The Covid-19 crisis is exploited by Viktor Orbán to consolidate power and undermine democracy. The increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister has used the pandemic to further authoritarian ends. Democratic backsliding in Hungary has for long been a cause of concern for the European Union.
With the world experiencing an unprecedented crisis we thought it would be an opportune moment to reflect on what is actually working in international development.
Activists wearing Yellow Safety Vests started taking the streets in France since October 2018. Many commentators linked their grievances to radical right and “anti-establishment” politics. Why is it not so simple?
How much are we willing to sacrifice to protect ourselves against COVID-19? How to battle the virus while minimizing the consequences?
Ireland’s general election on 8 February saw a proliferation of radical right-wing candidates but did not herald the expected breakthrough of these parties. As Shaun McDaid explains, the little support for the radical right in Ireland is mainly explained by the ability of the political left to more effectively mobilise the electorate on issues other than immigration. While not counting on imminent success, the radical right in Ireland might nevertheless have the stamina to play the long game.
In the past, scholars have often considered apocryphal writings in Coptic as a relatively marginal phenomenon in Egyptian Christianity. However, there is much to suggest that these writings were of great importance to the Christian population of Egypt. A new research project will shed new light on nearly 1,000 years of dramatic changes in Egyptian religion and society.
«The coronavirus is a window, enabling us to see alternative ways of organising society,» says Thomas Hylland Eriksen. The Professor in Social Anthropology has been conducting research on crises in an overheated world.
Multiagency collaboration structures are given a central role in preventing the recruitment of youth to extremism. In this study of Nordic policies developed to counter extremism and prevent crime, we have mapped and compared how multiagency collaboration is to be organized, what practices that are to be utilized and the legal frameworks that guides information sharing practices in collaborative work. The findings entail previously unknown discrepancies, similarities and differences between the Nordic countries that can help to inform a sometimes heated and polarized debate on how extremism is being handled.
Vaccines can be far more targeted and effective than they are today. A new method will allow us to develop new vaccines more cheaply and efficiently and perhaps get one step ahead of bacteria.
Art and literature provide insight into how people relate to the climate crisis. Researchers believe this can help us understand possible paths to climate action.
Norwegian scholar Bjørn Olav Utvik criticises the West for turning a blind eye to the suppression of oppositional voices in the Middle East.
The University will be closed from 12 March 2020 at 6 pm. Students and employees should work from home.
What role does religion play in Western European politics nowadays? Is it true that the radical right rediscovered religion for its political communication? C-REX visiting fellow Jakob Schwörer and Xavier Romero-Vidal address these questions in a recently published article in “Religion State and Society”. The text analysis on 36 European parties suggest that nativist parties are focusing on rejecting a religious outgroup, namely Islam, but hardly refer to religious in-groups such as Christians. Since the radical right rarely refers to other religious dimensions than the exclusion of Muslims, there is limited empirical evidence of the so-called “rise of religion” in party politics.
The University will be closed from 12 March 2020 at 6 pm. Students and employees should work from home. Updated 23 March 2020 at 13.15.
We invite submission of abstracts on transformations in Nordic policies and law, changing imaginaries of the Nordics, and the future of Nordic policies on migration for a workshop in Oslo, May 26-27, 2020.
Grant applications to the Research Council for spring 2020 are due on May 6. All applicants at Helsam must anchor proposals via department leader, and seek quality assurance of budget via economist.
Researchers from the ARENA-coordinated project GLOBUS will present key findings on the EU and global justice at a policy dialogue in the European Parliament on 3 March 2020.
Thanks to all who attended the 5-year anniversary of the Oslo Life Science Conference! Several of the events were filmed, so if you missed any of them, or want to see them again, you may watch them now.
Over this past week, the Indian capital of Delhi has been home to violence between Hindus and Muslims with a rising death toll each day. Eviane Leidig shows not only how this is the most recent manifestation of a legacy of right-wing extremist activity in India, but also that the response of global far right actors suggest a more disturbing connection between the extreme right in India and the West.
As marketing techniques are employed to shape the perceptions of nation states, this conference examines different theoretical perspectives in understanding and studying the use of branding in a contemporary and historical perspective.
Conspiracy theories have been crucial in the radicalization process of the perpetrator of the Hanau-attack in Germany. Terje Emberland suggests that they were not only important on a political level but also, and perhaps most importantly, on a personal level – as they can help explain why individuals decide to engage in political violence.
On February 19th, a 43-year-old German man carried out a far-right terror attack in the city of Hanau, in central Germany. He shot nine people at two locations in the city centre, as well as his own mother before committing suicide. He left a lengthy manifesto outlining his anti-migrant and racist worldview. In a month marked by the breaking of the country's long-enduring political ‘cordon-sanitaire’ , coupled with evidence of extensive far-right terrorist mobilisation and its most deadly terror attack since 1980, it is clear that Germany’s institutions are at a critical juncture in the struggle against right-wing extremism.
We are happy to announce that three master's students have been granted the Arne Naess stipend for 2020.
In the aftermath of the festive month, Dutch PhD candidate Iris Beau Segers looks back on the annually recurring issue of Black Pete in the Netherlands, whose blackfaced appearance has been at the heart of a controversial public debate for almost a decade.
Are you a talented and ambitious postdoc thinking about your next career move? Would you like to spend the next two years developing your research in Oslo, at Norway’s largest university museum?