Publications
Kvinner, fred og sikkerhet i norsk utenrikspolitikk: En politikk med vikeplikt?
Women, Peace and Security in Norwegian Foreign Policy: A Policy of Yielding?Over the past 25 years, Norway has been an important supporter and driving force behind the global effort to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, and has built significant status as a leading actor in this field. As we mark the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, we see that the international community’s commitment to and belief in shared global values – which has laid the foundation for Norway’s status building – is changing. This means that continued strong support for the WPS agenda may not yield the same results in terms of international status and foreign policy capital in the years to come. In this article, we outline what place the WPS agenda has had – and still has – in Norwegian foreign policy, and question the extent to which Norway will have the ability and willingness to continue to play a leading global role on WPS given the current, turbulent, geopolitical situation. The already well-established status as a global leader on WPS means that Norway is well positioned for taking this work forward. However, this will require an approach that is adapted to a changing international system, and a willingness to pursue a policy which is increasingly contested and where the return, at least in the form of status and foreign policy capital, may not come as easily and as quickly as it did in the past.
“BRIexit”: Unravelling Withdrawals from the Belt and Road Initiative
Twelve years into the launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), over 140 countries have joined, but a few have left. These withdrawals, or BRIexit, though limited in number, raise crucial questions about the prospect of Beijing’s flagship initiative and the shifting geopolitical landscape in which it operates. What explains the withdrawals? More importantly, has there been any impact on the legitimacy of the BRI? Whilst some BRIexits stem from economic calculations, others reflect changing state preferences or mounting external pressures—trends that could reshape the BRI’s future, especially under a more aggressive second Trump administration.
Introduksjon: 25 år med kvinner, fred og sikkerhet i nordisk utenrikspolitikk
Over the past 25 years, the Nordic countries have been important supporters and drivers of the global efforts to promote and implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and have built significant status as leading actors in this field. However, there are several rocks in the sea for the future of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Internationally, we are facing major aid cuts, global setbacks against women’s rights, and an increase in war and conflict. It is also unclear how a greater focus on security policy challenges in our regional neighbourhood will affect the work on Women, Peace, and Security in the foreign policy of Nordic countries. In this introductory article for the special issue on “25 years of Women, Peace and Security in Nordic foreign policy”, the guest editors summarize key issues across the contributions. They highlight the role the Women, Peace and Security Agenda has played as a brand for Nordic foreign policy and the implications of the changing security situation in the Nordic region for the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, and ask: What can we learn from the different approaches of the Nordic countries over the years? How have the Nordic countries responded to changes in the global situation? And what can we expect from Nordic cooperation on women, peace and security in the years to come?
Utviklingstrekk i den russiske eliten etter 2022
Utformingen av norsk russlandspolitikk forutsetter innsikt i de interne utviklingene blant russiske beslutningstakere og i den russiske eliten. Dette kunnskapsnotatet flytter blikket vekk fra «kremlologien» og spekulasjoner om palassintriger i Putins indre krets og leverer heller en sammenfattet oppdatering på utviklingene i årene etter fullskalainvasjonen av Ukraina, basert på ledende forskning på strukturelle dynamikker i den russiske politiske og administrative eliten. Kunnskapsnotatet innledes med en kort oppsummering av sentrale paradigmer innen forskningen på russiske eliter: forståelsen av siloviker og teknokrater og skilnadene mellom regionale politiske eliter og føderale administrative eliter. Deretter løfter notatet frem fire sentrale utviklingstrekk i den russiske eliten med utspring i krigen i Ukraina, og vurderer utsiktene fremtiden kan bringe.
Consolidating African-led Peacebuilding Efforts
While the United Nations (UN) holds the primary responsibility for securing global peace, it increasingly emphasises the importance of partnerships with regional organisations. In practice, this means the UN often engages only once peace has been brokered. The wider international community looks to leading regional organisations, such as the African Union (AU) in the case of Africa, to take the lead in peacebuilding. As such, the AU has emerged as a key actor — mobilising international support for peacebuilding across the continent, while also driving the development of significant localised initiatives and anchoring these in state institutions towards advancing peace and stability. However, in persistent, violent conflicts, peacebuilding efforts often take a backseat. Stabilisation frequently takes centre stage, while policymakers focus on immediate humanitarian priorities and the prevention of further violence. As a result, peacebuilding in Africa is rarely uniform across states. It is often concentrated in capitals and urban areas, producing long-term effects that may exacerbate tensions and inadvertently reinforce the very disparities that initially sparked conflict. Peacebuilding is not a neutral process. It can maintain and entrench existing social structures, framing democracy as the sole driver of change while overlooking peacebuilding as a space of political contestation, negotiation and tension, and one that confers or denies legitimacy. This study examines African-led peacebuilding efforts that seek to address conflicts’ structural contradictions and root causes. It calls for a rethink of regional organisations’ approaches to peacebuilding in complex stabilisation environments, advocating for a more adaptive regional peacebuilding strategy that acknowledges its deep interlinkages with stabilisation.
Outcomes from the UN Peace Operations Review Week
Building on the positive synergies created through interdisciplinary, global collaborations, such as the Challenges Forum, the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network, the Global Alliance for Peace Operations and other partners, Peace Operations Review Week brought together the expert community working on issues related to peace operations and global crisis management. This critical mass of expertise aimed to support and inform the Review on the Future of All Forms of Peace Operations – tasked in the 2024 Pact for the Future. Peace Operations Review Week consist of 16 events organised by over 30 organisations on a host of issues related to peace operations, with participation of the Department of Peacebuilding and Political Affairs and the Department of Peace Operations (see full list in the annex). The insights gained during the week were also carried forward into the annual conference of the International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centres (IAPTC) taking place 10-14 November in Vicenza, Italy. “We don’t have the luxury of despairing about how difficult this is.” Ambassador Bob Rae during workshop on “Haiti and the Future of Peace Operations”
Climate Security, Natural Resource Conflict, & Community Resilience in the Lake Chad Basin: A Review of the Literature
The Lake Chad Basin is experiencing severe climate change impacts—including declining rainfall, rising temperatures, droughts, flooding, and shrinking water bodies—that are accelerating livelihood insecurity and ecological collapse. These environmental stresses are acting as threat multipliers, heightening competition over land, water, and fisheries, and intensifying intercommunal violence and displacement across Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. Climate-driven livelihood pressures intersect with structural fragility, contributing to recruitment into violent extremist groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP, while conflict dynamics further undermine coping capacities and social cohesion. A range of responses is underway, led by regional bodies (LCBC), national governments, international partners (UNDP, GEF, World Bank), and local communities, focusing on adaptation, ecosystem restoration, natural resource governance, and resilience-building. However, gaps remain in institutional capacity, climate-security governance, and inclusion of vulnerable groups—particularly women—whose adaptive options are constrained. Strengthening resilience will require integrated climate-security strategies, robust early-warning systems, empowered local institutions, and investments in sustainable livelihoods.
Ukraine: Sobered after Four Years of Indecision
In the Multinational Force Ukraine series of policy briefs leading experts from allied countries assess key factors for participation in the Multinational Force Ukraine. This includes the political willingness of allies to deploy troops—on the ground, in the air, or at sea—to establish a military presence in or around Ukraine. They also examine the conditions for such deployments to occur (before, during, or after peace negotiations), the roles these forces would be expected to perform (defensive or offensive), the red lines imposed by national governments, and the specific capabilities each country could realistically contribute. This brief analyses the Ukraine.
United States: Europe with Eyes Wide Shut
In the Multinational Force Ukraine series of policy briefs leading experts from allied countries assess key factors for participation in the Multinational Force Ukraine. This includes the political willingness of allies to deploy troops—on the ground, in the air, or at sea—to establish a military presence in or around Ukraine. They also examine the conditions for such deployments to occur (before, during, or after peace negotiations), the roles these forces would be expected to perform (defensive or offensive), the red lines imposed by national governments, and the specific capabilities each country could realistically contribute. This brief analyses the United States.
Neglecting Local Realities: the Negative Impact of Protection in Abyei
The United Nations Security Council created the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (unisfa) in June 2011 to monitor the ceasefire and the demilitarisation of Abyei. The deployment of unisfa has led scholars to argue that unisfa’s protection of civilian operations and predicted favourable troop-to-population ratios have contributed to its noticeable success. However, the dynamics in Abyei have changed over the last few years, with an increase in inter and intra-communal violence. This has acclimated the mission being faced with new forms of criminality, violence and actor dynamics—such as the use of local and neighbouring militia for hire. Drawing on an interpretivist analysis of data generated from the single case study of unisfa, the paper argues that unisfa’s inability to use force at the start to protect has led the mission over time to entrench itself further inwardly, leading to patterns of passive response(s) to protection matters. As a result, unisfa implementation of Protection of Civilians (poc), neglects localisation realities producing further negative effects. The overreliance on the two-dimensional lens inhibits the mission’s ability to tactical evaluate, pivot and redeploy diverse tools that can support a response to protection issues. Consequently, unisfa’s failure to adapt to an evolving conflict environment allows dissatisfied communities to take matters into their own hands, resulting in further loss of trust in the mission.