Publications
Norges klimaomdømme på Twitter
In this article we explore whether oil and gas industry negatively affects Norway’s climate reputation by analyzing tweets posted during the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. To make our findings more reliable, we compare tweets about Norway with tweets about Sweden. The results of our study reveal that there is no significant difference in negative sentiment between tweets about Norway compared with tweets about Sweden. However, we find that tweets about the two states differ thematically. While dominant topics in tweets mentioning Sweden are about promotion of the green transition and climate activism, tweets about Norway are mostly about climate financing and the need to phase out fossil fuel production. Furthermore, negative tweets about Sweden are of a more general nature, similar to criticism of all countries not meeting their climate goals, while negative tweets about Norway are specific and related to fossil fuel industry.
“Victims of Democracy” or “Enemies at the Gates”? Russian Discourses on the European “Refugee Crisis”
With over one million people arriving in Europe as refugees, the UN Refugee Agency declared 2015 “the year of Europe’s refugee crisis.” This article explores the meaning-making process surrounding the “refugee crisis” in a Russian context, using discourse theory to analyze representations of refugees, Russia, and the West in opinion pieces and interview articles in three major Russian newspapers. In addition to the humanitarian and security discourses presented in existing studies, I identify a geopolitical discourse that represents refugees as victims of interventionism and democratization processes that the West has promoted in the Middle East and North Africa. More generally, this study adds to the literature on discursive construction of identity and difference.
The Economics of Strategic Stability in US-China relations
The economic aspects of strategic stability tend to come second place in the study of US-China relations. For good reason, scholars have focussed on the military aspects of strategic stability, including the role of emerging technology and cyber capabilities, in this most important geopolitical relationship. Yet, considering the ongoing War on Ukraine, as well as tensions over Taiwan, it is worthwhile considering the effect coercive economic tools such as tariffs, sanctions and embargoes, can have on wider strategic stability.
Contemporary Nuclear Dynamics in Southern Asia: Many Challenges, Few Possibilities
In this Policy Brief, Dr Manpreet Sethi, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi, assesses the increasingly dangerous security situation among Southern Asia’s three nuclear weapons powers: China, India, and Pakistan. She proposes several concrete policy steps that, if taken, will greatly reduce the risk of an inadvertent nuclear exchange.
Should UN peacekeepers remain in Africa?
Africa has had more UN peacekeeping missions than any other region in the world. Today more than fifty thousand troops are deployed with UN operations on the continent. Despite this, violence still continues in some of these areas and in some places, there is anger over the UN's continued presence. Just last month, anti-UN protests erupted in Goma and Butembo, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, when citizens accused the UN of failing to contain violence by armed groups. While in Mali, UN troop rotations were suspended for a month after the government arrested 49 soldiers from Ivory Coast, saying they had arrived in the country without permission. Ivory Coast said the soldiers were part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. So, what is the future of UN peacekeeping in Africa? Host: Alan Kasujja (@kasujja) Guests: Dr. Cedric de Coning, a research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Senior Advisor at the African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes and Dr. Yvan Yenda Ilunga, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Salve Regina University.
China’s coercive diplomacy: Why it’s on the rise and what it means for Scandinavia
Amid a wider deterioration of relations between China and the West since around 2018, the Chinese government has stepped up its use of economic coercion and other types of non-military coercive measures, targeting Western countries that challenge its core interests. The observed change is distinctive in both quantitative and qualitative terms as the Chinese authorities have not only employed coercive measures more frequently, but also across a wider set of policy objectives than previously. Using a revised dataset, the Brief offers new insights into these development trends, demonstrating how they are driven primarily by perceived violations of China’s expanding development interests. The Brief discusses the findings in the specific context of the Scandinavian countries which have also found themselves on the receiving end of China’s coercive diplomacy.
United clubs of Europe: Informal differentiation and the social ordering of intra-EU diplomacy
This article makes the case for integrating informal, social and minilateral dynamics in analyses of ‘differentiated integration’ in the European Union (EU) context. In EU studies, differentiated integration has mainly served as an analytical lens for studying variation in states’ degree of formalized commitment to the European integration project or in organizational decision-making procedures across policy areas. While this focus has generated important analytical and empirical insights, three dimensions tend to be lost when limiting the study of differentiated integration to negotiated outcomes manifest in legal documents and decision-making procedures. First, informal processes of integration precede and concur with formal ones. Second, European integration is an inherently social process, and member states integrate with the EU identity-building project in different ways and to different degrees. Third, member states enjoy heterogeneous social ties with one another, routinely forming informal bi- and minilateral coalitions in everyday decision-shaping processes. More knowledge about these informal and social dynamics can give us a better understanding of how differentiated integration manifests itself in practice and where the European integration process is heading. The theoretical argument is buttressed by data from the 2020 European Council of Foreign Relations’ ‘Coalition Explorer’ survey, showing how partner preferences within the EU continue to reflect stable social sub-orders.
How to design EU-level contingency plans for gas shortages? Evidence from behavioural economics, policy research and past experience
In this policy report, we lay out suggestions for the European Union to prepare for possible cuts in gas supply from Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine. Such cuts will result in physical shortages of gas and so, potentially the need to limit consumption and at worst, rationing of gas. We draw on historical examples of managing demand and consumption, from energy and other policy areas, and suggest steps that can be taken to design an acceptable and efficient gas saving scheme.
Interpreting cyber-energy-security events: experts, social imaginaries, and policy discourses around the 2016 Ukraine blackout
We analyse the expert debate around a cyber attack in 2016 that caused an electric power blackout in Ukraine. Two expert reports were crucial for interpreting this event, and there are several competing narratives of cybersecurity where the event plays different roles. We show that the most securitized narratives became more prominent and point to the power wielded by private companies and experts in this field.
The European Union's CBAM as a de facto Climate Club: The Governance Challenges
The European Commission has announced far-reaching reforms to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Among the proposals constituting the European Green Deal is the adoption of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to prevent carbon leakage. In practice, however, CBAM will not only act as a shield for the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) but also incentivize other countries to implement compatible carbon pricing schemes. We argue that the EU's CBAM thus de facto has the features of a climate club, but the current proposals and debate do not address how the club would be governed, addressing them involves a trade-off between maintaining control over the direction and ambition of climate policy and CBAM's legitimacy.