Assessing Alternative Alignments: China’s Reception of the Quad, Aukus and IPEF
Under President Xi Jinping, China has developed its own vision of political and strategic order on a global scale, with the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) being a major part of it. Anchoring itself in over 150 countries and organizations, the colossal undertaking instigated a new literature on how it should be understood in the context of inter-state dynamics, world order and power distribution. The BRI also precipitated a number of alternative alignments from major Western economies such as the US, Japan and the EU that involve both infrastructure-specific initiatives and broader foreign and security policy objectives in the Indo-Pacific region. Over a decade since the BRI’s inception, the menu of these alternatives has become significantly longer, yet we still know little about how their standalone policies compare and how they are perceived and received by Beijing. This chapter considers three of the major alternative alignments to counter Chinese influence, namely: (1) the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), (2) AUKUS, and (3) Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). It directs analysis to the alternatives’ major attributes and evolutions before comparing and contrasting China’s reception of them. Analysis is based on a review of government statements, academic literature, policy documents and media articles.
Norway and the EU undergoing change
This project examines how the EU's developments in security, economy, democracy, green transition, and health affect Norway. ...
The EU should get serious about maritime security in the Middle East and the Gulf
To achieve its global maritime ambitions, the EU must strengthen its presence in the Middle East and the Gulf. The current geopolitical climate offers a chance to become a key maritime security provider and a reliable partner to actors in the region. Securing shipping lanes from the Mediterranean to the Gulf is crucial for the EU’s economy, its energy supply, and its geopolitical influence. This policy note argues that the EU should (1) overcome fragmentation in its maritime operations in the region; and (2) emphasize the distinct ‘European approach’ to maritime security.
Dumper Trump Europa?
USA og Europa har samarbeidet tett i over 80 år, men etter Trump ble president er alt snudd på hodet. Er forholdet mellom Europa og USA over? I de...
Repatriation of Foreign Terrorist Fighters and Families in Central Asia
What happens when foreign fighters return home? How do states approach repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration?
Care, Control and Calories: A Genealogy of Measuring International Undernutrition
This article documents the historical development of the calory and its application in international measurement of undernutrition. It provides an empirical account of the origins of caloric measurement as a scientific instrument, its uptake into international statistics on undernutrition produced by the League of Nations and the United Nations, and eventual use in monitoring global development goals. The historical analysis explores and discusses how a dialectic of care and control is embedded in macrosocial measurement of hunger: Caloric statistics have served as a condition of possibility for states and international agencies to render food systems governable through constituting a novel form of legibility that pushed the frontiers for modern schemes of top-down intervention and control. Such measurements have furthermore served as a vital resource to legitimize and justify the ambitions of the UN and modern development agenda, serving to establish and shape grand narratives of humanity’s progress under different food regimes. Based on this historical analysis, the article provides a normative and epistemic argument for centring the perspectives and knowledges of those affected by hunger in the enumeration of nutrition and food security. Such democratic agency should however not just be an object of measurement but be leveraged through participatory methodologies that draw upon the voices of the food insecure to better capture the multidimensional nature of food security through numbers.
The New Geography of Danger: Japan’s Shifting Role in Regional and Global Security
This project will contribute with knowledge and competence building about Japan’s shifting role as a security actor in the Indo-Pacific region and globally. ...
Verden brenner. Hordan formidles det til barna våre?
Op-ed in the Norwegian media outlet Aftenposten.
Stat, nasjon, utenrikspolitikk. Nyheter for barn i hverdag og krise
This article examines how two Norwegian news media outlets targeted at children present the world and Norwegian foreign policy to their audiences, in ordinary times and during crises. Our theoretical starting point is that self-images and worldviews are constructed and reconstructed on a daily basis, and that national identity formation begins at a young age. Existing scholarship highlights that news media are important arenas for such identity-building, including in shaping perceptions of the role one’s own state can and does play in the world. However, few studies have explored how children’s news media present and make sense of the world and foreign policy actions. Based on our Norwegian case study, we observe that children’s news media aim to make today’s (and tomorrow’s) world more comprehensible and less alien, soothe anxieties, and educate future political subjects. Meanwhile, critical perspectives on Norwegian foreign policy are less prominent. Instead, we find that children’s news media tend to reinforce what we may call dominant representations of Norway’s role in the world.
Webinar: Civic mobilisations in hybrid regimes – A transnational perspective on Serbia and Georgia
How are grassroots movements in Serbia and Georgia reshaping civic activism and challenging power structures?