NUPI Research Online (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs)
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Climate Obstruction in Poland: A Governmental–Industrial Complex
Full text linkPoland is known for its climate scepticism and denial throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Despite its recent rapid deployment of renewable energy sources, Poland remains Europe’s most coal-dependent economy. Since 2004, consecutive governments have been ‘pulling the brake’ on the European Union’s more ambitious climate policy initiatives and decarbonization targets. There are recent signs of changing societal attitudes, but the country is alone among EU nations in lacking a net zero emissions target or a coal power phase-out date. This situation has been created and perpetuated by a coalition of governmental institutions, agencies, state-owned energy companies, and utilities that constitute a governmental–industrial complex (GIC). While the GIC has moderated its discourse and policies, it continues to promote ‘silver bullet’ technologies such as ‘clean’ coal and new nuclear power plants. Poland’s commitment to a just, gradual energy transition is a climate imposter tactic, part of an overarching strategy of delay.Climate Obstruction in Poland: A Governmental–Industrial ComplexpublishedVersio
Rational Illusions: Everyday Theories of International Status and the Domestic Politics of Boer War
Full text linkExisting research has documented that status‐seeking abounds in world politics. Yet the status hierarchies to which states respond and compete within are notoriously ambiguous and difficult to empirically ascertain. This ambiguity has begotten considerable disagreement among scholars over the nature of international hierarchies. Making a strength out of this slipperiness, this article posits that international status can be studied via the everyday theories of status that governments and their opponents themselves produce and use to interpret their state’s status. Treating these everyday theories as productive of the world they purport to describe, such an approach foregrounds the interpretative agency of domestic groups to develop and maintain “hierarchies of their own making,” which need not be recognized internationally to become crucial for policy legitimation domestically. In order to study such everyday theories’ systematically, the article develops a new meta‐linguistic framework for identifying and mapping their use within domestic politics. Via a case study on the Boer War (1899–1902), the article shows how domestic battles over what international status is can shape domestic politics and policy outcomes.Rational Illusions: Everyday Theories of International Status and the Domestic Politics of Boer WarpublishedVersio
UK Counter-Terrorism and Multiple and Complex Needs: A Policy-Informed Discourse Analysis
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To reform or not reform? Competing energy transition perspectives on Indonesia's monopoly electricity supplier Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN)
Full text linkThis paper maps the opposing rationales for reforming or not reforming the giant monopoly electricity provider in the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia's state-owned power company, Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), distributes electricity to 98 % of the country's households. Only 13 % of the company's power generation is from renewable sources, while 60 % is from coal-fired power plants. PLN is sometimes cast as the main obstacle to the energy transition in Indonesia, which has a more carbon-intensive electricity sector than both China and India. How PLN evolves is therefore important for global climate mitigation. Based on document analysis and rare interviews with the high-level policymakers who govern PLN, we find that keeping consumer prices low and maintaining security of supply are the utility's dominant concerns. Indirect costs, negative environmental externalities and alternative business opportunities in renewable energy are rarely taken into consideration. This is due to entrenched elite interests and what is referred to in the theoretical literature as ‘collective conservatism’. Three measures that could change PLN's approach to decarbonisation are: redirecting government financial support, introducing more stringent carbon pricing regulations and leveraging growing private business interest in renewable energy to change the framework within which PLN operates.publishedVersio
Fra kullsvart nåtid til grønn fremtid : Vest-Balkans vei mot EUs energimarked og grønn omstilling
Full text linkSeks land på Vest-Balkan er i ulike stadier av prosessen mot å bli EU-medlemmer: Albania, Bosnia og Hercegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Nord-Makedonia og Serbia. Disse blir her referert til som “Vest-Balkan 6 (VB6)”. Før medlemskap i EU må en rekke kriterier knyttet til demokrati og rettsstat være oppfylt. I tillegg må landene oppfylle kravene for det indre marked, herunder et velfungerende energimarked. Samtidig må de bidra til en grønn omstilling av energisektorenFra kullsvart nåtid til grønn fremtid : Vest-Balkans vei mot EUs energimarked og grønn omstillingpublishedVersio
How do donors integrate climate policy and development cooperation? An analysis of the development aid policies of 42 donor countries
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Nordic countries and knowledge collaboration with authoritarian non-allied states: conditional openness with stronger demands for protection
No full textBetingelsene for internasjonal kunnskapsproduksjon og internasjonalt kunnskapssamarbeid er i endring. Det som lenge har vært et samfunnsområde preget av særlig liberale og åpne praksiser, er nå gjenstand for skjerpet oppmerksomhet om beskyttelse av nasjonal sikkerhet og akademisk frihet. Utvikling relatert til Kina spesielt, men også Russland og andre autoritære stater med kunnskapsrelaterte ambisjoner, har fått varsellampene til å blinke i mange liberale demokratier. Det gjelder også i Norden. I dette fokusnummeret studerer vi hvordan og hvorfor strengere og mer restriktive betingelser knyttet til internasjonalt kunnskapssamarbeid vokser frem i Norge, Sverige, Danmark og Finland. Vi er opptatt av å problematisere og forklare hva som skjer når sterkere sikkerhets- og beskyttelseshensyn møter liberale normer som akademisk frihet.Innledning. Norden og kunnskapssamarbeid med autoritære og ikke-allierte stater: betinget åpenhet med skjerpede krav til beskyttelseNordic countries and knowledge collaboration with authoritarian non-allied states: conditional openness with stronger demands for protectionpublishedVersio
Localization and developmentality: Policy pragmatism in pandemic times
Full text linkMotivation: Localization is increasingly invoked in debates about how to reform international aid: to improve aid effectiveness and address ethical concerns by turning hierarchical aid relations on their head. This has proved to be easier said than done. The COVID-19 pandemic produced logistical impediments to aid practitioners, which translated into a renewed, if temporary, interest in localization. Purpose: The initial scope of the research engaged with the notion of partnership during COVID-19, but almost all informants drew attention to the concept of localization. The article maps and analyses the challenges and advantages of localization, as seen from the practitioners' perspective. Approach and methods: The article draws on 24 interviews conducted in Oslo with representatives of various Norwegian development and humanitarian non-governmental organizations and government agencies, in addition to policy and grey literature review. Findings: The article shows that the re-emergence of the localization debate during COVID-19 occurred not because of any ambition to reform aid, but as a pragmatic and temporary response to the logistical impediments caused by the pandemic. Reflections from the interviewees on the pros and cons offer more substantial insights into why localization fails to change practice, while at the same time localization enables a form of indirect governance related to accountability regimes. This is analysed as developmentality, reflecting the logic that localization takes place when recipients do as donors want, but they do so voluntarily, which suggests that localization counterintuitively may reinforce existing power structures. Policy implications: Localization is poorly conceptualized. While a definition could be helpful in practice, one that is too rigid could undermine the diversity of actors and knowledge that localization aims to advance. At the operational level, localization requires greater flexibility and slack throughout the aid chain, especially in the audit and accountability regimes of donor and funding authorities, which permeate and uphold lopsided aid relations.Localization and developmentality: Policy pragmatism in pandemic timespublishedVersio