The Politics of Stability: Cement and Change in Cyber Affairs
In November 2018, the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, inaugurated one year earlier ‘to develop proposals for norms and policies to enhance international security and stability and guide responsible state and non-state behavior in cyberspace’, launched six norms pointing ‘the way to new opportunities for increasing the stability of cyberspace’. However, the Commission has not examined or explained the very concept it was established to explore. Quite the contrary, the Commission argues that its proposed norms will be used to define what cyber stability actually is. Focusing on the interrelationship between international peace and stability, and ways of achieving both in the context of ICTs, the authors will offer a model of stability of cyberspace. They begin by examining the concepts of ‘stability’ and ‘strategic stability’ as understood with regard to international security. This conceptual analysis is followed by a presentation of the political claims of stability expressed in national and international cyber-and information-security discourses. Drawing on the conceptual approaches and the political claims, the report then model the stability of cyberspace in three interlinked and reinforcing dimensions: 1) equal and inclusive international relations; 2) prevention of war: the minimal peace, with emphasis on averting a devastating nuclear war between the superpowers; and 3) the functionality of global and national technical systems and services. After discussing how international law, preventive diplomacy, confidence-building measures, and norms of responsible state behaviour can support cyberspace stability, this report concludes with recommendations for action aimed at helping to create and maintain a stable - resilient and adaptive - cyberspace.
EU Integration and Differentiation for Effectiveness and Accountability (EUIDEA)
EUIDEA is a H2020 project, which aims to break new ground on differentiated integration in terms of conceptual approach, policies and networks. ...
International food trade: From seafood exports to meat from Africa
Why does the price of flowers from Africa multiply on its way to Norway? What explains the success of Norwegian seafood exports?
Putin's Power Revisited: How identity positions and great power interaction condition strategic cooperation in Syria
This article investigates how Russian foreign policies are shaped in a two-level interactive social game. Russian foreign policies take their cue from ingrained identity positions articulated by the state leadership and negotiated in domestic debates, but they are also informed by interaction with other states. The article explains the shift in Russian policies away from pragmatic cooperation with the West in Syria from autumn 2015 onwards. While the Russian leadership initially sought such cooperation, the prominence of anti-Western discourse in Russia following the crisis in Ukraine as well as the West's rejection of Russia in this period spurred Russia to act independently in Syria.
The internal brakes on violent escalation: Why ‘extremists’ or ‘extremist groups’ choose not to engage in violence
Despite the massive expansion of research on violent escalation, there is insufficient answers to why some extremist groups choses not to engage in violence, even if they are capable of doing so.
Breakfast seminar: The global war on journalism
Journalist Peter Greste was in 2014 arrested in Egypt and charged with terrorism. It ended with 400 days behind bars. Greste argues that this is an extreme example of a much wider global assault on the media, and he emphasizes why it is important that we fight back.
Mind the Gap: National Views of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific
Japan has played an intrinsic role in formulating and promoting the concept of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) by making its version a core element of its foreign policy repertoire as it continues to strengthen and expand its presence beyond its immediate neighborhood. This chapter discusses the diplomatic, political, economic and security dimensions of Japan’s FOIP, expanding on both the strengths and challenges of the concept and its implementation.
Norms and Practices in UN Peacekeeping: Evolution and Contestation
The four articles in this special section focus on norms in UN peacekeeping (gender, impartiality, human rights, and environmentalism) and how they are implemented in practice. They look at the evolution of these norms over time; take an explicit theoretical perspective (feminist institutionalism, norm contestation, and securitization); and report the results of original field research in Rwanda, South Sudan, and New York UN headquarters. The articles present a coherent narrative because they all look at practices either explicitly or implicitly, often at the mundane everyday level among troops or UN staff. But the focus on everyday experiences should not betray their theoretical importance: each of the articles uses this empirical material to better understand and theorize international relations. Georgina Holmes provides us with micro-study of norm implementation on the individual level with her bottom-up study of training of female military peacekeepers. Marion Laurence reveals how legitimating practices are changing in tandem with the changing understanding of the impartiality norm. Emily Paddon Rhoads analyzes impartiality as a composite norm and unpacks its procedural and substantive dimensions to reveal how human rights and protection are being privileged to the detriment of a more political understanding of impartiality. Lucile Maertens is forcing us to examine the causal chain of securitization theory by showing how security is shaped by environmentalization.