Ola Listhaug (1949–2023)

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Ola Listhaug was an international scholar, a mentor to numerous students and younger colleagues, and an entrepreneurial university administrator. He passed away on 14 September and will be missed by many.

Photo: NTNU

Ola Listhaug was born in the small community of Sjøholt in Western Norway, where he also eventually retired and died. Following studies at the University of Oslo, he moved to Trondheim and obtained his mag.art. degree in Sociology in 1971. As a 24-year-old in 1973, he was engaged as amanuensis in the newly established Department of Sociology and Social Studies (ISS), now the Department of Sociology and Political Science at NTNU. He obtained his PhD in 1988 and was promoted to full professor a few years later.

Ola’s main field was political sociology, particularly electoral research and political behavior. He is probably best known for his contribution to the study of electoral behavior, with Stuart Macdonald and George Rabinowitz. In an article based on survey data gathered in Norway with extensive information on the issue positions of all parties with potential for achieving representation in the parliament, they found support for their directional theory in a European multi-party system. In contrast to the widely favored spatial model of electoral behavior, they found that parties which occupy a centrist position on an issue are not evaluated on the basis of that issue. Voters neither love nor hate a party in the middle. In order to build support on the basis of issues, parties must offer some strong stands. The authors were awarded the Heinz Eulau Prize for the best article in the American Political Science Review in 1991 for that work.Read More

Norway, a New Mining Nation?

Posted by and & filed under Energy Transitions and Conflict

The energy transition and ‘green’ technologies spark enormous demands for minerals. Norway set out to become a supplier of raw materials which, in the current geopolitical tensions, are much needed not only by the country itself but also the European Union.

Activist camp at Repparfjord. Photo taken in 2021 by Zane Datava

In late June 2023, the Norwegian government’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries unveiled its ambitious mineral strategy.

Aiming to make Norway a leading mining nation in Europe, the government does not only want to have more extractive projects but also mainly prioritises critical minerals for which exploration permits should be granted much quicker. This seems in line with the national energy commission’s pledge ‘more of everything, faster’. At the same time, the Norwegian mining sector should also become the world’s most sustainable.Read More

“It’s Been More than 40 Days and Sunday Never Came”

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The sentence in the heading is often recalled and reshared by many Sudanese people who had to, and still are, enduring war, suffering, and displacement after the breakout of conflict between two armed forces, the Rapid Support Forces of Lt. Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Daglo (also known as Hemedti), and the Sudanese Army under the leadership of gen. Abdel Fatah Al Burhan in Khartoum on April 15th, 2023.

Galal Yousif

A war that is a battle for power between two rival armed forces has forced many to leave or lose their homes, jobs, and even worse, loved ones.

Before the fighting erupted, INSPIRE researchers Katarzyna (Kasia) Grabska and Azza Ahmed A. Aziz in partnership with Reem Aljeally from The Muse multi studios, in Khartoum, Sudan, organised a five day workshop with artists in Khartoum.

Open Space Khartoum opened on the 13th of April 2023 and was the result of over two years of ethnographic research (INSPIRE) with artists in the city. Collectively designed and organised, 15 artists, including visual artists, musicians, photographers and filmmakers, together with the two researchers worked with questions of what inspires their work and what their central themes of creative practice and their interconnectedness with the political and social context of Sudan are.

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Putin and Kim Meet at Russian Cosmodrome

Posted by & filed under Regions and Powers, Security, Ukraine War

On September 13, two armored trains met at a cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East.

While this might read like the beginning of a joke, it is in fact an accurate description of last week’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin in September 2023. Photo: Vladimir Smirnov, TASS / kremlin.ru

Due to personal security concerns, the location of the two autocrats’ meeting was not announced until right before their two entourages arrived at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, some 1,500 kilometers by rail from Vladivostok (TASS, September 13).

Besides the superficial formalities, little is known about the more substantive content of the talks.Read More

We Could Have Prevented Thousands of Deaths in Libya

Posted by and & filed under Humanitarianism, Regions and Powers

As Libya’s death toll rises due to the massive floods triggered by Hurricane Daniel, it’s normal to wonder if such a catastrophe could have been prevented.

Search and rescue operation teams continue their efforts after the floods caused by the Storm Daniel ravaged the region, in Derna, Libya on September 17, 2023. Photo: Halil Fidan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

New research published this month gives a better understanding of how and why countries affected by armed conflict are more vulnerable to disaster.Read More

Morocco’s Response to French Aid After the Earthquake: Reverse Humanitarian Diplomacy?

Posted by & filed under Humanitarianism, Regions and Powers

Morocco was hit hard by the earthquake in the evening of September 8th, and has been scrambling to organize rescue and first aid operations to the affected areas since – notably the hard-to-reach and most badly hit villages of the Atlas mountains.

A man stands next to goods he has salvaged from the ruins of his house on September 13, 2023 in Ardouz, Morocco. Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images

On Monday 11 September, it was announced that Morocco had accepted the aid offer from four countries: Spain, United Kingdom, Emirates and Qatar – referred to as “friendly countries” by the Moroccan Interior Ministry.

One notable country is left out of the list, although being among the first to offer help: France. It is not a simple hazard. How should this refusal be understood?

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Russia’s Diminished Global Status Exposed in India

Posted by & filed under Regions and Powers, Ukraine War

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s absence at the G20 summit in New Delhi on September 9 and 10 was not all that surprising and seemed hardly registered by any of the two dozen world leaders who attended.

Narendra Modi of India welcomes US President Joe Biden for the G20 Leaders’ Summit on September 9, 2023 in New Delhi. Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Putin also missed the previous summit in Bali, Indonesia, and did not attend the most recent BRICS gathering in Johannesburg, South Africa, nor the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Jakarta in early September.

Instead, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been shuttling from one high-level event to another delivering the same anti-Western message.Read More

Russia Remains Stubborn on Non-Renewal of Ukraine Grain Deal

Posted by & filed under Regions and Powers, Ukraine War

It has been almost two months since Russia terminated the United Nations–approved deal ensuring the safe export of Ukrainian wheat and corn from its Black Sea ports.

And following his most recent meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on September 4 in Sochi, Russian President Vladmir Putin seems resolute on continuing to deny Ukrainian grain access to global food markets.

Wheat fields in midsummer (August) in Ukraine. Photo: Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Following the talks, Putin declared, “We will be ready to consider the opportunity of reviving the grain deal … after all arrangements set in it on lifting of restrictions on Russian agricultural exports are fulfilled” (TASS, September 4).

As a result, prospects for revival of the deal remain uncertain.

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Seeking New Leadership? Military Coups in Africa and Their Implications

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In a 2021 op-ed, we predicted that military coups and political unrest in West African countries like Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso signaled a recurring pattern of semi-democratic military rule. Recent military takeovers in Niger on July 26 and Gabon on August 30 have now affirmed this prediction.

Mohamed Toumba, one of the leading figures of the National Council for the Protection of the Fatherland, attends the demonstration of coup supporters and greets them at a stadium in the capital city of Niger, Niamey on August 6, 2023. Photo: Balima Boureima/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

This raises a crucial question: are we witnessing the emergence of a new brand of political leadership in Africa, starting within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region?Read More