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 critical to society (samfunnsviktige or… Read more »
Tag: COVID
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 emerging “digital collective action” really… Read more »
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” and “unnecessary” travel, but the… Read more »
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 global or long-term perspective, they… Read more »
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 is no partisan political statement,… Read more »
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 agendas on health so the… Read more »
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 that the lessons of desecuritization… Read more »
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 multilateralism. There is no doubt… Read more »
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, such technologies raise serious concerns… Read more »
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 of democratic decline.