Publications
Technological Determinism and Challenges to Deterrence in Southern Asia
Southern Asian strategic stability is fragile with multiple challenges affecting crisis stability, deterrence stability, and arms race stability. With rapid scientific developments, technological advancements are translating into new advanced military capabilities at a much faster rate. As countries move to achieve technological superiority, they are exploring ways to exploit “gray zones” or areas where their adversaries’ deterrence is the most vulnerable across various domains. Cross-domain coercion adds to the fragility of deterrence. In this environment, India and Pakistan must initiate a bilateral dialogue to discuss South Asian strategic stability with a focus on minimizing the drivers of instability and strengthening mutual deterrence. A joint publication by APLN and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
UK new Prime Minister and her focus on Africa
Dr Andrew Tchie, on BBC World News, touches on what the relationship between the new UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and Africa will be moving forward.
Policy brief summarising the lessons learned from assessing the EU’s measures to prevent violent extremism in a comparative perspective
Elapsing 30 months into the PREVEX consortium’s work, synchronizing results from both PREVEX-generated and external research outputs, this policy brief presents three key lessons from the analysis of the EU’s measures to prevent violent extremism (PVE) across its three regional focal areas: MENA, Maghreb/ Sahel and the Balkans. It then teases out three policy recommendations emanating from these lessons. While lesson #1 speaks to the broader framework of the EU’s PVE efforts, lessons #2 & #3 are more specifically geared toward the regions under PREVEX’ scrutiny: The Balkans (#2) and MENA and Maghreb/Sahel (#3).
Understanding Africa’s Adaptability to Peace and Security Challenges
Dr Andrew Tchie reviews the book "African Peacekeeping Training Centres: Socialisation as a Tool for Peace?"
Norway’s Climate Club Quandary
Norway’s international climate policy has always aimed at building a unitary global climate regime. However, the Paris Agreement reflects and accelerates the fragmentation of the climate regime and has been accompanied by the emergence of a myriad of new climate initiatives between countries. This article highlights three trends that characterize the emerging climate regime: a shift from climate to green industrial policy; rising tension between climate and trade policy and pressure to merge climate and petroleum policy. We illustrate how climate clubs both create new rules within the climate regime and are formed in response to such rules. Navigating this new international landscape will be a central challenge for Norwegian climate policy moving forward. Norway’s climate club quandary in this context implies choices between different political strategies and competing interests and with possible consequences for what type of climate regime Norway will contribute to. The climate club quandary is both related whom Norway seeks to collaborate with and the formalization of such collaboration, but also the consequences of collaborating with some countries and not with others.
Protection of critical infrastructure in Norway – factors, actors and systems
The main aim of this article is to examine how the issue of protecting critical infrastructure is addressed in Norway. To answer this question, the article addresses two important sub-questions – what is to be understood in the current historical and the specific Norwegian context as important elements of national critical infrastructure and what is the current understanding of risks and threats that this infrastructure should be protected against? This article is based on a detailed quantitative and qualitative examination of the official Norwegian documents and statements on questions related to various aspects of protecting critical infrastructure in Norway. In section one, structural factors that have played a major part in shaping Norwegian thinking about critical infrastructure are discussed. Section two provides a short summary of the current discussion on elements of critical infrastructure in Norway. In section three, the article discusses official Norwegian perceptions of threats and how they address questions related to critical infrastructure. The fourth section looks at the current official approach to protection of critical infrastructure in the country. The process of building the existing system for protecting critical infrastructure in Norway has been driven by both domestic and international concerns. The system should make it possible for citizens to meet their needs through access to various important societal functions, but it also needs to make it possible to address challenges that stem from the international environment.
A functional approach to decentralization in the electricity sector: learning from community choice aggregation in California
Decentralization of the electricity sector has mainly been studied in relation to its infrastructural aspect, particularly location and size of the generation units, and only recently more attention has been paid to the governance aspects. This article examines power sector (de)centralization operationalized along three functional dimensions: political, administrative and economic. We apply this framework to empirically assess the changes in California’s electricity market, which saw the emergence of institutional innovation in the form of community choice aggregation (CCA). Unpacking the Californian case illustrates how decision-making has moved from central state government and regulators to the municipal level in uneven ways and without decentralized generation keeping pace. We also explore the impacts this multidimensional and diversified decentralization has on the ultimate goals of energy transition: decarbonization and energy security. Our framework and empirical findings challenge the conventional view on decentralization and problematize the widespread assumptions of its positive influence on climate mitigation and grid stability.
How the process of transitions shapes the politics of decarbonization: Tracing policy feedback effects across phases of the energy transition
Policy feedback has been applied as a theoretical concept in exploring the political dynamics of domestic energy transitions. However, theory-oriented work is needed to apply the concept to studies of technological change processes. This article explores two technology feedback effects – technology maturity and socio-technical fit – that add external pressure for policy adaption. These are theorized as enabling a correction mechanism through learning that can partly counter positive policy feedback effects. Thus, the co-evolution process between renewable energy policy instruments and technologies is conceptualized as involving increasing return processes leading to sticky policies, balanced by correction mechanisms that support a more plastic view on policies. This argument is explored through a longitudinal case study of the co-evolution of policy instruments and solar photovoltaics in California.
Ban or Regulate? A Critical Juncture in New York’s Fossil Fuel Regulation
In this chapter I examine the political process leading up to the ban on hydraulic fracturing in New York State. I identify the early phase ending with the governor’s decision to update the state’s environmental review guidelines for permitting in 2008 as a critical juncture. In retrospect this was a near miss for the oil and gas industry. The decision changed the rules of the game to one where the opposition to hydraulic fracturing defended status quo and gave grassroot organisations time to mobilize. The case illustrates that political feasibility of restrictive supply-side climate policies, such as banning fossil fuel production, is not something we can defined with a predefined set of variables. Instead political feasibility is created through the political process. Furthermore, I note an increasing use of supply-side policy measures since the ban. This suggests that the decision to ban hydraulic fracturing also marks an acceleration of the state’s transition towards a low-carbon energy economy.
Energy Transition and Social Movements: The Rise of a Community Choice Movement in California
This chapter examines the rise of a community choice movement in California. Here local governments launch community choice aggregation programs, one after the other, that promise higher renewable energy content than the existing investor-owned utilities. I view the movement as an expression of local climate interests fused with anti-utility resentment, and use the three lenses from social movement theory—political opportunities, mobilizing structures and framing processes—to analyze the emergence and development of the movement. This bottom-up process unfolds in a state that has some of the most ambitious climate policies and renewable energy goals in the US. The effectiveness of the community choice model as a climate policy tool is contested. However, the movement’s aim is not only to decarbonize the electricity system but to build an electricity system that utilizes more local renewable energy resources.