Blog post archive

Tuesday, 14 May 2024
Pandemic Aftermath: Reflecting on the Value and Compensation of Essential Workers

After the first confirmation of a COVID case in Norway in late February 2020, the Norwegian government found itself in a difficult situation where the prevention of the virus was urgent, while the functioning of public institutions was necessary. Therefore, the Norwegian government categorized certain workers as especially important or ...

Thursday, 30 Sep 2021
Corona Apps – Going Global

On 8 April 2020, less than a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak was a pandemic, Mareile Kaufmann posted a PRIO blog entitled “Corona Apps – Where Are We Headed?” on the use of digital tools in the “war against corona”, asking what the ...

Wednesday, 31 Mar 2021
Norwegian Quarantine Hotels: Infection Control or Penal Measure?

Quarantine hotels and Easter trips According to the Norwegian government, quarantine hotels are an infection-control measure. In this blog post we contest this view, and argue that the rules are penal in character. “We” are all Norwegian: four medical doctors, one psychologist, and three jurists. The rules distinguish between “necessary” ...

Wednesday, 17 Feb 2021
Nordic Noir: National Risk Assessments in Times of Peace and Pandemics

As a result of their criteria for what counts as risks, the national risk assessments of the Nordic countries currently resemble the crime genre of Nordic Noir, where the Nordic societies are rendered in a gloomy but revealing light. By zooming in on potential crises without placing these in a ...

Friday, 12 Feb 2021
In 2016, I identified four future developments that would justify the Trump-Hitler comparison. Here are the results.

In 2016, comparing president-elect Donald Trump to all-time villain Adolf Hitler seemed overdrawn. It ultimately proved to be exaggerated in 2021, with the transition of power to Joe Biden completed. However, during his presidency, Trump has taken actions similar to the ones the Nazis used to consolidate their power. This ...

Tuesday, 5 Jan 2021
COVID-19 and the Law: Framing Healthcare Worker Risks as Women’s Rights Violations

Today, public health is ‘delivered by women and led by men’, with a glaring absence of women and nurses at the decision making table.[1] Globally, though women only make up 25% of those in healthcare leadership they make up the majority of healthcare workers (70%) and nurses (90%).[2]  This exclusion skews the ...

Monday, 14 Dec 2020
Revisiting Emergency eLearning

On April 30, 2020, my article “COVID-19 and Emergency eLearning: Consequences of the Securitization of Higher Education for Post-Pandemic Pedagogy” was published in Contemporary Security Policy. In that piece, I argued that securitization theory could help understand the experience of teaching and learning online as an emergency measure, but also ...

Wednesday, 18 Nov 2020
COVID-19: A call for people-centered national security strategy in Africa

Humanity has been extraordinarily challenged by the coronavirus with serious and unprecedented impacts on all aspects of human life and the ways states have been functioning and managing public affairs. COVID-19 may either consolidate global solidarity or it may take humanity on a path toward the demise of globalization and ...

Monday, 5 Oct 2020
Coronavirus Tracking Apps: Normalizing Surveillance During States of Emergency

The global coronavirus pandemic has prompted states to rush to embrace digital surveillance tools such as contact tracing apps as quick fixes and policy responses to the crisis. Understandably, a lot of sophisticated yet questionable new technological solutions have been hurriedly deployed due to the severity of the pandemic. However, ...

Wednesday, 12 Aug 2020
The Next Wave?

The coronavirus pandemic seems to be strengthening China and its leader Xi Jinping, while weakening the United States. If an autocracy gains strength on the international stage, while at the same time fear and uncertainty are spreading among the global population, this may provide fertile ground for a new wave ...

Friday, 5 Jun 2020
Coronavirus and the (Wannabe) Dictators

In December of last year, the Chinese state jailed a physician in the city of Wuhan. His crime? Attempting to warn authorities against the occurrence of a potentially contagious and deadly new virus. The physician, Dr. Li Wenliang, has since died from the same disease whose spread he tried to ...

Thursday, 28 May 2020
The Nordic Countries and Sweden: the battle against COVID-19 continues

This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...

Monday, 30 Mar 2020
Norway and Sweden: Battling Coronavirus in Two Different Worlds

This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...

Sunday, 29 Mar 2020
Kosovo-Serbia Agreement: Why is the Trump Administration Fast-Tracking a Hasty Deal?

This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...

Friday, 27 Mar 2020
How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Reshape Refugee and Migration Governance?

This blog post identifies marginalization, legal distancing and the ambiguity of care as the key characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic response currently reshaping refugee and migration governance. This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the ...

Thursday, 26 Mar 2020
Erna Solberg as dictator?

Seen in hindsight: was Norwegian democracy actually in peril for a few days in mid-March 2020? This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How ...