Diplomacy and foreign policy

India in the Multilateral System: UN, Bretton Woods and Club Governance

Nordisk drejning i nordområderne

Engelsk: In the Norwegian Government’s new High North strategy, the Nordic region has a more prominent role. What does that mean – for the High North and for Nordic cooperation?

Handlingsrom og norsk støtte til kvinner, fred og sikkerhet i Afghanistan og Sudan

This article examines how Norwegian support for the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in Afghanistan and Sudan is affected by factors such as war, humanitarian crises and democratic decline. In the article, the authors look more closely at the factors that influence the support provided, and how the relevant actors respond to changes in the framework conditions. The authors find that the work is affected by changes in the political space, including armed conflict and democratic decline. The situation is somewhat different in the two countries, but in both cases, the absence of official cooperation with the countries’ central authorities requires Norway to take a more flexible approach to the WPS work and to direct more of its efforts toward the local level. In both Sudan and Afghanistan, there are local variations in terms of humanitarian access and willingness to work with the WPS agenda. In other words, there is room for Norway to continue its work to support the implementation the WPS agenda in these contexts, although in countries affected by crisis and conflict this often must be done differently than in countries where Norway has an embassy or official cooperation with the local authorities.

Kvinner, fred og sikkerhet i norsk utenrikspolitikk: En politikk med vikeplikt?

Women, Peace and Security in Norwegian Foreign Policy: A Policy of Yielding?Over the past 25 years, Norway has been an important supporter and driving force behind the global effort to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, and has built significant status as a leading actor in this field. As we mark the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, we see that the international community’s commitment to and belief in shared global values – which has laid the foundation for Norway’s status building – is changing. This means that continued strong support for the WPS agenda may not yield the same results in terms of international status and foreign policy capital in the years to come. In this article, we outline what place the WPS agenda has had – and still has – in Norwegian foreign policy, and question the extent to which Norway will have the ability and willingness to continue to play a leading global role on WPS given the current, turbulent, geopolitical situation. The already well-established status as a global leader on WPS means that Norway is well positioned for taking this work forward. However, this will require an approach that is adapted to a changing international system, and a willingness to pursue a policy which is increasingly contested and where the return, at least in the form of status and foreign policy capital, may not come as easily and as quickly as it did in the past.

“BRIexit”: Unravelling Withdrawals from the Belt and Road Initiative

Twelve years into the launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), over 140 countries have joined, but a few have left. These withdrawals, or BRIexit, though limited in number, raise crucial questions about the prospect of Beijing’s flagship initiative and the shifting geopolitical landscape in which it operates. What explains the withdrawals? More importantly, has there been any impact on the legitimacy of the BRI? Whilst some BRIexits stem from economic calculations, others reflect changing state preferences or mounting external pressures—trends that could reshape the BRI’s future, especially under a more aggressive second Trump administration.

Introduksjon: 25 år med kvinner, fred og sikkerhet i nordisk utenrikspolitikk

Over the past 25 years, the Nordic countries have been important supporters and drivers of the global efforts to promote and implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and have built significant status as leading actors in this field. However, there are several rocks in the sea for the future of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Internationally, we are facing major aid cuts, global setbacks against women’s rights, and an increase in war and conflict. It is also unclear how a greater focus on security policy challenges in our regional neighbourhood will affect the work on Women, Peace, and Security in the foreign policy of Nordic countries. In this introductory article for the special issue on “25 years of Women, Peace and Security in Nordic foreign policy”, the guest editors summarize key issues across the contributions. They highlight the role the Women, Peace and Security Agenda has played as a brand for Nordic foreign policy and the implications of the changing security situation in the Nordic region for the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, and ask: What can we learn from the different approaches of the Nordic countries over the years? How have the Nordic countries responded to changes in the global situation? And what can we expect from Nordic cooperation on women, peace and security in the years to come?

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.