International Security
Research department I studies the classic field of international security policy: States seek security, their own, that of their citizens, and of political, economic, and environmental relationships. How states pursue this goal is crucial for the maintenance of peace and the risk of violent conflict. The department’s empirical work focuses on those practices and strategies of states that are associated with military violence or that seek to prevent or limit its application. Highest priority is given to the latest developments and dynamics in warfare, the transformation of norms and rules regarding the legitimate use of force, and arms control. Besides conducting basic theoretical research, research department I has a long-standing expertise in policy consultation and an ongoing interest in the policy issues of arms control, disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Within the new research program Coercion and Peace (2018), research department I examines how technological, political, and normative change influences states’ abilities to use coercion and how that impacts national and international security and global peace. Research in this context covers three areas: (1) security policy and world order, (2) military strategy and the use of force, and (3) arms control and technology. Coercion is addressed in its military and non-military dimensions.
In context of the previous research program Just Peace Governance (2011-2017), research focused on the relevance of justice conflicts in states’ foreign and security policy. Research department I examined the role of justice in hegemonic conflicts and how justice-related arguments make negotiating arms control and disarmament more difficult.
Current PhD Project
- Arms Control in the Middle East: Between Self-Help and Cooperation
- Epistemic Warfare: Deception, Communication and Hybridity in International Security
- Nuclear Weapons 2.0: US Nuclear Weapon Research after the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
- Nuclear(ised) identities: the influence of collective identities on nuclear arms control and disarmament politics
- The Role of Justice Perceptions in Treaty Interpretation Debates
- “A Matter of Theology, not Evidence”: US Missile Defense and Ideational Change
Completed PhD Project
- Functional Change in Conventional Arms Control in Europe
- Metanorms, Justice Claims and the Contestation of the Responsibility to Protect
- Permissive Effects of International Norms: Napalm and the Long Non-Emergence of the Norm Against Cluster Munitions
- Proactivism and State Identity: Irish and Canadian Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Policy
- Coercion in Peacebuilding
- EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium
- Institutionalized Inequality in Global Governance
- New Forms of Warfare: The Transformation of War
- Norm linkage as politics of legitimacy: The interaction of protection and prosecution norms in humanitarian intervention debates
- Norm-Based Security Structure: Conventional Arms Control in Europe
- Steps Towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons
- Technology and Politics of Nuclear Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control
- The Prohibition of Biological Weapons – a Norm of Customary International Law?
- Conditions for Successful Governance in the Conflict Between Humanitarianism and Sovereignty
- From Biological Disarmament to Biosecurity: Securitization or Humanization of Biological Weapons Control After September 11, 2001?
- Salafism in Germany
- "Rogue States", "Outlaws", and "Pariahs": Dissidence Between Delegitimization and Justification
- A Twenty-First Century Concert of Powers
- Contested World Orders
- Justice and Compliance: Explaining the Effectiveness of International Regimes
- Antinomies of Democratic Arms Control in the 1990s
- Arguing and Bargaining
- Causes of the Differences in War Involvement of Democracies since 1990
- The Image of the Democratic Soldier: Tensions Between the Organisation of Armed Forces and the Principles of Democracy in European Comparison
- Democracies and the "Revolution in Military Affairs"
- The Imperial Discourse. The Liberal World-View Between Global Governance and Neo-Conservatism
- The Transformation of Arms Control. Norm Dynamics and Notions of Justice in Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
- To Save Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
- Functional Change in Conventional Arms Control in Europe
- Wars of Democratic States since 1990
- Missile Defense Research
- Preparation for the NPT Review Conference 2010: Proposals for the Norwegian Presidency of the Seven Nations Initiative
- Transparency as a Prerequisite of Arms Control