The state is often seen to be undermined by the forces of globalization. The power to shape and manage governance efforts has diffused from the state to transnational policy networks where the state plays a strategically important rather than a necessarily dominant role. Still, we have few indications that the state is in decline or has become powerless in the face of global challenges. Rather, how the state governs and interacts with different types of actors at the national and global level has changed, with more emphasis on indirect governance such as soft law, global best practices, and the delegation of governance tasks to non-state actors.
NUPI's Centre for Global Governance is a strategic research initiative aimed at analyzing these trends and assessing its implications for the power and governance strategies of the state in general and for the Norwegian state in particular. The Centre will serve as a hub for research across NUPI’s research departments, and will address four inter-related questions:
- What are the dominant forms of global governance?
- How is the authority to govern institutionalized and how does it change over time?
- What is the power and authority of the state relative to non-state actors in different networks of global governance?
- How can global governance be improved and made more effective and legitimate?
Current research [More]
Health and Foreign policy
The project aims to explore the mutual interrelatedness between health and foreign policy. More
Armed Violence in Urban Settings: New Challenges, New Humanitarianisms
Cultural Dialogue in International Security
The project looks at the conditions for and role of dialogue by focusing on how a select number of states have defined and responded to a series of crises. Studying the behaviour of states during times of crisis offers a good vantage point from which to gauge states’ interests and behaviour and by implication the conditions for, and role of, dialogue. More
Completed projects [More]
Publications
- Neumann, Iver B. (2013). Diplomatic Sites. New York, Columbia University Press. 176 pages. In this book Iver B. Neumann investigates diplomatic sites - from the dinner table to sites of conflict mediation and peace facilitation, via representations of diplomacy in popular culture.
- Sending, Ole Jacob, Andreas Stensland
(2013). Unpacking the “Culture of Protection”: A Political Economy Analysis of UN Protection of Civilians ,
in Benjamin de Carvalho and Ole Jacob Sending (eds.) The Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping: Concept, Implementation and Practice.
.Baden-Baden,Nomos.p. 63-88.The chapter demonstrates how different institutional actors – such as OHCA, ICRC, and OHCHR – all advance different interpretations of “protection” in order to further their respective institutional interests. Because the term “protection” is a vehicle to advance different, even conflicting, institutional interests it is unlikely that there will be greater conceptual clarity in the foreseeable future. [url] - de Carvalho, Benjamin , Ole Jacob Sending
(2013). Introduction: A Concern with Protection,
in Benjamin de Carvalho and Ole Jacob Sending (eds.) The Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping: Concept, Implementation and Practice.
.Baden-Baden,Nomos.p. 17-23.The authors argue that we have witnessed the emergence of a new discourse on the protection of civilians over the past decade. Grounded in the practice of peacekeeping in UN missions, this discourse and evolving norms has sought to distance itself from the rather rigid understanding of protection of civilians as understood in International Humanitarian Law, focusing instead on practical challenges on the ground. [url] - de Carvalho, Benjamin , Ole Jacob Sending [ed.] (2013). The Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping: Concept, Implementation and Practice. Baden-Baden, Nomos. 206 pages. This edited volume explores the Protection of Civilians (PoC) and offers comparisons and in-depth studies of protection mandates in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa. The book seeks to show that however PoC is defined at headquarters level, successful implementation must rest on an understanding of the limits and challenges encountered in mission, on the ground.
- Neumann, Iver B.
(2013). Den religiøse stemme som taler sannhet til makten,
i Oddbjørn Leirvik, Kjetil Fretheim og Beate Fagerli (red.) Sannhetens øyeblikk
.Oslo,Akademika Forlag.p. 189-199. [url] - Neumann, Iver B., Nicholas Kiersey [ed.] (2013). Battlestar Galactica and International Relations. London, Routledge. 226 pages. Looking at a television franchise like Battlestar Galactica (BSG) is no longer news within the discipline of International Relations. A growing number of scholars in and out of IR are studying the importance of cultural artifacts – popular or otherwise – for the phenomena that make up the core of our discipline.
- Leira, Halvard , Iver B. Neumann
(2013). Dyrisk diplomati,
i Internasjonal Politikk 71 (1)
.Oslo,Universitetsforlaget.p. 98-108.Denne artikkelen er en del av dette nummerets forkusspalte og viser hvordan dyr, både konkret og symbolsk, har fungert i diplomatiet. [url] - Neumann, Iver B.
(2012). Fred og forsoning som norsk utenrikspolitikk,
i Internasjonal Politikk Årgang 70 nr. 3.
.Oslo,Universitetsforlaget.p. 362-371.Artikkelen undersøker hvordan fred- og forsoningspolitikk kan påvirke handlingsrommet for norsk utenrikspolitikk. [url] - Rieker, Pernille , Ole Jacob Sending [ed.] (2012). Inter-cultural dialogue in international crises. Oslo, NUPI. 103 pages. The aim of this report is to study the role of dialogue as a tool to prevent, manage, and resolve international conflicts, illustrated by three cases that differ in terms of type of conflict, duration and outcome.
- Leira, Halvard , Iver B. Neumann
(2012). Consular Diplomacy,
in Pauline Kerr & Geoffrey Wiseman (eds.): Diplomacy in a Globalizing World.
.Oxford,Oxford University Press.p. 160-174.In this chapter, Leira and Neumann give a brief presentation of the history of colsuls and the consul system, and relate it to diplomacy today and in the past. They find that in the past, consular tasks were often not linked to diplomacy, and that consular tasks have been given priority in times when the international system is perceived to be changing. The consul system is both more agile and less tied to the idea of imposing sovereignty than diplomacy, they argue. [url]
