International Security
Research Department I sets out to investigate and compare the security policies that states pursue. Our researchers analyze these policies in relation to the normative orientations and justice claims that they entail along with their potentialities for conflict. The policies are also evaluated in respect to the positive or negative contributions they may have for a peaceful world order. The question that interests us in particular is if recurring conflict among vastly differing national conceptions of international security leaves room for the development of non-hegemonic systems of norms. The empirical fields that comprise this research department include arms control, disarmament, non-proliferation, armament and military policies, deployments of armed forces, and national discourses about security. The associated studies are guided by a normative stance that aims at decreasing the level of violence in international relations. They work on the supposition that states continue to assume a crucial position in matters of war and peace, despite an ongoing process of globalization.
Within the scope of the research program Coercion and Peace, we analyse how technological, political and normative change affects the practice of coercion between states. Additionally, we examine the effects of coercion on national and international security as well as on global peace.
Studies within the last research program Just Peace Governance (2009-2017) had two primary tasks. First, they investigated the position assumed by justice claims within the foreign affairs and security policies of states, along with their influence on potentials for conflict in international relations. Second, they examined the opportunities for and constraints on a peaceful and just world order that emerge as a result of the way that states handle their instruments of force.
Based on the insights we gained into the security policies pursued by democracies from research program Antinomies of Democratic Peace (2000-2009), we focused on comparing policies among various political systems and cultures. We posed the question of whether systematic differences exist among groups of states that share certain characteristics.
Along with the basic research carried out within this research program, the research department investigates current policy issues with a focus on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. These issues are, in part, addressed as a by-product of basic research as well as by way of independent projects.
- Functional Change in Conventional Arms Control in Europe (finished)
- Metanorms, Justice Claims and the Contestation of the Responsibility to Protect
- Nuclear Weapons 2.0: US Nuclear Weapon Research after the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
- Permissive Effects of International Norms: Napalm and the Long Non-Emergence of the Norm Against Cluster Munitions (finished)
- Arms Control in the Middle East: Between Self-Help and Cooperation
- The Role of Justice Perceptions in Treaty Interpretation Debates
- “A Matter of Theology, not Evidence”: US Missile Defense and Ideational Change
- Proactivism and State Identity: Irish and Canadian Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Policy (finished)
- Norm linkage as politics of legitimacy: The interaction of protection and prosecution norms in humanitarian intervention debates
- Conditions for Successful Governance in the Conflict Between Humanitarianism and Sovereignty
- Institutionalized Inequality in Global Governance
- EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium
- A Twenty-First Century Concert of Powers
- The Prohibition of Biological Weapons – a Norm of Customary International Law?
- Technology and Politics of Nuclear Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control
- Justice and Compliance: Explaining the Effectiveness of International Regimes
- New Forms of Warfare: The Transformation of War
- Arms Control in the Middle East: Between Self-Help and Cooperation
- To Save Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
- Metanorms, Justice Claims and the Contestation of the Responsibility to Protect
- Norm-Based Security Structure: Conventional Arms Control in Europe
- Nuclear Weapons 2.0: US Nuclear Weapon Research after the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
- Steps Towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons
- The Role of Justice Perceptions in Treaty Interpretation Debates
- “A Matter of Theology, not Evidence”: US Missile Defense and Ideational Change
- Conditions for Successful Governance in the Conflict Between Humanitarianism and Sovereignty
- From Biological Disarmament to Biosecurity: Securitisation or Humanisation 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
- 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
- Functional Change in Conventional Arms Control in Europe
- Wars of Democratic States since 1990
- Missile Defense Research
- Permissive Effects of International Norms: Napalm and the Long Non-Emergence of the Norm Against Cluster Munitions
- Preparation for the NPT Review Conference 2010: Proposals for the Norwegian Presidency of the Seven Nations Initiative
- Transparency as a Prerequisite of Arms Control