The Grammar of Status Competition: International Hierarchies and Domestic Politics
States do not only strive for wealth and security, but international status too. A burgeoning body of research has documented that states of all sizes spend considerable time, energy, and even blood and treasure when seeking status on the world stage. Yet, for all scholars' success in identifying instances of status seeking, they lack agreement on the nature of the international hierarchies that states are said to compete within. Making sense of this status ambiguity remains the key methodological and theoretical challenge facing status research in international relations scholarship. In The Grammar of Status Competition, Paul David Beaumont tackles this puzzle head on by making a strength out of status' widely acknowledged slipperiness. Given that states, statesmen, and citizens care about and pursue status despite its difficulty to assess, Beaumont argues that we can study international status hierarchies through these actors' attempts to grapple with this same status ambiguity. The book thus redirects inquiry toward the theories of international status (TIS) that governments and citizens themselves produce and use to make sense of their state's position in the world. Advancing a new framework for studying such TIS, the book illuminates how specific theories of international status emerge, solidify, and become contested, and how these processes influence domestic and foreign policy. Showcasing the value of a TIS approach via multiple historical case studies—from nuclear arms control to Norwegian education policy—Beaumont thereby addresses three major puzzles in IR status research: why states compete for status when the international rewards seem ephemeral; how states can escape the zero-sum game associated with quests for positional status; and how status scholars can overcome the methodological problem of disentangling status from other motivations
Reimagining NATO after Crimea: Defender of the rule-based order and truth?
Russia’s annexation of Crimea and war on Ukraine has led to upheaval in NATO’s discourse and practice. Taking a step back from the security debate, this article contends that the very process of responding to Russian aggression has led to the reimagining of NATO’s identity. While NATO tends to present change as continuity, this article’s mixed methods analysis illuminates how a trio of new and ambitious self-representations have risen to prominence within NATO’s post-Crimea discourse. NATO has anointed itself defender of the international rules-based order and purveyor of truth and facts amidst a world of disinformation, while pushing a resilience policy agenda that expands its authority into new domestic domains. Problematizing these shifts, the article warns that NATO’s new narrative ignores its own role in the problems it seeks to solve and thus risks undermining NATO efforts to rally global support for Ukraine.
Norske interesser og multilateralt samarbeid. Multimeldingen – fem år etter
The White Paper 'Norway’s role and interests in multilateral cooperation' (Report to the Storting No. 27 – 2018-2019) – hereafter called 'the Multilateral Report' – contains a thorough analysis of multilateral cooperation and Norwegian interests. It describes the various functions of multilateral cooperation, how disagreements between major powers affect such cooperation, and how this impacts Norwegian interests. The White Paper was submitted to the Storting in June 2019. By that time, Russia had already annexed Crimea, the U.S., under President Trump, had shown a more negative attitude towards multilateral cooperation, and China’s desire to influence multilateral cooperation was evident. At the same time, the report preceded the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent criticism from low- and middle-income countries of how Western nations handled the pandemic, as these countries did not have the same access to vaccines. And, not least: the report came before Russia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine, Hamas’ attack on Israel, and the ensuing war in Gaza. Although the rivalry between the U.S. and China was already increasing in 2019, five years later, it has a more defining character for international politics. The developments in recent years show even more clearly than before that the norm that international problems are best solved through multilateral cooperation has weakened. The Multilateral Report pointed to several causes for this, primarily increased rivalry and the preference of major powers for bilateral solutions, and how, for example, China has succeeded in influencing the interpretation of human rights in multilateral forums. In this report, we discuss how the analysis and conclusions of the White Paper hold up five years later. The short version is that they hold up well: the analysis of increased rivalry and the growing 'bilateralization' of international cooperation has proven to align more with the reality than one might wish. At the same time, we paint a somewhat more complex picture than what was described in the Multilateral Report, focusing on fragmentation and the emergence of a significant ecosystem of informal governance initiatives that supplement but also alter the nature of the multilateral system. We also discuss in some detail the importance of analyzing how the various functions of the multilateral system are affected by rivalry, bilateralization, and fragmentation. Such a discussion is relevant in order to assess which multilateral functions are most important for safeguarding Norwegian interests. For example, it is not a given that support for a multilateral organization is an effective measure to promote a 'rules-based' order. We conclude with a discussion on how Norway should relate to the fact that our interest in a rules-based order will not be the same if the content of the rules reflects less of the values they do today. The report focuses on changes in the multilateral system and does not analyze specific multilateral organizations. Rather, we use examples from various multilateral organizations to try to illustrate more general trends. For example, we do not have a specific analysis of NATO or the EU as multilateral organizations. Both can be characterized as multilateral since both have three or more members, but the distinctive nature of the EU and NATO reflects less the developments in multilateral organizations more generally.
PODCAST: Friendship in international politics
International politics are influenced by states' values and interests. But can states develop friendship? And in what way can these friendships influence international politics?
From the incoming editors: A leading International Relations journal with a Nordic touch
The new editors of Cooperation and Conflict introduce themselves and their aims for the journal going forward.
Extreme moderates: Understanding low levels of violent extremism in Bosnia-Herzegovina
How can low levels of violent extremism in enabling environments be explained? The post-war history of Bosnia-Herzegovina has been marked by prolonged political crises, economic instability, and precarious security for citizens. The combination of a relatively young, unstable democracy and social grievances creates fertile soil for different forms of radicalization and the proliferation of various extremist ideologies. This has, in turn, allowed extra-institutional groups to challenge formal institutions. Despite this, there have been few violent extremist attacks, and those that have been carried out were small-scale and failed to expose any deep reservoir of violent extremism. What, then, does this deviant case reveal? Utilizing social movement theory and political opportunity structures, this article explores how structural conditions in the political and discursive space of Bosnia-Herzegovina affect the protest repertoires of extremist movements. Two main arguments are put forward. First, extra-institutional groups must be understood as rational actors with broader claims that exceed the use of violence. Second, distinguishing between radicalization that links to violent extremism and radicalization that aims to initiate societal change through non-violent means can help us better understand the dynamics behind societal change in fragile environments.
Even as war continues, NATO should open the door to defense integration with Ukraine
Ensuring Ukraine prevails on the battlefield will be imperative to securing the European continent. It is time for NATO to get smarter about its Ukraine strategy, including the messaging that articulates that strategy. At the moment, NATO and its constituent members are attempting to walk the line between reassuring Ukraine of NATO countries’ commitments to its security and seeking to avoid escalation into a nuclear confrontation with Russia. Avoiding such escalation is a legitimate concern, but it is not enough to constitute a strategy. What NATO should do instead is steadily build defense and deterrence against Russian aggression in Ukraine by integrating it into its structures step by step. This will mean some degree of Ukrainian integration with NATO, even while Russia’s invasion is ongoing, writes Karsten Friis in this op-ed.
The Evolution of US Military Presence on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Reassuring Allies, Deterring Russia, and Managing Escalation
Concurrent with increasing Russian revanchism and aggression from 2014, the US approach to military presence on NATO’s Eastern flank has evolved. Overall, the development could be perceived as change in rationale from reassurance of allies to deterrence of Russia by punishment and, in recent years, deterrence by denial. This has resulted in altered structures for presence, resulting in changes of dispositions on the ground that has contributed to increasing the credibility of NATO’s deterrence doctrine. The rhetorical offensiveness of U.S. strategic communication has also become more powerful and exercise activity scaled up. This indicates a change in US perception of escalating activity. There is persistent bipartisan agreement on the continuation of US deep-engagement in Europe, with similar perceptions in the US military-leadership. This underpins the theory of an “institutionalized practice” of military presence and Great Power Persistence. The enhanced credibility of US-NATO deterrence on the Eastern flank lowers the likelihood of fait accompli-scenarios. This has security implications for countries located elsewhere that Russia may wish to challenge, both conventionally and through Hybrid means.