In an age where the present to many seems new and befuddling, the study of International Relations (IR) has increasingly started to look to history, asking: What is the source of our current predicament? Or, to put it more bluntly – how did we end up here?
Over the last two decades, an increasing number of IR scholars have turned to the past, self-consciously describing their work as historical, and engaging in ever more sophisticated theoretical and empirical historical analyses. Where history was often seen simply as a quarry to be mined for data or a testing ground for different theories, today the study of Historical IR is self-consciously engaging in historical research to understand the institutions, processes and trajectories which made the current world. Closely related to History and Historical Sociology, Historical IR asks questions which pertain more specifically to the international.
Researchers at the NUPI Centre for Historical International Politics (CHIP) have been central to the articulation and codification of Historical IR, and the group of scholars at the centre makes it one of the most significant European hubs for this type of research. The research conducted at CHIP mirrors the diverse interests of NUPI researchers in processes of (systemic or structural) continuity and change at a variety of times and places, clustering around three distinct sets of questions:
The establishment of political authority
How have units such as empires, states and regions formed, changed and been reshaped? How they have strived for legitimate authority and sought to codify their rule?
The history of systemic interaction
How has political interaction between political units been established and conducted, in historical systems as well as in the current international system? The focus here is on particular on diplomatic interactions and varieties of violence.
Thinking the international
How has it become possible to think of something as being international? How have different thinkers, discourses and ideologies engaged with the international? Here we focus both on the emergence of international thought and different conceptualisations of the world.
Visit this page to see all our researchers and publications on the topic Historical IR.
NUPI-forsker Halvard Leira og CHOIR-teamet skal forske på begreper i internasjonal politikk.
Å henge med riktig gjeng er like viktig for staten Noreg som det var for deg på ungdomskulen.
George Lawson frå London School of Economics and Political Science presenterer artikkelen sin “Global History and International Relations”.
For å markere etableringa av Senter for historisk internasjonal politikk (CHIP), inviterer vi til foredrag med George Lawson som skal snakke om «Anatomies of Revolution».
I kva situasjonar vel statar mjuke framfor harde former for maktbalansering – altså institusjonelle og økonomiske instrument heller enn formelle militæralliansar og intensiv våpenoppbygging? Når vel dei ein kombinasjon av mjuke og harde midlar? Kva er likskapane og forskjellane mellom korleis mjuk1
NATO fyller 70 år og 1. april inviterer IFS og NUPI til diskusjon om sentrale tema i NATOs historie, og aktuelle utfordringar for Noreg i alliansen.
I 2019 fyller NUPI 60 år. Vi sparkar i gang jubileumsåret med boklansering, og tar ein nærare kikk på kva som har skjedd med vårt «vesle land» gjennom dei siste seks tiåra og visjonen om ei betre organisert verd.
Neil Ketchley skal diskutere sin siste artikkel om korleis protest og opprør spreier seg i ei befolkning.