Publications
EU-Norway Green Alliance between vision and reality: Exploring the potential and barriers in the critical minerals and battery sectors
Norway, a key supplier of hydrocarbons and clean energy, can play a pivotal role in the EU's green transition by providing critical raw materials and batteries. However, political and regulatory obstacles must be addressed to realize this potential. Norway's alignment with the European Green Deal and its commitment to sustainability initiatives make this easier on the onset, but challenges remain. The EU's regulatory landscape, including the European Green Deal, Critical Raw Materials Act, and Battery Regulation, aims to create a sustainable and competitive battery industry. Norway's policies, such as the Green Industrial Initiative and the Mineral Strategy, align with these goals, focusing on efficient processes, circular economy, and sustainable industry development. The report presents case studies of three significant mining projects in Norway: Nussir (copper), Nordic Mining (rutile and garnet) and Skaland Graphite. All three projects highlight the complexities of domestic mining, including regulatory hurdles, environmental concerns, and opposition from local communities and indigenous groups. These case studies underscore the need for balanced approaches that consider both economic benefits and environmental protection. Note: The research for this report and writing of the first draft was conducted while Skaiå Larsen, Larsen og Godal were graduate students at the University of Oslo. All further research, writing and editing, as well as the final formulation of policy recommendations was conducted by Szulecki.
Status symbols in world politics
A large body of scholarship in International Relations (IRs) has shown that numerous actors in world politics are avid observers, and sometimes obsessive seekers of social status. However, the literature has remained oddly quiet about the status symbols acquired and used to further that goal. To redress this lacuna, this special issue brings together several of IR’s leading status scholars to investigate the emergence, decline, ambiguity, functionality, and utility of status symbols in world politics. This introduction lays out the analytical and ethical warrant for studying status symbols. We formulate an interpretive framework for historicizing status symbols and exploring their temporal and spatial trajectories within international society. Specifically, this introduction develops four analytical lenses for illuminating status symbols. In short, how status symbols temporally rise to prominence and eventually whiter, how and whether they function and thus how they are received, whether their inherent multivocality enable them to cut across multiple groups of world politics, and how and to what extent status symbols can be consciously manipulated into a force for good.
A warmer Arctic in colder geopolitical climate: What role for the private sector?
• The Arctic is experiencing considerable physical and geopolitical change affecting states, Indigenous peoples and various stakeholders. • Private sector actors are also affected by climate change, geopolitical developments and economic trends in the Arctic, although the impacts on and potential governance role of the private sector in securing safety and stability in the Arctic are often neglected in policy analyses. • This policy note outlines key stressors in the region and gives recommendations as to how the private sector can contribute to a safe and stable Arctic by supporting governance and sharing knowledge.
A Postliberal Global Order? Challenge(r)s to the Liberal West
In a new report, NUPI’s senior researcher Minda Holm looks closer at which international order it is that is under pressure. What is the issue with seeing the world through the lens of a post-1945 Liberal International or Rules-Based Order? What do actors like Russia and China have in common with the populist radical right in their perspectives on global politics? And what does Donald Trump’s second term entail for the liberal West?
Conclusion: Writing for Reflexivity and Breaking Writing Rules
Joining an inter-disciplinary body of work that seeks to politicise the craft of academic writing, the premise of this forum is that the norms of “good academic writing”structure the kind of knowledge that can be produced and thus the kind of goals academic writing can achieve. While taking aim at the hegemony of Anglo-American norms in particular, the forum’s argument pertains to any context whereby one set of norms monopolises what “good writing” entails.. It is a call for writing pluralism then, but it is also much more than that. Rather than calling for letting 1000 writing styles bloom, the forum endeavours to systematically develop strategies to help readers’ on their reflexive journey: what the forum terms “writing for reflexivity”. Indeed, for all the guides on fostering reflexivity in the researcher, there are far fewer interrogating how our writing practices may encourage or discourage reflexivity in our readers. Taking stock of the forum’s efforts, this conclusion discusses how the contributors bend and break prevailing norms and with what consequences for generating reflexivity in the reader. Second, it identifies a strategy of writing for reflexivity that is latent in the forum: cultivating humility in the authorial voice. Finally, the conclusion warns against seeing Anglo-American norms as a coherent whole that stands in opposition to writing for reflexivity, but heterogenous set of techniques, each of which can work in combination with radical departures from those same norms in the aid of writing for reflexivity.
Topos of threat and metapolitics in Russia’s securitisation of NATO post-Crimea
This article makes a twofold contribution on the relationship between self/other securitisation, ambiguous threat constructions, and anxiety at the intersection of Securitisation Theory (ST) and Ontological Security Studies (OSS). First, we develop the concept topos of threat (TT) as a potent linguistic anchor in securitisation processes. TTs depict an entire self/other threat situation that warrants escape, serving identity needs while staying flexible and ambiguous. However, their frequent rhetorical deployment can blur the threat construction and increase anxiety: this challenges the classical scholarly assumption that antagonism necessarily alleviates anxiety. Second, we theorise metapolitics as an anxiety mediation strategy. Metapolitics is a mode of interpretation – a relentless analysis of surface clues to expose a deceptive, powerful adversary – which in the final event fails to alleviate anxiety. The dual practice of nurturing topoi of threat and metapolitics drives conflict because it sets in motion a vicious securitisation spiral that entrenches rigid patterns of self/other representation and fosters a bias of anticipating hostility. We employ abductive theorising: working with established theory alongside empirical discovery through a discourse analysis of Russia’s official rhetoric on NATO and the use of the TT ‘colour revolution’ since the conflict in Ukraine began in 2014.
Trump II: A new trajectory in Russia relations for NATO Nordic states
• The incoming Trump administration will replace the policy of “stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes” with “making a deal with Russia”. This might entail de-escalation with Russia as well as economic and security burden-sharing with Europe. Norway and its now NATO neighbours Sweden and Finland have a window of opportunity to develop new policy for the second Trump term. • An adjusted approach to relations with Russia in the North can be devised that draws on Norwegian traditions in its relations with Russia. This approach will differ from the UK, Poland and the Baltic States but can represent a fruitful model of NATO membership for the Nordic states. • Despite a significant decline in military tension in the North since 2022, the risk of a future security competition with Russia and Nordic NATO members should not be downplayed. Presuming Russia is a status quo power in the North, NATO should have a clear and predictable posture in the North that combines deterrence and reassurance. • Russia should not be treated as a monolithic entity; there are moderates that would welcome diplomacy with Nordic NATO neighbours. Backchannel contacts between Russia and the Nordic NATO states can develop the outlines of an adjusted security posture for the North that could be received favourably by the new Trump Administration as it attempts to open negotiations to end the war in Ukraine
Hva nå?
It is time for Norway to develop a foreign policy for security—one grounded in issues rather than party politics, writes Julie Wilhelmsen in this op-ed. This is not an argument for withdrawing Norway from NATO or breaking ties with the United States, but rather an attempt to initiate a debate on how to create greater room for action in a policy area that Norway must independently formulate. It is an invitation to engage in rational and knowledge-based reasoning—something we, as “like-minded” actors, should pursue to find the best solutions in a time when global challenges are growing ever more complex and there is a notable absence of clear leadership anywhere in the world. It is, of course, uncertain whether Norwegian leaders will have any leverage in the White House when the time comes. Moreover, should any of the proposals I have outlined be pursued, they will undoubtedly generate significant dissonance among domestic audiences after years of rhetoric suggesting that “weapons are the path to peace”—an approach that has at times appeared to serve as Norway’s new moral compass. Yet, a strategy that combines deterrence with reassurance in security policy, and that promotes diplomacy in international affairs, is both needed globally and, from a historical perspective, a well-established Norwegian position. Such an approach could make Norway more secure and enhance the credibility of Norwegian foreign policymakers.
The Joint Expeditionary Force and its Contribution to European Security
The paper has three chapters. Chapter I identifies and assesses the advantages of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) and makes a comparison with other European defence and security frameworks. Chapter II examines how the JEF has responded to Russia’s war against Ukraine and the subsequent dramatic changes it has driven in European security. Chapter III considers the challenges to the UK, the JEF and European security following the war in Ukraine and the 2024 US presidential election. It provides recommendations for the new UK government for the further development of the JEF to best contribute to European security. The Conclusion argues that the UK must take the opportunity to strengthen the JEF to respond to a deteriorating security environment.
War in Europe: How Significantly Is European Security and Defence Policies Changing?
Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has contributed to a new and deteriorating security environment in Europe. Most countries in Europe have supported Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression, but how significant are the broader changes in the defense and security policies of European states and actors? In this special issue, the contributors offer in-depth analyses of a number of actors: Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and the European Commission. There is some variation across the different analyses, but a main finding is that the changes in European defense and security policy are more fundamental than in response to the war in Ukraine alone.