Blacklisted in Baghdad
The recent ban of more than 500 candidates from Iraq's upcoming elections is designed to cement the power of the country's Shiite Islamists aligned with Iran. Will this latest sectarian rupture sink any hopes for a stable Iraq, asks Reidar Visser in Foreign Affairs.
MoreThe Iranian Revolution at 30
Professor Daniel Heradstveit contributes an article to a special edition of the Middle East Institute’s publication Viewpoints marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution.
MoreFrench-Norwegian book launch
Daniel Heradstveit co-editor and project manager presents his new book Sécularisation et démocratisation dans les sociétés musulmanes in Paris 10 December 2008.
MoreEstablished in 2000, this unit works along two main tracks: studying the ethical-normative aspects regarding the involvement of foreign corporations in the area between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, and issues of regional political stability. Recent projects include studies of Iran under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, corruption in Azerbaijan, federalism in Iraq, as well as problems connected to secularity/ Islamism in the Middle East.
The main sources of finance for this research programme come from the business and industrial sector – the oil industry in particular – and Norwegian as well as international actors. The group has ongoing collaboration projects with Syracuse University in New York state, and the Association Française pour l’Étude de la Méditerranée Orientale et du Monde Turco-Iranien in Paris. Further information on the Iraq-oriented research activities of the project group can be found on the websites nupi.no and historiae.org .
The state system of the Gulf: Decentralisation, federalism and regional integration
This project will address the issue of unitary versus federal states at a regional level in the Gulf. More
Secularization in the Muslim world
Secularization in the Muslim world is discussed on the basis of a number of empirical cases from different continents, regions and countries. More
The War on Terrorism as Political Communication
Considering different cultural codes and world views, the research demonstrates how the metaphor “War on Terrorism”is highly counterproductive for communication on the global level. More
Iraq’s future on Iraqi terms
The aim of the project is to gather a group of highly qualified persons from Iraqi society in order to analyse the situation in their country. More
- Visser, Reidar (2009). Proto-political conceptions of ‘Iraq’ in late Ottoman times, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Volume 3, Number 2 . Intellect Ltd..p. 143-154. This article criticizes the so-called ‘artificiality paradigm’ concerning the emergence of the modern state on Iraq, according to which the kingdom of Iraq that came into being in 1921 was nothing but a random collection of Ottoman provinces that had little in common. On the basis of documents from the late Ottoman period, the article shows that the opposite appears to be the case.
- Visser, Reidar (2009). New Non-State Players and Implications for Regional Security: The Case of the Shiite Religious Establishment of Iraq, SAIS Review vol. 29, no.2 (Summer-Fall 2009) . The Johns Hopkins University Press.p. 11-20. The main argument outlined in this article is that the Shiite religious establishment in Iraq remains reluctant in its interactions with state institutions, and continues to fear that its transnational character and unique legitimacy worldwide could become compromised by too close an association with the temporal governments of individual countries.
- Visser, Reidar (2009). Europeisk Irak-politikk, i Rieker, Pernille og Walter Emanuel Carlsnæs [red.] Nye utfordringer for europeisk sikkerhetspolitikk. Aktører, instrumenter og operasjoner . Oslo, Universitetsforlaget.p. 207-216. Kapittelet drøfter europeisk Irak-politikk på ett utvalgt område: Europas overordnede syn på Irak som en politisk enhet og dens levedyktighet.
- Thune, Henrik , Reidar Visser, Hassan al-Bazzaz, Dhiaa al-Bakkaa et al (2009). More than «Shiites» and «Sunnis» How a Post-Sectarian Strategy Can Change the Logic and Facilitate Sustainable Political Reform in Iraq. Oslo, NUPI. 32 pages. A Report by Iraqi Academics and Professionals, Prepared in Cooperation with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
- Heradstveit, Daniel (2009). Azerbaijani Ethno-nationalism: A Danger Signal for Iran, in Viewpoints Special Edition, The Iranian Revolution at 30 . Washington DC,The Middle East Institute.p. 122-124.
- Heradstveit, Daniel , G. Matthew Bonham, Thomas Grjebine (2008). Démocratisation et corruption. Une analyse comparative des situations iranienne et azerbaϊdjanaise, in Heradstveit, Daniel , Semih Vaner, Ali Kazancigil [red.] Sécularisation et démocratisation dans les sociétés musulmanes . Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, P.I.E. Peter Lang.p. 187-210.
- Heradstveit, Daniel , Semih Vaner, Ali Kazancigil [ed.] (2008). Sécularisation et démocratisation dans les sociétés musulmanes. Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien,, P.I.E. Peter Lang. 335 pages. Cet ouvrage explore le rapport des sociétés musulmanes à la modernité à travers l’analyse des processus de sécularisation et de démocratisation saisis dans leur pluralité et dans leur complexité ; processus parfois visibles, mais le plus souvent contradictoires et difficiles à appréhender.
- Visser, Reidar (2008). Taming the Hegemonic Power: SCIRI and the Evolution of US Policy in Iraq, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies vol. 2, no. 1 . Bristol, Intellect.p. 31-51. This article discusses the historical development of the United States' special relationship with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the Shi'ite religious parties of Iraq.
- Visser, Reidar (2008). The Sadrists of Basra and the Far South of Iraq. The Most Unpredictable Political Force in the Gulf’s Oil-Belt Region?. NUPI Working Paper: 734. 21 pages. This paper analyses internal tensions within the Sadr movement in Iraq and discusses how US policy might affect these relationships in the future.
- Visser, Reidar (2008). Historical Myths of a Divided Iraq, in Survival, vol. 50, no. 2 . Abingdon,Routledge Journals.p. 95-106. This article challenges the conventional view that Iraq is an "artificial" creation and points out the substantial pre-modern roots of a centralised, multi-ethnic Iraqi state with Baghdad as its capital.