From Peaceful Protest to Civil Conflict in Myanmar

Posted by & filed under Civilians in Conflict

Resistance to the 1 February, 2021 military coup in Myanmar is symbolised by a recent video: Images of young protesters killed by Myanmar’s Security Forces are accompanied by lyrics: “We are ghosts. We are already dead. If we die again today, in this life and the next, we will haunt you forever.” The video marks how dramatically the situation in Myanmar has evolved. Moving away from peaceful mass protest, Myanmar is on a trajectory to prolonged civil conflict. Both the living and the dead will continue to fill the streets.

Protest in Myanmar against the military coup on 14 February 2021. MgHla (aka) Htin Linn Aye via Wikimedia Commons

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Green Spaces for “Green” Energy: What Are the Implications of Damming Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda?

Posted by and & filed under Energy Transitions and Conflict

Murchison Falls, Uganda. Rod Waddington via flickr.com

Like many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda finds itself with a steadily growing population and emerging economy. Simultaneously, the government struggles to provide basic services to its growing population, while preserving its natural resources.

Encapsulated within this struggle is an ongoing debate between conservationists and the Ugandan government over the construction of hydroelectric dams in the Murchison Falls National Park. The struggle centers around two waterfalls that the park houses, Murchison and Uhuru Falls. Proposals to dam Murchison Falls, one of the world’s most powerful and one of Uganda’s main tourist attractions, were abandoned after strong opposition from the public, environmental conservationists, and Uganda’s tourist industry.

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Cobalt and the Congo: A Sustainable Green Energy Transition Cannot Be Built on Human Exploitation

Posted by & filed under Energy Transitions and Conflict

General Motors, one of the United State’s most important automakers, announced in January 2021 that it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2035. Although one of the auto industry’s most ambitious moves, electric vehicles (EVs) cannot be produced or driven without cobalt, we cannot discuss this ferromagnetic metal without referring to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DR Congo is the world’s leading source of mined cobalt, supplying 100,000 metric tons or approximately 70% of the world cobalt mine production of 140,000 metric tons in 2019.

A piece of a 99.9 % pure plate of cobalt. Alchemist-hp via Wikimedia Commons

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The Democratic Civil Peace and Beyond: Scott Gates Interviewed by Nils Petter Gleditsch

Posted by & filed under PRIO Stories

Scott Gates as Director of the Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW) in 2009. Photo: Marit Moe-Pryce / PRIO

Scott Gates, interviewed by Nils Petter Gleditsch

‘Strong critical theory doesn’t play a big role in peace science anymore, or even in peace studies’, states American political scientist Scott Gates in this conversation with his long-term collaborator Nils Petter Gleditsch. Scott calls for more and better recording of data disaggregated in time and space; more work that takes advantage of quasi-experimental designs and other methods through which we can better ascertain causal inference; and further use of data from social media to better appreciate such phenomena as the relationship between social media use and protest activities.

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Karaoke politics: the Bulgarian election results in limbo

Posted by & filed under Governance

On 4 April, while some countries celebrated Easter and spring break, Bulgarians all around the world cast their votes in one of the most exciting parliamentary elections in decades. In Majorstuen, Oslo, over 500 people waited for up to 3 hours at the Bulgarian embassy to exercise their right to vote. It wasn’t only in Norway that citizens had to wait: pictures of the queues of voters from four continents flooded Bulgarian social media in a long-anticipated election.

July 2020, Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo: SevSab via Wikimedia Commons

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Can the effects of climatic change predict asylum migration to Europe?

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Five years after the European migration and refugee crisis, displacement remains a pressing issue worldwide. According to the UNHCR, the global number of forcibly displaced people passed 80 million during 2020 – the highest estimate ever recorded. Several factors have contributed to this increase, including a rise in political violence and instability, extreme weather events,… Read more »

Norwegian Quarantine Hotels: Infection Control or Penal Measure?

Posted by , , , , , , and & filed under Beyond the COVID Curve, Law and Ethics

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.

Photo: MedAssure

The rules distinguish between “necessary” and “unnecessary” travel, but the virus does not distinguish between reasons for travelling. The explanation for the rules is not that people who have travelled for particular reasons need to be treated differently from other travellers. Instead, we suggest, the rules are designed to discourage people from making journeys that the government considers unnecessary.Read More

Why Digital Vaccine Passports are a Bad Idea: the Norwegian Perspective

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Expanding the use of Covid-19 digital vaccine passports to domestic purposes would in practice represent a return to the checkpoint permit (in Norwegian ‘passerseddel’, in German “Passierschein”), a form of internal passport. This type of document is associated with authoritarian regimes and with war and conflict, last used in Norway during the Second World War.

Photo illustration: Lukaas via Unsplash

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The Debate on Structural Racism Is Far More Polarized Than It Needs to Be

Posted by & filed under Migration

A lack of a sense of belonging is destructive. So perhaps it is wise to examine both structural racism and everyday racism more closely, also in Norway, writes Marta Bivand Erdal

Photo: Amnesty

The police killing of George Floyd and the ensuing demonstrations that occurred both in the United States and in Norway, put anti-racism on the agenda in the summer of 2020. The public debate about these demonstrations and Black Lives Matter rapidly became just as polarized as debates on immigration. Subsequently debates in Norway have been focused around concepts and approaches to studying racism – debates which have arguably also became far more polarized than might have been the case.Read More