Publications
Prestige and punishment: Status symbols and the danger of white elephants
This article identifies and unpacks the intrinsic potential for backlash in the pursuit of status symbols. While status loss has been associated with domestic pushback and reduced legitimacy for ruling governments, the literature on status is yet to examine how status-seeking can backfire even when a state can successfully claim to have acquired a status symbol. We contend that status backlashes are an inherent risk of status-seeking due to the multivocality of costly status symbols. Our heuristic framework for studying status backlashes proposes examining modes of critique that construe status symbols as irrational or unjustified costly endeavours, undermining their legitimating capacity and potentially even transforming them into a marker of stigma. Empirically, we identify three modes of critique present in reactions to Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. There, despite recognizing the symbolic value of hosting these mega-events, Brazilian audiences also criticized the government for the opportunity costs, vested interests and subservience that it entailed. Undertaking two shadow case studies – on the backlash against the United Kingdom’s renewal of its Trident nuclear weapons system and Norway’s engagement in military interventions between 1999 and 2012 – we document how these modes of critique associated with status symbols can travel across contexts.
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR) is highly exposed to the impacts of climate change due to socioecological vulnerabilities and ongoing insecurity. Drivers of vulnerability include the absence of state authority, natural resource mismanagement, and low household and community resilience. Although the security situation has improved in recent years, it remains volatile; factions of the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), self-defence groups and bandits regularly clash with government forces, allies and mercenaries such as the Wagner Group (now Africa Corps) in rural areas. A changing climate and the deteriorating security situation in the Sahel and the Great Lakes region have driven transhumant pastoralists further into CAR earlier in the transhumance season, creating tensions. Additionally, the spillover effects of the war in Sudan have put added pressure on the humanitarian situation in CAR, particularly in the Vakaga and Haute-Kotto prefectures.
Prospects for Europe’s green transition after the 2024 European Parliament elections
On 18 July 2024, Ursula Von der Leyen has been reelected for another term as head of the European Commission, with a stronger mandate than in 2019 – the majority in the European Parliament she managed to ramp up was 401 votes. On 17 September, the planned composition of the new Commission was announced, subject to the approval of the European Parliament. What can we expect from the new EU ‘government’ and what are the most important challenges the VdL2 Commission will face in the area of climate, energy and sustainability governance?
Implementing Economic Security in Norway: Lessons from Japan
While few OECD countries have experiences in making a shift to economic security and operationalizing the term, Japan is an outlier. Japan was the first country to implement legislation on economic security with the Economic Security Protection Act (ESPA), in 2022. As a first mover, Japan stands out as one of the few cases to draw on in developing lessons learned and identifying the challenges in putting economic security into practice. In this report, we consider how economic security has been implemented in Japan, the development of a holistic whole-of-government approach, and the importance of developing a uniform conceptualization of economic security adopted coherently across public and private organizations. Subsequently, we briefly examine the perspectives of the Nordic states and their respective evolving approaches to economic security. Finally, we outline some lessons learned and key experiences and discuss their relevance for the Norwegian context.
Becoming allies: Finland and Norway after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
This article analyses Finland and Norway’s evolving narratives about one another as neighbours, partners, and allies against the backdrop of political and scholarly discourses about the broader Nordic security community. Drawing on International Relations (IR) theories on regional security complexes and security community formation, we find that a swift reframing of the Finnish-Norwegian relationship was possible after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 because it was formulated against the backdrop of the already established narrative about the well-functioning and trustful Nordic security community. The intense interaction dynamics between Finland and Norway in recent years have brought the Nordic security community to an unprecedented level of integration, and an all-time high sense of ‘we-ness’ now characterises Finnish-Norwegian relations.
Training folk internationalists: Foreign policy identity and children’s news
How are new generations of policymakers and subjects introduced to ‘the world out there’ – and to their own state’s ambitions, practices, and impacts within that world? While multiple studies have explored the role of education in fostering national identities more broadly, the relationship between education, mass media and foreign policy identity has attracted limited scholarly attention. Using Norway as an exploratory case, this article takes a first stab at addressing this knowledge need. Theoretically, we institute a dialogue between scholarly work on how foreign policy identities are (re)produced through everyday representations and practice, and work on how education and mass media shape public debate and the subjects partaking in it. Empirically, we offer the first study of how foreign policy is communicated to children through tailored media outlets.
Reviving Nordic Security and Defense Cooperation
In the wake of Finland and Sweden’s accessions to NATO, the alliance’s northern military power will be greatly expanded—if the Nordic and Baltic states adequately coordinate to overcome risks such as overstretching and competition. Finland and Sweden’s entry into NATO is rightly hailed as a historic event: It represents the first time in centuries that all the Nordic countries are in a military alliance. As a result, enthusiasm for reinvigorated security and defense cooperation can be felt across the Nordic region. But this path is not straightforward, and the countries in the region face challenges ranging from overstretch to regional grievances to strategic messaging. Despite the fresh enthusiasm, it is worth remembering that the new Nordic defense integration must take place within the larger NATO framework. Finland and Sweden’s formal accession to the alliance represents the beginning of a lengthy process for both countries, and it will take time before they are fully incorporated into all NATO structures. This article discusses some of the opportunities and challenges the two countries and the broader Nordic-Baltic region are facing in this process.
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Colombia
Colombia’s decades-long conflict culminated in the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which included aims to achieve peace through rural reform, reintegration of former combatants, addressing illicit crop cultivation, and ensuring land restitution and voluntary return for displaced individuals. However, the combination of non-state armed groups (NSAGs), entrenched violence, social inequality and environmental challenges continues to hinder progress, particularly in rural areas. Since 2022, the current government has pursued a policy of ‘Total Peace’, alongside implementing the peace agreement. This includes peace talks with armed groups and addressing structural violence, racial discrimination, gender inequality, social inequalities and environmental concerns. This fact sheet focuses on how climate-related peace and security risks interact with specific provisions of the peace agreement, and provides an update on the situation since 2022.
Changing transatlantic relations – and what it means for Europe
In a more uncertain world and with war in Europe, securing a strong relationship with their traditional partner and ally, the United States (US), is more important than ever for Europeans. Yet, Europe is facing a reality where there is a real possibility that transatlantic relations may be severely weakening. This European policy analysis explores ongoing changes in the transatlantic relationship, what this tells us about its future direction, and what this implies for Europe. It discusses what a second Trump, or a Harris, presidency might imply, the challenges facing European security and defence, and what must be done to address them. The analysis finds that extensive networks, trade relations, and interdependencies continue to make the transatlantic relationship the strongest interregional relationship in the world. However, domestic changes in the US and a changing geopolitical reality with the US prioritizing China over Europe mean that the transatlantic relationship is weaker than before. The future of European security and defence depends on its ability to increase its support for Ukraine, to strengthen its own security in NATO – in the EU and in closer cooperation between them – and to keep the US as close as possible.
The Grammar of Status Competition: International Hierarchies and Domestic Politics
States do not only strive for wealth and security, but international status too. A burgeoning body of research has documented that states of all sizes spend considerable time, energy, and even blood and treasure when seeking status on the world stage. Yet, for all scholars' success in identifying instances of status seeking, they lack agreement on the nature of the international hierarchies that states are said to compete within. Making sense of this status ambiguity remains the key methodological and theoretical challenge facing status research in international relations scholarship. In The Grammar of Status Competition, Paul David Beaumont tackles this puzzle head on by making a strength out of status' widely acknowledged slipperiness. Given that states, statesmen, and citizens care about and pursue status despite its difficulty to assess, Beaumont argues that we can study international status hierarchies through these actors' attempts to grapple with this same status ambiguity. The book thus redirects inquiry toward the theories of international status (TIS) that governments and citizens themselves produce and use to make sense of their state's position in the world. Advancing a new framework for studying such TIS, the book illuminates how specific theories of international status emerge, solidify, and become contested, and how these processes influence domestic and foreign policy. Showcasing the value of a TIS approach via multiple historical case studies—from nuclear arms control to Norwegian education policy—Beaumont thereby addresses three major puzzles in IR status research: why states compete for status when the international rewards seem ephemeral; how states can escape the zero-sum game associated with quests for positional status; and how status scholars can overcome the methodological problem of disentangling status from other motivations