I am passionate about peaceful change. How can we create international change without violence and war?
In order to grasp what it takes my work engages with both violent and non-violent change. And I seek to understand how we can create a more just world order even if we accept that power politics will always be there and even dominate many decisions and developments.
In The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations, we explore the opportunities and challenges of peaceful change theoretically and empirically. In my chapter on peaceful change in Western Europe, I tell the story of the origins, consequences an future prospects for peaceful change in the region from three different theoretical perspectives: realism, liberalism and constructivism.
T.V. Paul, McGill University, and I have explored the relationship between soft balancing, international order, and peaceful change. In ‘Maximizing Security through International Institutions: Soft-Balancing Strategies Reconsidered’, a chapter in our co-edited volume International Institutions and Power Politics: Bridging the Divide, we explore why, when and how states use international institutions in soft balancing strategies and discusses if this is an effective way to restrain power and aggression.
In a short co-authored article in Ethics & International Affairs, we identify three conditions for when institutional soft balancing strategies are successful in bringing forth peaceful change in international relations: inclusion, commitment, and status recognition. We draw lessons from two historical examples: the Concert of Europe in the early nineteenth century and the League of Nations in the early twentieth century, and discuss how current threats to the liberal international order challenge soft balancing for peaceful change.
In Polarity in International Relations: Past, Present, Future, we explore how the distribution of power in the international system is changing and what this means for the future international order. In the introductory chapter, we provide an overview of the theory and history of polarity in international relations, and in a co-authored chapter with Revecca Pedi on What Future for Small States After Unipolarity? Strategic Opportunities and Challenges in the Post-American World Order, we discuss how different type of polarity affect the foreign policy action space for small states and what this means for small state in the current international order.
Recently published: New article on the European security order after Russia’s war in Ukraine
How does Russia’s war in Ukraine change the European security order? What the consequences for the transatlantic relationship and Europe’s position in US-China great power rivalry?
Read my new article in Danish academic journal Økonomi & Politik.
