Publications
Malian women's experiences with violent extremism. What is known and how is it known?
This chapter analyses knowledge production about Malian women’s experiences in the context of the global agenda on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE). Research increasingly asserts that global discourse about women’s roles in preventing violent extremism tends to represent women in highly gender-stereotypical and limited ways, and women’s lived experiences with violent extremism are often missing from these accounts. The chapter suggests that these limitations are related to whose voices are heard, and how knowledge is produced, and circulated. Starting from an understanding of the omissions and silences in the global episteme as forms of epistemic violence, the chapter discusses the ways in which knowledge about Malian women’s experiences challenges, expands and feeds into the P/CVE episteme (or not). The analysis is based on a combination of sources, including reports and published accounts, reports from international and Malian human rights NGOs and statements by Malian activists to the UN Security Council.
Resisting Radicalization: Exploring the Nonoccurrence of Violent Extremism
Precarious living conditions across the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa create fertile ground for radical ideas. Yet, despite genuine grievances and legitimate grounds for anger, most people living in these regions are not radicalized and do not embrace ideas that lead to acts of violent extremism. Which raises the question ... why? To answer this question, the authors of Resisting Radicalization investigate the nonoccurrence of violent extremism in what they term enabling environments. Their work, the result of a multiyear international project, has critical implications for the future of P/CVE (Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism) programs. This book is a result of the EU Horizon 2020 project PREVEX (Preventing Violent Extremism in the Balkans and the MENA: Strengthening Resilience in Enabling Environments). Project number: 870724
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: South Sudan
South Sudan is one of the least peaceful countries in the world and one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns have led to both drought and flooding, impacting river flows and the groundwater availability and water quality for a population highly reliant on agriculture and pastoralism. Decades of violent conflict have also eroded the population’s coping capacities. Weak governance and the lack of infrastructure further undermine the capacity of state and social institutions to adapt to climate change. Beyond the existing tensions between armed groups in South Sudan, the spillover effects of the war in Sudan are exacerbating a complex and persistent humanitarian crisis.
Russia’s strategic interest in the Arctic: a comparative perspective
The main objective of this brief study is to examine what we define as ‘Russia’s strategic interest in the Arctic’ from a comparative perspective in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. There are different ways of mapping a country’s strategic interest in an issue. This research paper adopts a quantitative approach to measuring the level of strategic interest that official Russia has expressed in the Arctic and compares this interest in the Arctic with interest in the Barents Sea, Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions. Measuring interest comparatively is done by mapping how much attention is being given to these four regions by various Russian actors who shape or examine Russian policies in their key communication channels. Due to the format of this study, it does not explore what drives this interest, focusing only on a quantitative examination of the number of references to the regions in question in the chosen set of information channels.
Dilemmaer i norsk utenrikspolitikk
In this book, leading Norwegian scholars challenge current Norwegian foreign policy and outline a new policy for a new era.
Chapter 1: Dilemmaer i norsk utenrikspolitikk
In this introductory chapter of the book "Dilemmaer i norsk utenrikspolitikk", we discuss Norway’s room for maneuver, trade-offs, and choices in facing the major foreign policy dilemmas of our time.
Hierarchy
The concept of hierarchy refers to systems of vertical differentiation. Its broad meaning has many cognates both in social theory and in common parlance, such as rank, order, power, authority, status, and stratification. In International Relations (IR), the term is most famous for its opposition to a discipline-defining term: anarchy. Current uses of the term have been employed to challenge the states-under-anarchy framework as the starting point for IR theorizing. Explicit conceptualizations hierarchy in world politics define the term as either narrowly as relationships of authority relations that challenge state sovereignty or more broadly as the deeper asymmetrical structures that constitute those relations. Although the study of hierarchy (implicitly) is hardly new in IR, the novel push for studying it explicitly has sparked a wider dialogue about dynamics of vertical differentiation and renewed our disciplinary attention to the multiple inequalities that constitute world politics.
Explaining changes in women’s representation in peace processes: The adoption of a gender quota in the Agreement Monitoring Committee in Mali
How can we explain changes in women’s representation in peace processes? Based on an analysis of interviews with key actors in the peace process and documents, this article examines the events, factors and actors that contributed to the introduction of a gender quota in the Malian peace process (2015-2023). After a peace agreement was signed in 2015 between the Malian government and two rebel groups, several mechanisms and committees were established to contribute to its implementation. An Agreement Monitoring Committee was also established, where representatives of the parties were to meet regularly to make decisions related to the overall implementation of the agreement. Until November 2020, the parties’ delegates to this committee consisted exclusively of men. Since the outbreak of conflict in 2012, through ceasefire negotiations, peace negotiations, and the implementation of the peace agreement, Malian women’s groups have been fighting for increased participation. But such demands were usually met with resistance from the parties to the peace process. This changed in 2020, however, when the same parties adopted a 30% gender quota in the monitoring committee. The article therefore addresses a central issue surrounding women's participation in peace processes: How can important actors be persuaded to change their minds, and move from opposing women's participation to adopting a 30% gender quota? The analysis finds that changes in women's representation are facilitated by critical actors who initiate or stimulate others to support and/or promote women-friendly reforms. Furthermore, two enabling conditions must be present: On the one hand, international gender equality norms, together with international pressure to promote these norms; and on the other hand, women’s mobilization, including women’s activists’ use of international frameworks to advocate for gender-based reforms. The analysis shows how these enabling conditions were present in the Malian case. Furthermore, the article analyses and shows how critical actors who supported the peace process contributed to “political accumulation”, that is, the gradual building of political recognition for the issue of women’s inclusion over time. This happened through a combination of increases in the number of actors and initiatives supporting and promoting women’s inclusion and the repeated exposure and learning among the parties and other key actors. Critical actors also collaborated with and supported Malian women’s organizations and women leaders engaged in activism for women’s increased representation in the peace process. Additionally, critical actors actively worked to remove counter-arguments and obstacles – for example, through funding and capacity-building. This contributed to a more enabling environment in which the benefits of supporting the gender quota began to outweigh the costs of opposing it. The article concludes that the combined efforts of critical actors, which occurred in a context of international gender equality norms and women’s mobilization, contributed to changes in the behaviour of key actors and made possible the adoption of a gender quota in the monitoring committee.
Failed International Interventions and the Making of New Social Contracts in Mali
Mali's 2020 coup brought Colonel Assimi Goïta to power. Despite security crises and economic struggles, Goïta enjoys strong public support, substantially exceeding that enjoyed by the ousted, democratically elected leader. In exploring this paradox, this article argues that Goïta has crafted a new social contract based not on public services but on a strongman narrative, portraying himself as Mali's defender. The regime has leveraged dissatisfaction with international interventions to frame Goïta as an `exceptional man' in `exceptional times', in ways that resonate with Malian myths and traditions. This has important ramifications for debates about African agencies and international interventions.
Assessing Alternative Alignments: China’s Reception of the Quad, Aukus and IPEF
Under President Xi Jinping, China has developed its own vision of political and strategic order on a global scale, with the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) being a major part of it. Anchoring itself in over 150 countries and organizations, the colossal undertaking instigated a new literature on how it should be understood in the context of inter-state dynamics, world order and power distribution. The BRI also precipitated a number of alternative alignments from major Western economies such as the US, Japan and the EU that involve both infrastructure-specific initiatives and broader foreign and security policy objectives in the Indo-Pacific region. Over a decade since the BRI’s inception, the menu of these alternatives has become significantly longer, yet we still know little about how their standalone policies compare and how they are perceived and received by Beijing. This chapter considers three of the major alternative alignments to counter Chinese influence, namely: (1) the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), (2) AUKUS, and (3) Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). It directs analysis to the alternatives’ major attributes and evolutions before comparing and contrasting China’s reception of them. Analysis is based on a review of government statements, academic literature, policy documents and media articles.