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16281. Russia’s view of Georgia: a NATO proxy yet again?

Author:
Julie Wilhelmsen
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
After the crises in Ukraine, and despite the Georgian government’s allegedly more pragmatic attitude towards Russia, official statements from Moscow increasingly project Georgia as hostile. This may be the result of the Kremlin stepping up a propaganda campaign to put pressure on Georgia, but it is also linked to growing perceptions of Georgia as becoming an agent of NATO. Moreover, Russia’s increasingly insistent rhetorical and practical support for the independent status of the two Georgian breakaway republics, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, is still framed with reference to Kosovo as a tit-for-tat in a conflict with the West. In parallel with this hardening in Russian views, there is hardly any diplomatic contact between Russia and Georgia. The regional multilateral frameworks have become dysfunctional, obstructed by polarization. Further Georgian NATO integration could entail an increasing risk of war, unless frank discussions and engagement with Russia can be promoted.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, NATO, and Proxy War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Georgia

16282. Brothers in Arms and Faith? The Emerging US-Central and Eastern Europe ‘Special Relationship’

Author:
Vibeke Schou Tjalve and Minda Holm
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In this policy note, we explore the nature, strength and tensions of the contemporary US-Central Eastern Europe relationship. We describe the expanding US-CEE ‘brotherhood in arms’: growing trade relations, intensified military cooperation, and rekindled diplomatic ties. Further, we unpack the striking and largely ignored dimensions of the US-CEE ‘brotherhood in faith’: the many ways in which the United States and Central and Eastern Europe are tied together by overlapping ideologies of national conservatism and a particular version of Christian ‘family values’. This involves addressing the complexities of an increasingly influential and ambitious Visegrád Group, whose key players – Poland and Hungary – may be brothers, but are by no means twins. It also means raising some broader, burning discussions about the future of NATO and the meaning of ‘Europe’. Universalist, multicultural and postnational? Or conservative, Christian and sovereigntist?
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, Military Affairs, and Trade
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe, North America, Central Europe, and United States of America

16283. China’s role in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Considerations for Norway

Author:
Hans Jørgen Gåsemyr
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
China’s role as an international development actor is growing, with real and increasing potential to impact Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). On some issues, Chinese initiatives align well with Norwegian interests, but China’s approach to development also diverges on some key practices and norms. While Chinese international efforts meet mixed reactions, Norway should stake out its own course for when and how to engage with China over SDGs.
Topic:
Development, International Organization, United Nations, and Sustainable Development Goals
Political Geography:
China, Europe, Norway, and Asia

16284. COVID-19 and the African Union. Challenges, prospects and side-effects

Author:
Cedric H. de Coning
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The African Union is coordinating the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Africa, but the measures introduced are also significantly disrupting the reforms, programmes and operations of the AU.
Topic:
International Organization, African Union, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Africa

16285. Russian approaches to military technology. The Northern dimension

Author:
Jakub M. Godzimirski
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This policy brief presents the main findings of a project on Russian approaches to technological challenges, and the implications for security developments in the High North. It begins by examining the Russian debate on the technological challenges identified as posing a threat to national security by the country’s policymakers. Next, it explores how these challenges have been dealt with by Russia in the post-2014 context, paying special attention to developments in the field of military technology and how President Putin has taken advantage of these to address questions of strategic balance. Finally, the brief sets out the strategic implications for Norway, as NATO’s representative in this northern corner and Russia’s direct neighbour.
Topic:
Development, Military Affairs, and Vladimir Putin
Political Geography:
Russia and Norway

16286. The impact of COVID-19 on the performance of peace operations

Author:
Cedric H. de Coning
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Between the African Union, European Union, OSCE, NATO and United Nations there are approximately 160,000 civilian, police and military personnel deployed in more than 50 missions. These missions have all been forced to take unprecedented steps to adapt and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be just the beginning and much more significant reductions and changes in the way these operations function may be needed over the coming months.
Topic:
United Nations, International Affairs, European Union, African Union, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Africa

16287. China, India and the political economy of medical supplies

Author:
Stein Sundstol Eriksen
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Summary: • The pandemic and lockdowns threaten the supply of medicines, especially from India • Poor countries relying on supplies of cheap Indian medicines are especially vulnerable • New medicines and vaccines are likely to be developed and patented by Western companies and will be expensive. • Norway should help fund the supply of medicines and promote reforms of patent rules to make medicines more affordable
Topic:
Political Economy, Asia, Vaccine, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, India, and Asia

16288. Lessons from the Ebola Crisis in West Africa: Community engagement, crisis communication and countering rumours

Author:
Frida Bjørneseth, Morten Bøås, Henriette U. Erstad, Alessia Iocchi, and Kari M. Osland
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
What lessons can we draw from the 2014-2016 Ebola crisis in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone? While both the outbreak itself and the context is different, there are enough similarities between the Ebola crisis and COVID-19 to extract useful lessons and best practices. In this research note, the focus is on three key lessons from the Ebola experience: community engagement, crisis communication and countering the rumour mill. In the world’s most fragile states, an uncontrolled outbreak of COVID-19 would have devastating consequences for the population. In a scenario where the spread of the coronavirus is under control in large parts of the world, the survival of COVID-19 in fragile states would also most certainly be a source for new waves of infections to the rest of the world. Not only do fragile states lack capacity to react adequately on their own, but their ability to utilise external support and assistance is limited due to low absorption capacity.
Topic:
Ebola, Crisis Management, Public Health, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Africa and West Africa

16289. Preventing Organized Crime. The Need for a Context-Sensitive, System-Wide Approach.

Author:
Kari M. Osland and Arthur Boutellis
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Recent years have seen important developments regarding the UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat. The Security Council, which has increasingly recognized organized crime as a serious threat to international peace and security—especially in relation to terrorism—has begun using sanctions to deal with organized crime and trafficking in Mali and Libya. Further, serious and organized crime (SOC) police units have been established in several UN field operations, including in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mali. However, there is still no UN-wide policy on organized crime, and the issue has been conspicuously absent from recent strategic documents such as the Action for Peacekeeping Declaration (A4P). This report argues that there is need for a UN system-wide approach to peace operations for preventing and addressing organized crime, and its links to terrorism. To achieve this, UN member states and the UN Secretariat should seek to consolidate and broaden its nascent law enforcement capacity- building police approach into a context sensitive, system-wide approach. Six specific recommendations for the way forward are offered.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, International Organization, United Nations, Peace, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16290. COVID-19 will change the way the UN conducts peacekeeping operations in the future Published: 6 May 2020

Author:
Cedric H. de Coning
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted UN peacekeeping operations. In the short-term, activities have been reduced to the most critical, rotations have been frozen, and most staff are working remotely. Most of the missions have adapted remarkably well, but even more extreme changes are likely in the medium term, as the global economic recession that will follow in the wake of the virus may force UN peace operations to drastically contract in size and scope.
Topic:
United Nations, Peacekeeping, Peace, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Africa and Global Focus

16291. The Impact of Covid-19 on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.

Author:
Kari M. Osland, Maria Gilen Røysamb, and Jenny Nortvedt
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Summary: • Women appear to be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 • Pushback on global commitment to gender equality • Gender equality and human development are correlated: focussing on gender equality will have a catalytic effect on the SDGs • The increasing strain on peace operations is likely to have a negative effect on the WPS agenda.
Topic:
Security, International Organization, United Nations, Women, Peace, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16292. Conventional arms control on the Korean Peninsula: The current state and prospects

Author:
Yong-Sup Han
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
At the end of 2017, the Korean Peninsula reached the brink of a nuclear war, as the US president Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un exchanged words of nuclear threats each other. A tug of war as to whose nuclear button is bigger and stronger exacerbated the nuclear crisis. However, the South Korean President Moon Jae-in intervened to resolve the crisis by taking advantage of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. In doing so, President Moon intended to pursue denuclearisation and peace-building on the Korean Peninsula at the same time. North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un responded positively to the South Korean call to hold the inter-Korean summit and the Trump-Kim summit. In order to end the Korean war and promote peace-building on the Korean Peninsula including termination of hostile acts on inter-Korean relations, the two Koreas adopted the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration, the September 19th Pyongyang Joint Declaration and the Inter-Korean Military Agreement at their summit in 2018. The Military Agreement is aimed at reducing tension and building trust between the two Koreas through conventional arms control, while the North Korean nuclear issue is being resolved through the US-DPRK summit. The September 19th Military Agreement is a modest but remarkable success in arms control history when compared with a long-term stalemate or even retreat in the contemporary international arms control arena. Indeed, arms control is at its lowest point in history, so dim are its prospects. Nevertheless, heated debates are taking place, both at home inside South Korea and abroad, over the legitimacy and rationality of the Sept. 19th Military Agreement. With little progress on the denuclearisation issue at the Kim-Trump summit and no sign of easing economic sanctions on Pyongyang, North Korea has test-fired short-range missiles ten times to exert pressure on the United States, undermining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. Against this backdrop, this policy brief intends to analyse the true meaning of the September 19 Military Agreement between the two Koreas, to identify its problems and policy implications in order to draw up supplementary measures to implement it successfully. Furthermore, the paper will draw some implications for the relationship between progress on North Korea’s denuclearisation issue and further conventional arms control on the Korean Peninsula.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

16293. COVID-19 in Latin America: Challenges, responses, and consequences

Author:
Peder Østebø and Vegard Bye
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
While containment efforts were quickly implemented in many countries, COVID-19 may still prove to have a long-lasting effect in Latin America, a region already marked by economic disarray and political instability. Economic projections suggest that Latin American economies will be among the most affected by the current halt in global trade and consumption. As many countries have recently faced political turmoil, massive containment efforts raise a number of questions on legitimacy and citizen-state relations. In some countries, democratic processes essential for the upholding of democratic legitimacy have been halted. In Brazil, the central government’s handling of the crisis has been an important factor contributing to a severe political crisis. A geopolitical vacuum may provide China with an opportunity to increase its importance for the region.
Topic:
Economics, Geopolitics, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Destabilization
Political Geography:
China and Latin America

16294. The spiralling effects of the Sino-American trade war

Author:
Marc Lanteigne
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Almost two years ago, China and the United States instigated a trade conflict which has had serious international effects, a situation since exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. What has truly made a solution to this conflict elusive, however, is that its origins lie well beyond questions of trade deficits and fair competition, and are instead based on the looming question of a power transition between to the two states. The effects of this divergence are beginning to be observed in several economic realms, including the financial and the technological. Many other actors in the global economy have begun to experience the side effects of this completion, and may now have to face difficult choices about how to balance between these two emerging poles in the current fragile global economy.
Topic:
Economic Growth, Conflict, Trade, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

16295. Intergovernmental checkmate on cyber? Processes on cyberspace in the United Nations

Author:
Erik Kursetgjerde
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Cyberspace is an increasingly controversial field on the international agenda. Despite the fact that processes on the thematic have been going on in the UN since 1998, a more significant international agreement is needed on what basic principles should apply in cyberspace. Small states have the opportunity of pushing cybersecurity as a thematic priority in the United Nations Security Council – a path Norway could pursue in its forthcoming 2021–2022 Security Council term. The attribution of the assumed Russian cyber operations toward the Norwegian parliament earlier this year actualizes the addressing of the issue in the Council. The policy brief discusses the GGE negotiations on cyberspace in 2015 and 2017 - and gives policy recommendations on the way forward.
Topic:
United Nations, International Affairs, and Cyberspace
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16296. In the shadow of the virus Varieties of power in the COVID-19 crisis in Venezuela

Author:
Peder Østebø
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
While all states face massive challenges when responding to COVID-19, some are in a more precarious position than others. In Venezuela, the pandemic arrived at the worst possible time for its citizens. Facing one of the deepest economic crises outside of wartime in recent years, its consequences have spilled over to all aspect of social life.1 However, the timing seems to have suited the leaders of the Venezuelan regime well. Rather than constituting a threat to the stability of a regime that has lost both democratic legitimacy and the capacity to provide services and security, the government of Nicolas Maduro (2013-present) has seemingly managed to consolidate itself after several years of instability. The starting point of the discussion is an apparent paradox: how can a regime with neither legitimacy nor capacity, two commonly invoked criteria for effective crisis management, strengthen itself during a crisis such as that spurred by COVID-19? The brief presents an overview of how the Venezuelan regime has responded to COVID-19, and how the government of Nicolás Maduro has applied different strategies to consolidate a favorable political status quo. It takes as its starting point three concepts, namely “state capacity,” “legitimacy,” and “power,” all of which are frequently upheld as fundamental for understanding the varying ways in which states have responded to the pandemic. It highlights how relative power relations have shifted in recent years, and how the pandemic has contributed to skewing the balance of power further in favor of the Maduro government.
Topic:
Government, Health, Crisis Management, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
South America, Central America, and Venezuela

16297. Measuring Russia’s attention to Europe and the world

Author:
Kristian Lundby Gjerde
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Based on a mapping of mentions of country names in more than 30,000 Russian official speeches, press conferences, meeting transcripts, and official statements, this brief provides insights into changes to Russia’s engagement with the world during the 21st century. Without disentangling the subtleties of relations – such as their security, economic, or cultural dimensions and their benign or adversarial features – this approach allows the brief to sketch answers to questions that would otherwise be left to guesswork.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Economics, and Culture
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Eurasia

16298. The coronavirus pandemic and its challenges to women’s work in Latin America

Author:
Diana Gutiérrez, Guillermina Martin, and Hugo Nopo
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE)
Abstract:
The coronavirus pandemic has spread throughout the world and Latin America has not been exempt from its health, economic and social impacts. The economic shutdown, as a result of a combination of stringent measures (self-quarantines, mandatory lockdowns, limited capacity in shops, factories and offices, border closures, etc.), is having a profound economic and social impact. In the labor market it has shocked both supply and demand. Within households, it has resulted in an increase in the unpaid workload, burdening women disproportionately, further reducing the time they can allocate to productive activities. The crisis’s impacts and depth are felt differently by they can widen existing gender gaps. In this paper, the authors explore the impacts of the crisis on employment in sixteen countries in the region. In addition, they analize gender impacts through four lenses: young people, people living in poverty, people living in rural areas and heads of the family. Researchers present a set of policy option aimed at integrating the gender approach into the entire pandemic world. Emphasizing the need for cross-sectional solutions, the authors propose policies in three main areas: the home, work and the spaces between work and home. This will enable socio-economic recovery policies to not only soften short-term impacts, but also further equal opportunities for women and men in the medium and long terms.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, Health, International Political Economy, Women, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Global Health
Political Geography:
Latin America

16299. How a pinch analysis can help visualise emission cuts for developing countries - Philippines

Author:
Dominic Foo and Raymond Tan
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Asia Research Institute, University of Nottingham
Abstract:
Policy makers should use the carbon emissions pinch analysis (CEPA) as a graphical technique to allow the energy-climate nexus to be analysed visually and easily. This will help decision makers achieve the emission cuts they need. We illustrate the usefulness of CEPA by applying it to the case of the Philippines as a representative developing country.
Topic:
Developing World, Sustainable Development Goals, Sustainability, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
Philippines and Global Focus

16300. How a pinch analysis can help visualise emission cuts for transition economies

Author:
Dominic Foo, Raymond Tan, and Purusothmn Nair
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Asia Research Institute, University of Nottingham
Abstract:
Policy makers should use the carbon emissions pinch analysis (CEPA) as a graphical technique to allow the energy-climate nexus to be analysed visually and easily. This will help decision makers achieve the emission cuts they need. We illustrate the usefulness of CEPA by applying it to the case of Malaysia as a representative for transition economies.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Sustainable Development Goals, Renewable Energy, Economic Development, Sustainability, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
Malaysia