Building peace through a sustainable environment
Why should we connect the environment to issues of peace and conflict? And in a world of dramatically increased geopolitical tensions, is it possi...
The next migration crisis: Is the EU better prepared?
In this podcast episode we take a closer look on how the EU will handle a new migration crisis. A new wave of mass migration to Europe might be bu...
Abkhazia between Russia and the outside world
De facto states - states that have failed to win international recognition - have long been understudied 'blank spots,' overlooked in academic lit...
Putin’s potential headache: The anti-mobilization protests in North Caucasus
After Vladimir Putin’s announcement of the partial mobilization of the war in Ukraine in September, people, and in particular women, took to the s...
Rethinking radicalisation and resilience in Mali and the Sahel
What does resilience against radicalisation and violent extremism look like in Mali and the Sahel? And which drivers are present for the spread of...
Russian youth, war, and independent journalists in exile
The Russian online magazine DOXA is this year's winner of the Norwegian Student Peace Prize. The committee highlights their work exposing corrupti...
Security realities of freezing politics and thawing landscapes in the Arctic
Russia’s re-invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has had immediate and ongoing effects for Arctic security and cooperative governance at both a regional an...
How to make UN peace operations more effective?
The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has set a process in motion to re-think the UN’s role in peace and security in the current global cont...
How Ad Hoc Coalitions Deinstitutionalize International Institutions
As ad hoc coalitions (AHCs) proliferate, particularly on the African continent, two questions crystallize. First, what consequences do they bring about for the existing institutional security landscape? And second, how can the trend of AHCs operating alongside instead of inside regional organizations be captured and explored conceptually? To answer these questions, we closely examine the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) fighting Boko Haram and its changing relationship to the African Union (AU). Through the case study and a review of policy and academic literatures, the article launches the concept of deinstitutionalization and how it can be characterized. We identify three features of deinstitutionalization – AHCs can bypass standard procedures for decision-making processes; whittle down established institutional scripts, and shift resource allocations. We detail how the AHCs contribute to changing practices of financing international peace and security operations, with an examination of EU and UN policies and practices. In sum, the paper unwraps the processes of deinstitutionalization and identifies three forms of rationales for this process – lack of problem-solving capacity, limited adaptability and path dependency.