Japan and Strategic Connectivity: Policies, Partners, and Possibilities
This report analyses the increasingly important role of infrastructure development and connectivity as a central arena of global geopolitical competition, particularly focusing on Japan’s connectivity policy under the banner of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific. The core aim of this report is to explore how Japan seeks to utilise strategic connectivity, specifically through its multi-layered approach, as a pivotal geopolitical instrument to project influence and promote a rules-based order, amidst rising competition with China. The report offers ten actionable policy recommendations, in particular, for the European Union.
Japan and Strategic Connectivity: Policies, Partners, and Possibilities
This report analyses the increasingly important role of infrastructure development and connectivity as a central arena of global geopolitical competition, particularly focusing on Japan’s connectivity policy under the banner of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific. The core aim of this report is to explore how Japan seeks to utilise strategic connectivity, specifically through its multi-layered approach, as a pivotal geopolitical instrument to project influence and promote a rules-based order, amidst rising competition with China. The report offers ten actionable policy recommendations, in particular, for the European Union.
Vedlegg til Kunnskapsnotat 1/2026: Utvalg av repressive lover og paragrafer i russisk lovverk
Utvalg av repressive lover og paragrafer i russisk lovverk. Oppdatert 10.02.2026. Vedlegg til Kunnskapsnotat 1/2026
Russlands undertrykking gjennom lovverk etter 2022
Siden 2012 har Russland vært preget av stadig mer undertrykkende lover, som kan sees i sammenheng med ytterligere maktkonsolidering under Putins regime. Mens de undertrykkende bestemmelsene tidligere først og fremst rammet opposisjonelle stemmer og dissidenter, viser utviklingen etter 2022 at også brede deler av befolkningen nå blir berørt. Lovverket som omfatter utenlandske agenter, uønskede organisasjoner, terrorisme og ekstremisme, utgjør de mest repressivt rettede delene og bidrar i betydelig grad til alvorlige brudd på menneskerettigheter som ytrings-, organisasjons- og forsamlingsfrihet. Den russiske befolkningen befinner seg nå i en stadig mer vanskelig situasjon, der rommet for kritikk av regimet i praksis er blitt nærmest ikke-eksisterende.
Emotional assertiveness: China's coercive diplomacy against non-state actors
While the economic, political and military instruments of China's coercive diplomacy have been intensely studied in recent years, its emotional dimension has largely been overlooked. This article investigates China's ‘emotional assertiveness’ as a distinct discursive practice of coercion in which state representatives publicly express moral indignation and urge offenders to apologize for violating China's red lines. It examines several western non-state actors targeted by China in this way, as these unexplored cases provide a unique perspective on the role played by emotions in state coercive diplomacy. Specifically, they demonstrate how identity-related emotionalized concerns, rather than instrumental and strategic considerations, may sometimes constitute the underlying motivational driver of China's assertiveness. Apart from carving out new space for a non-rationalist approach to coercive diplomacy within the International Relations discipline, the article develops the key components of China's emotional assertiveness, arguing that it is fuelled by moral indignation, rather than anger; is triggered by a perceived wrong; is nurtured by identity-related concerns; and is manifested in repeated demands for repentance. To illustrate China's practice of emotional assertiveness, the article analyses two specific cases: Intel's instruction in 2021 to its suppliers to avoid products from Xinjiang and an opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal in early 2020, titled ‘China is the real sick man of Asia’.
Ghosting diplomacy: China's silent treatment amid great power competition
If diplomacy is about communication, how does ghosting communicate? China has increasingly used ghosting or silent treatment when practising diplomacy. It has purposefully cut off high-level communication channels with its ‘significant others’ in recent years. When and why does China ghost other states, including its most important partners? How does strategic ghosting fit with the more combative turn in China's ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ under Xi Jinping? Current scholarship on emotional diplomacy largely focuses on the display of emotions but rarely deals with diplomacy in which the expressions of emotions are covert. This article argues that ghosting diplomacy usually follows a perceived severe violation of core interests; rather than directly displaying emotions like anger, silent treatment is a covert aggression that is punitive by nature. Building on works of emotional diplomacy, security studies and social psychology, this article contributes to the conceptualization and theorization of interstate silent treatment in International Relations and unravels the motives of states to resort to this strategy. Through discourse analysis in a single case-study on China's silent treatment of the United States in the aftermath of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in 2022 and the 2023 incident involving suspected surveillance balloons, the research provides a thick description and explanation of how China's ghosting diplomacy unfolded amid heightened geopolitical tensions between the two great powers. As such, it is relevant for both scholars and policy-makers working in foreign policy, in that it sheds light on this covert aggressive form of diplomacy, and on how states can best respond to it.
Czech and Norwegian perspectives on new security threats concerning Russian war on Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has disrupted the world’s energy system. The most urgent need was to phase out the EU’s dependence on Russian energy imports and find a quick replacement. In this joint paper, we approach the issue from two different perspectives of the Czech Republic and Norway, looking for intersections and identifying opportunities to strengthen cooperation and facilitate the accelerated energy transition and diversification. We conclude that both countries have taken immediate action in addressing the most pressing energy-related risks. The potential for closer cooperation is obvious. Both countries should maximise the level of collaboration by taking advantage of existing institutional frameworks (NATO and EU/EEA). In the energy dimension, the key to cooperation in the short term is gas (investment in production in Norway, development of export pipelines or protecting critical sub-sea infrastructure). In the longer term, both countries should jointly cooperate on developing of hydrogen market, including production and transportation.
Fokusnummer: Norge og EU i endring
What do you do when the EEA Agreement is no longer sufficient? This special issue of the journal Internasjonal politikk highlights the challenges Norway faces as the EU evolves and a demanding international environment puts Norwegian interests under pressure. Marianne Riddervold, Pernille Rieker, and Tine Elisabeth Johnsen Brøgger examine challenges in security and defence; Guri Rosén addresses trade and economic security; Frode Veggeland and Martin Stangborli Time focus on health preparedness; Merethe Dotterud Leiren, Marie Byskov Lindberg, and Kacper Szulecki analyse the energy transition; and John Erik Fossum and Trym Fjørtoft discuss the state of democracy in Europe. As editor, Pernille Rieker has also written the issue’s editorial.
Non-Western Visions of International Order
The scholarship on the concept of order has been expanding within international relations. The continuous upheaval of world politics first triggered a broad debate on the resilience of the liberal international order (LIO), which then led to scholarship on alternative conceptions of order, especially outside of the West. This review focuses on this body of research on non-Western views of order. It is structured geographically, taking a tour of scholarship from and on East and Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and Eurasia. Although each region has its own intellectual traditions, we observe that these views portray the LIO in a less idealized form, exposing its hierarchical and Western-centered nature. However, while pushing for more inclusive and plural arrangements, these critiques have not yet amounted to the articulation of radical alternative ordering projects.