The World Stage

Is the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, and in larger sense UN Peacekeeping, a canary in the coal mine for international cooperation? What can it tell us about geopolitical tensions and cooperation among key powers? And what does the future hold for Mali and the Sahel? In this episode of the NUPI podcast The World Stage, Research Professor at NUPI John Karlsrud sits down with Arthur Boutellis to discuss the UN Peacekeeping mission in Mali, and Boutellis’ new book titled The UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA): Caught in the Geopolitical Crossfire.Arthur Boutellis is a non-resident Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute (IPI) and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Sciences Po. He has worked in Mali with the UN, supported policymakers in New York with research as the head of the Brian Urqhart Centre for Peace Operations at the International Peace Institute.  John Karlsrud is a Research Professor and Head of the Research group on peace, conflict and development at NUPI. He has extensive experience as a researcher in the field of peacekeeping, peacebuilding and humanitarian issues. He previously served as Special Assistant to the United Nations Special Representative in Chad and as part of the UNDP’s leadership programme LEAD.

How is climate change tackled as a potential threat to peace and security in the United States? How can American policy and discourses in the field be compared to those in other areas of the world? In this episode of The World Stage, Erin Sikorsky (Center for Climate Security) sits down with Cedric de Coning, Minoo Koefoed and Thor Olav Iversen (NUPI) to discuss responses to the effects of climate change on peace and security in the United States, Arctic, and geopolitical arenas. Erin Sikorsky is the Director of the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), and the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS) Cedric de Coning is a research professor at NUPI doing research on peace operations and climate, peace and security. Thor Olav Iversen and Minoo Koefoed are senior researchers at NUPI also specializing on climate, peace and security.

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the Comprehensive Planning and Performance Assessment System for UN Peacekeeping Operations (CPAS) with Kym Taylor who is the chief of the evaluation team within the Division for Policy, Evaluation and Training of the Department of Peace Operations, and Hans Sachs who is programme management officer in the same team. Host of the episode is Research Professor at NUPI Cedric de Coning.

How big of a multilateral actor is China? How is it working to influence issues ranging from artificial intelligence to the war in Ukraine? Courtney Fung (Macquire University) sits down with Hans Jørgen Gåsemyr (NUPI) to discuss noticeable changes happening around China and the multilateral governance system in this episode of The World Stage.The episode includes discussion of the various global governance initiatives that China has made in recent years, its position on the war in Ukraine. and its work across the expanding digital technology governance agenda. Courtney Fung is an associate professor at Macquire University (Australia) and has written extensively on China and the UN and related global security governance issues.Hans Jørgen Gåsemyr is a Senior Researcher at NUPI, specializing in Chinese politics. 

In 2016 in Havana, the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the FARC-EP guerilla, after several years of first secret, and then official, negotiations. The Havana talks and peace agreement have been acclaimed as the most gender inclusive in history. 8 years later, what is happening with the implementation of the agreement, and what are women’s roles in peace processes in Colombia today?In this episode, NUPI’s Jenny Lorentzen sits down with Priscyll Anctil Avoine (@priscyll_), researcher in Feminist Security Studies at the Swedish Defence University, and Dag Nylander (@DagNylander), NOREF director and former mediator to the peace process between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP.Having researched the political participation of women ex-combatants in armed conflict and peace processes in Colombia for the last 10 years, Avoine brings to the conversation the perspective of the women ex-combattants and colombian activists, while Nylander shares insights from his direct experience in the negotiations. Together, they shed light on the role of gender and women’s involvement in the Havana talks, the challenges related to implementing the 2016 agreement, as well as what lessons were learned in the Havana process that can be applied to the current negotiations with the ELN and future peace processes in Colombia.If you want to find out more about the political engagement of women ex-combattants in Colombia, you can follow @MujerFariana (the Farianas) and @CafAnaPaz1, an organization working for reconciliation and to recover the memory of women signatories of the peace agreement.This podcast is part of the project “Women, Peace and Security: Status Review and Study on Peace Processes in Colombia and South Sudan,” led by Jenny Lorentzen (@jennylorentzen).

How can we understand the African Union’s evolving position in a changing global order from its role in the G20 and its peace initiatives in Somalia and Sudan?In this episode of The World Stage, Solomon Dersso (Amani Africa) and Cedric de Coning (NUPI) discuss this topic.Solomon Dersso is the founding director of Amani Africa, an independent pan-African policy research, training and consulting think tank with expertise on the African Union’s policy processes, including especially the work of the Peace and Security Council.Cedric de Coning is Research Professor in the research group on peace, conflict and development at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).

The global governance of digital technologies is frequently framed around a contest between two competing camps.One camp is the so-called like-minded states, led by the US, its European allies and democratic states like Australia and Japan.The other camp, often dubbed the sovereigntists, are a coalition of authoritarian states of which Russia and China are the most prominent.Within this bipolar framing, the rest of the world, collectively labelled the digital deciders, are pulled between the two competing positions. While their choices have consequences for the future trajectory of global digital governance, less attention is paid to their own objectives and policy goals.In this episode of NUPI’s podcast series The World Stage, we welcome Arindrajit Basu. He is a PhD-student at the University of Leiden and previous research lead at the Centre for Internet and Society in India. Together with NUPI researchers Lars Gjesvik and Stein Sundstøl Eriksen, he discusses the limitations of not taking the position of countries like India seriously. He also talks about India’s approach to global digital governance, and how it fits within its broader foreign policy objectives.The conversation is led by Lars Gjesvik.

On 12 June Russia celebrated its national day, “Russia day”. This day is marked with concerts and celebrations in all the regions in the Russian Federation. This year, alongside celebrations from Moscow, Novgorod, Buryatia and other Russian regions, the news on Russia’s state-owned TV-channel Rossiya 1 showed images from the Kherson region, a Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia in September 2022. In the clip, teenagers were making cookies glazed in the three colors of the Russian flag. According to the voiceover these cookies were to be given to participants in the “special operation in Ukraine” – a euphemism for Russia’s war against Ukraine. In this way, Russian propaganda attempts to normalize a view of the “new regions” as part of Russia thus potentially expanding the boundaries of the Russian nation. In this episode of the NUPI podcast The World Stage, we take a closer look at everyday nationalism. This approach focuses on how people consume, reproduce and challenge the nation through ordinary daily practices. We also talk about everyday nationalist practices that take place in Russia and Ukraine amidst Russia’s war against Ukraine. Finally, we talk about the propaganda regarding the war which is conveyed daily to ordinary Russians through state television. Here, you will hear from J. Paul Goode, McMillian Chair in Russian Studies and Associate Professor at Carleton University, Marthe Handå Myhre, senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and regional research (NIBR), Oslo Metropolitan University, and Natalia Moen-Larsen, senior researcher at NUPI. The podcast is produced as part of Russia Research Network (RUSSNETT) project.