africa (Politics & Governance, 2022)
- 'Not so unique after all? Urgency and Norms in EU foreign and security policy' (Journal of European Integration, 2021)
More information about her other work can be found in her complete CV or on the project sites.
Current research:
Pernille Rieker leads the RE-ENGAGE project, which aims to analyze the EU's promotion of democracy and stability in its neighboring regions in a time of increased egopolitical tensions.
Education
2004 PhD, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo
1998 Can. Polit. in Political Science, University of Oslo
Work Experience
2025- Director and Research Professor - ARENA Centre for European Studies
2017- Research Professor, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and Head of NUPI Centre for European Studies (NCE) (40% as from 2025)
2011-2017 Senior Researcher, NUPI
2009-2011 Senior Adviser, NordForsk
1999-2009 PhD-candidate/Senior Researcher/Head of Departement, NUPI
Aktivitet
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Clear all filters50 Years After the Moon Landing: Why Europe Should Lead the Next 50
50 years since the first astronauts stepped foot on the moon, it would be easy to be complacent about human space exploration today. After all, humans have not ventured out of low-earth orbit since 1972. Achievements in space since the Apollo missions have flown under the radar for most of the regular public. However, the world is actually in a very different place now than it was 50 years ago, when the Soviet Union and United States were the sole spacefaring powers. Today, 72 countries have space programs, 14 have launch capability, and six have highly developed space capabilities (China, Europe, India, Japan, the US, and Russia). Space agencies, private commercial entities, international organizations, amateur space enthusiasts, multi-national corporations, and public-private partnerships comprise the diverse landscape of actors involved in space today. The total global space economy is estimated to be well over $383.5 billion.1 In particular, the European space industry is one of the largest in the world, and contributes around €53-62 billion to the European economy. Manufacturing is a significant part of this, with European companies producing around one-third of the world’s satellites.2 Within 10 years, it is expected that there will be a thriving low-earth orbit eco-system, space tourism, a permanent moon base, and shortly thereafter, a manned trip to Mars.
What does Trump’s Space Force mean for Europe?
The American President wants his own Space Force, and this could contribute to a shift in the dynamics of space that until now has been characterized by cooperation.
CANCELLED: How can the EU improve its crisis response?
One month ago, the NUPI-led and Horizon 2020-funded research project EUNPACK was finalised. This seminar will provide an opportunity to look back at three years of research and fieldwork to consider the policy implications of its findings.
EUNPACK Executive Summary of the Final Report & Selected Policy Recommendations. A conflict-sensitive unpacking of the eu comprehensive approach to...
Since adopting a ‘comprehensive approach’ to crisis management in 2013, the EU has spent considerable time and energy on streamlining its approach and improving internal coordination. New and protracted crises, from the conflict in Ukraine to the rise of Daesh in Syria and Iraq, and the refugee situation in North Africa and the Sahel, have made the improvement of external crisis-response capacities a top priority. But the implementation of the EU’s policies on the ground has received less scholarly and policy attention than the EU’s actorness and institutional capacity-building, and studies of implementation have often been guided primarily by a theoretical or normative agenda. The main objective of the EUNPACK project has been to unpack EU crisis response mechanisms and provide new insights how they are being received and perceived on the ground by both local beneficiaries and other external stakeholders. By introducing a bottom–up perspective combined with an institutional approach, the project has tried to break with the dominant line of scholarship on EU crisis response that has tended to view only one side of the equation, namely the EU itself. Thus, the project has been attentive to the local level in target countries as well as to the EU level and the connections between them. The research has been conducted through an inductive and systematic empirical research combining competencies from two research traditions that so far has had little interaction, namely peace and conflict studies and EU studies. A key finding in our research is that while the EU has been increasingly concerned with horizontal lessons learnt, it needs to improve vertical lessons learnt to better understand the local dynamics and thus provide more appropriate responses.
Assessing the EU’s Toolbox in Handling Internal and External Challenges
In recent years, the EU has faced several major challenges. Experts meet in Brussels for a roundtable discussion on what tools the Union has to solve these, and what role it can play in the time to come.
Plugging the capability-expectations gap: towards effective, comprehensive and conflict-sensitive EU crisis response?
Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the European Union (EU) has spent considerable time and energy on defining and refining its comprehensive approach to external conflicts. The knock-on effects of new and protracted crises, from the war in Ukraine to the multi-faceted armed conflicts in the Sahel and the wider Middle East, have made the improvement of external crisis-response capacities a top priority. But has the EU has managed to plug the capability–expectations gap, and develop an effective, comprehensive and conflict sensitive crisis-response capability? Drawing on institutional theory and an approach developed by March and Olsen, this article analyses whether the EU has the administrative capacities needed in order to be an effective actor in this area and implement a policy in line with the established goals and objectives identified in its comprehensive approach.
Ever looser union? Differentiation in European integration
Professor Frank Schimmelfennig is visiting NUPI to discuss differentiated integration, which has become a core feature of European integration.
Is the EU ready to handle the major challenges it is facing?
Ivan Krastev reflects on the future of the EU, and whether the union is ready to handle major challenges such as migration, the spread of right-wing populism, and instability in the east.
French status seeking in a changing world. Taking on the role as the guardian of the liberal order
France has a long history as a traditional European great power. But is this still the case today? The analysis in this article shows how French exceptionalism, often referred to as ‘grandeur’ is still the guiding principle of French foreign policy, but that it is being practised differently today. President Macron may be right in arguing that ‘France is back’, but it is important to note that modern French power projection or status seeking takes place through a set of very different mechanisms. The key argument put forward in this article is that French status is increasingly based on a type of symbolic power, and to understand the mechanisms through which this power is managed, insights from social psychology and Social Identification Theory (SIT) are helpful. SIT points to three different strategies for maintaining a position within a social hierarchy that may also be valid for international politics: social mobility, social competition and social creativity. While France has adopted different types of strategies in earlier periods (social mobility in the immediate post-war years and social competition during the Cold War), the analysis in this article shows that French foreign policy practices are now increasingly being legitimised through the creation of a new narrative. Interestingly, this narrative consists of the current French political leadership’s eagerness to take on the role as ‘the guardian of the liberal order’, which fits nicely with what SIT identify as a strategy of social creativity.
Balancing between integration and autonomy. Understanding the drivers and mechanisms of EU's foreign, security and defense policy (EUFLEX)
The project will investigate the ongoing process towards differentiated integration in European foreign, security and defence policy. ...